In the wake of President Obama's State of the Union Address last month, many Americans are talking about college affordability. As they have been. As well they should. Along with health care and unemployment, the cost of college is a defining issue for our country. It is an issue that won't go away.
Despite the outcry from some inside and outside of the "higher education establishment," President Obama framed the issue in an important way. "Higher education can't be a luxury," he said, "[I]t is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford."
The unemployment rate for those with only a high school diploma is almost twice that of college graduates, and high school graduates earn substantially less than college graduates. Yet a far lower percentage of high school graduates from the lowest income groups enroll in college than their peers from the highest income groups. In 2009, there was a 29-point spread between the two groups, with 84 percent of students from high-income families enrolling in college right after high school, compared to only 55 percent of their low-income peers. One reason for this difference is the price of a college education.
The White House proposal, it is important to note, would reward schools that keep down net tuition (actual tuition that families pay, after subtracting financial aid) or restrain tuition growth, provide "good value" to students and their families, and enroll and graduate relatively higher numbers of students eligible for federal Pell Grants (which generally go to students from families earning less than $40,000 a year). The proposal offers incentives to promote affordability and quality, helps students and their families make more informed choices about colleges, keeps student loan interest low, and makes the American Opportunity Tax Credit -- a college tax credit -- permanent.
College affordability is a complex issue, however, and there is no "one-size-fits-all" model that can or should be imposed by the federal government.
A very few institutions, including Cornell, have been able to make substantial investments to enhance access. While Cornell's tuition and recent tuition increases are higher than I wish they were, our decision to increase our need-based financial aid substantially has, since 2008-09, reduced the net cost of attendance for students in all income groups with demonstrated financial need. I recognize that Cornell's policy has meant higher tuition for our wealthiest families, and that it has required cost containment in other areas. But for students from families with incomes up to about $112,000 (representing most American families and the first four quintiles of Cornell's aid-eligible students), it actually cost less to attend Cornell in 2009-2010 than it did in 2001-02.
At Cornell we, too, are struggling to find the resources to sustain our commitment to access. And the vast majority of schools don't have the resources to do what we have done. So, the Obama administration needs to work with institutions of higher education to customize approaches.
In particular, public colleges and universities, which enroll two-thirds of four-year college students, need to be treated differently than institutions in the independent sector. As President Obama said in his State of the Union Address, "States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets." If state support for higher education does not stabilize and, eventually, increase at a reasonable rate, public colleges and universities will have no alternative to raising their tuitions to maintain quality - and our nation will no longer be an equal opportunity society. State support and tuition are major sources of revenue for public colleges. When state support declines -- as it has dramatically nationwide -- then colleges have two alternatives to maintain quality: increase tuition and reduce costs for operation. Our great public colleges and universities deserve robust public investment, in good times and bad. Without it we cannot offer the superlative education for which our country remains the world leader.
Of course, vigorous cost containment must be pursued by all colleges and universities. As a higher education community, we have not made sufficient changes in how we operate our institutions that could reduce the price of college.
We should work more seriously to achieve such operating efficiencies, and learn from other not-for-profit and for-profit organizations.
Going forward, I call on the U.S. Department of Education to work with higher education leaders and business experts to propose solutions that are workable for public and private institutions across the country. President Obama made a good start by inviting a group of college presidents to the White House last year. To add momentum -- and a sense of urgency -- to the critical government-college partnership begun at the White House, I ask Secretary Duncan to consider appointing a small advisory group of college leaders, representing community colleges, public universities, and independent institutions of higher education, and empower this group to work fist-in-glove with higher education professionals in the Department of Education to flesh out the President's initiative and to make it practical, workable, flexible, and "shovel-ready."
What is needed now is a consensus across the political spectrum about the importance of investing in higher education in this challenging and competitive economic environment. And a commitment to reduce the costs of that education, where appropriate, to ensure that equal opportunity is a reality for this generation of Americans -- and the next and the next.
I am a single parent living in NYC making about $65,000 a year.That is low-middle class for NYC.
NOT wealthy,not even upper middle class.Since I am frugal, I have no debt,yet.My ex-spouse has been out of work for two years and has zero assets with debt.
Apparently we are considered one of the "wealthiest families" who get to pay full tuition.What a sick joke!
There is a small amount (about $500 a year ) from NYS TAP that we are eligible for.
Next years tuition will rise by $1860 .The Cornell Chronicle states that half this increase is to increase financial aid for the incoming class!So I get to pay even more so that Cornell will be more attractive and competitive to potential students.How unjust is that? Isn't that what wealthy donors are for?
Is higher education a private good or a public good?
US voters in 2012 believe it is a private good. We do not fund it adequately as a society, so costs go to those want it.
Sure, we have "right" to education, but that "right" is empty without the funds to provide it. So, de facto, it's a private good.
However, if we provide the right and make it a public good, then are we going to provide it for all? Or must we (as other countries do) limit access? We probably cannot provide limitless education for our people.
Something has to give. And the hard choices are much more difficult than "freezing tuition" or "cost cutting."
America doesn't like having discussions about fundamental beliefs, and even Obama doesn't have the guts (though I believe he has the ability) to lead us into a frank discussion of the Federal government's role in providing higher education to the American people.
Opportunity lost.
LESS ACADEMICS, MORE NARCISSISM CityJournal JULY2011
The University of California is cutting back on many things, but not useless diversity programs.
California’s budget crisis has reduced the UniversityofCalifornia to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC OfficeofthePresident already have cut to the bone
Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.
Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing.
The UniversityofCalifornia at SanDiego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.”
This position would augment UC SanDiego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes
the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and SexualOrientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender ResourceCenter, and the Women’s Center.
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THIS ARTICLE IS KILLER IN TERMS OF COSTS & TRADE-OFFS
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0714hm.html
Paying more is not a better education. UC tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increase. Birgeneau has doubled instate tuition/fees. Birgeneau jeopardizes access to Cal by making it the most expensive public university.
UC President Mark Yudof uses tuition increases to pay for faculty & administrator salary increases. Payoffs like these point to higher operating costs and still higher tuition and taxes. Instate tuition consumes 14% of Cal. Median Family Income. President Yudof is hijacking our families’ and kids’ futures: student debt.
I agree that Yudof and Birgeneau should consider the students' welfare & put it high on their values. Deeds unfortunately do not bear out the students' welfare values of Birgeneau, Regent Chairwoman Lansing and President Yudof.
We must act. Birgeneau’s campus police deployed violent baton jabs on students protesting Birgeneau’s tuition increases. The sky will not fall when Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau ($450,000 salary) ‘honorably’ retires.
Opinions to UC Board of Regents, email marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
Then require college students who enter the lucrative professional tracks, like business, finance, pre medicine, to pay much higher tuition rates than those who enter less lucrative fields.
Any respectable research institution draws professors mainly for their expertise in the field. Maintaining their status as leaders in any particular discipline means that professors must run a lab (or two), which entails endless grant writing, conferences, papers, meeting with their graduate students and post-docs, etc.
Add onto that their academic duties--unlike high school, professors in competitive fields with rapid information turnover cannot simply teach the same robotic curriculum that high school teachers are forced to teach: they must explain new techniques, provide updates and revisions to old concepts presented in textbooks (even though textbooks become outdated every 3-4 years). This means several hours of preparation for each class period they teach. Furthermore, they hold office hours and write tests.
Simply put, it is not possible for professors to teach five classes a day. Nor is it desirable: oftentimes classes have an enrollment of 30-40 in upperlevel seminars, meaning that most of the 5 repeated lectures will be empty.
Those "college students" you're talking about in lucrative professional tracks, by the way, are already paying much higher tuition rates. Have you checked the tuition for medical school recently? Business? An undergraduate degree in biology does not land you a high paying job.
I hope this happens because anyone who has been to a campus in the past 10 years knows how much money is being blown on a daily basis.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3572
And of course, he would argue that the free market drives the wages of university presidents. In fact, it does. I do not mean to appear judgemental of Professor Skorton's commitment to education. But I have a problem with speeches by the top 5% in which they express concern for the bottom 95% - especially in matters that concern the welfare of the entire society. As you might have observed political elections are also now run by our free market economy.
Bailouts are not free market.
Subsidies are not free market
Preferred tax incentives and eclusions (for some) is not free market
Government forcing taxpayers to backstop banks, corporations and now student loans is not free market
most advanced nations caught the joke and now offer not just high school, but university level education free for those who qualify. and qualification does not entail a checkbook as it does here.
it seems to me that need a much more radical change in the structure of our educational system than a face-lift on the current model if we are to be competitive in the future.