Our nation must address the problem of rising college tuition. In a January speech at the University of Michigan, President Obama cautioned institutions that continuing tuition increases could potentially result in loss of federal funds. He was clearly appealing to college and university students, as well as those recently graduated -- a constituency that he carried easily in the 2008 election. For this generation, student loan debt dwarfs any other debt. The national average student loan debt is above $25,000 -- 47 percent higher than a decade ago -- with many students at elite institutions graduating with debt in six figures.
In his January State of the Union Address, President Obama implied that he favored some sort of maintenance of effort by the states as a condition of federal support for public institutions. Indeed, the rapid increases in tuition at public institution are a direct result of state funding cuts.
Over the last four years, Adams State's tuition has increased by 42 percent. While this sounds drastic, we remain one of Colorado's most affordable institutions. Only two four-year colleges in Colorado charge less. What's more, ASC has significantly increased institutional support for grants and scholarships. We provide more institutional aid than any of our direct competitors.
As recently as eight years ago, Colorado funded roughly two-thirds of tuition costs; students paid the remaining one-third, either directly, or through grants, loans, or scholarships. Now this formula is reversed. Students increasingly rely on loans to bridge the gap between what they can afford and what scholarships and grants cover. All public Colorado institutions have been forced to dramatically increase tuition, thanks to state funding cuts.
But there is little optimism that Colorado will restore lost state funding for higher education. The populace has firmly said "no" to any tax increases that would prevent future reductions in higher education budgets (as well as K-12). A recent study by the American Council of Education concluded that if current nationwide trends continue as states balance (or try to balance) their budgets, by 2022 Colorado would completely eliminate its funding of higher education, making us the first state to achieve this unenviable distinction.
Another trillion dollar example of a country that continues to transfer income and wealth to the richest 1% while taking more away from the middle class than any country in history.
I readily admit to being a teabagger, so my brain doesn't function too well. But here are some suggestions to lower the cost of higher ed without additional state funding.
1) Have tenured faculty do more teaching and less publishing and research.
2) Get rid of the "diversity" bureaucracy.
3) Pare down the amenities (i.e., sports, food courts, climbing walls, etc.).
4) Create certificate programs for all degree programs. In other words, allow students to take just the 10-12 courses that pertain to their majors rather than the 40 courses needed to get the vaunted BA. Those who choose the the certificate route will be less well-rounded, but their higher ed costs would be reduced by two-thirds.
Again, these suggestions are coming from a teabagger. But they are certainly more doable and creative than the pathetic cries of Dr. Svaldi for more higher ed welfare...er, I mean, subsidies.
Now higher education gets less than 9% while medicaid gets over 22%.
The economic tradeoff is to shift the health care cost burden to individuals and state taxpayers, and away from corporations--partly why they are making so much profit now.
Yet in the long run we continue to have less well educated workers making us even less competitive in a globalized economy. Another example of eating our seed corn and wondering why we continue to lower our economic prosperity--especially among all but the richest 5%.
In 1994, tuition at the University of Minnesota was $3,108 / year for an undergraduate. In 2010 it was $11,094. Inflation-adjusted, tuition should have been $4,512. This gross belly-up-to-the-bar mentality that universities nationwide have indulged in resulted directly from a change in the government formula for lending, removing the maximum caps on borrowing and basing instead the formula on a student's "ability to pay" (guaranteeing loans for everything in excess). It used to be the public universities kept costs down to make college affordable for students, but when they discovered that the government would step in and give loans equal to whatever the private colleges charged for tuition, such old-fashioned sense went completely out the window in the greedy dash for ever-increasing dollars.