Romney's No Oprah

Mitt Romney describes an Oprah‐like moment during his governorship. He would ask students to reach under their chairs and remove an envelope that had been taped there:

"...  they would read the part of the letter where they learned they'd earned an Adams Scholarship. The smiles turned into cheers and the sound was deafening. I got more hugs on Adams Scholarship day than I did at Christmas. Kids would bring me their cell phones so I could tell their parents the exciting news. And parents more than once told me that they had been worried they would not be able to afford college and that the scholarship would make a difference."

But Romney is no Oprah, and new research shows that his policies did real harm to Massachusetts students.   

What Romney didn't tell the students is that while he had offered to pay for the tires, they still had to pay for the car.  Mandatory fees were nearly three times tuition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the state's flagship campus. Students who thought they were getting college for free discovered that they owed nearly $7,000 a year in fees. Moreover, during Romney's governorship, those annual fees rose by $2,800 ‐‐ more than the value of the tuition waiver.  

And while Oprah gave her cars to poor people, Romney cut scholarships for low‐income students. In his first year in office Romney cut financial aid for the state's college and university students by 10 percent and then proposed level funding in each of his successive budget proposals. His final budget proposal would have left financial aid funding 30 percent below its 2001 level after accounting for inflation. The Adams Scholarship did not make up for these cuts because low-income students were about 30 percent less likely than the state average to earn and use an Adams Scholarship. Consistent with his record as governor, Romney now supports the Republican budget that would cut Pell grants, the most important federal need‐based aid for college students.

Even worse, the scholarship appears to have hurt a significant fraction of its recipients. A careful study by Joshua Goodman and Sarah Cohodes of Harvard University found that most of the recipients were strong students who would have attended college even without the scholarship.  But the scholarship did convince some students who were eligible for the scholarship to attend state colleges and universities instead of private colleges and public colleges in other states.  

Unfortunately, this wasn't a good idea. The cash‐strapped Massachusetts colleges and universities had lower graduation rates than the places the students would have attended without the scholarship. Goodman and Cohodes show that the "lucky" students who just barely did well enough to qualify for an Adam Scholarship were much less likely to graduate on‐time from a four‐year college than those who just missed qualifying ‐‐ Romney's policy reduced their graduation rate by 40 percent.  Oprah gave brand‐new Pontiacs. Romney offered to pay for a small share of the cost of a clunker.   

One goal of the Adams program was to get more strong students to graduate from Massachusetts colleges. Goodman and Cohodes show that Romney's program was a woefully inefficient way to accomplish this -- the state spent $800,000 per additional graduate. Why was it so hard to attract students to Massachusetts state colleges and universities and why was the graduation rate so low? Romney followed his predecessor's policies of starving public higher education.  

When Romney took over, the higher education budget had already been cut by almost 10 percent over the previous two years.  Yet, in his last year as governor, Romney proposed a budget for higher education that was lower than the budget he inherited, even before accounting for inflation. After accounting for inflation, Romney's final proposal for funding the University of Massachusetts was one‐sixth below its 2001 level.

Romney's Board of Higher Education reported that in 2007, it was underfunded by $400 million. In other words, when Romney left office, it would have taken an increase in state funding of over one‐third to appropriately fund public higher education in Massachusetts without a massive increase in fees and tuition. The Board reported that the state colleges and universities relied excessively on part‐time faculty, underfunded capital and were not providing academic, student services and institutional support at the level of their peers.  

Romney's agenda for our country has the same misplaced priorities. While calling for trillions in new tax cuts for wealth taxpayers and a new defense buildup, Romney would cut domestic spending -- including higher education -- by 20 percent. And much deeper cuts would be needed to live up to his budgetary promises.   

Rebuilding our middle class requires the hard work of investing in and nurturing critical infrastructure like our colleges. Telling kids that you will pay their tuition (but not their fees) to an under‐funded institution may get you a lot of hugs and make you feel good about yourself, but it is not the way to ensure a good future for our children.

Kevin Lang, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, was an elected member of the school board in Brookline, Massachusetts, when Romney was governor.

 

Comments

[taina2]

09:52 PM on 10/26/2012

Student loans are now the biggest debt load. It can not be bankrupted. 37% of all college degrees won't pay for themselves. Over 50% of recent graduates are unemployed or have jobs that do not use their degree. Let's throw more money at these bloated schools so they can live high on the taxpayer's dime, then blame the bad GOP.

[not interested27]

04:42 PM on 10/24/2012

So the first point is that the students are too poor to afford the additional fees that the scholarship doesn't cover. Thus Romney is hurting the students. The second point is that the students could have gone to a private school where supposedly they would have been better off, but the scholarship swayed their decision to go to Umass. Once again, Romney is hurting the students.
First of all, if the student didn't do enough research to find out what exactly the scholarship covers and does not cover, then that's their fault not Romney's. Second, if the students were burdened by the $7,000 in unexpected fees per year, then how are they supposed to afford the $50,000 per year at a private school?

[ljh312]

01:07 PM on 10/23/2012

Oh by the way! If Education Reformers, so called Not for Profit Organizations, and those leading our State Education Agencies, Districts, Schools and Institutes of Higher Education would stop blaming "Republicans" or any other easy target and do the hard work that is required to affect change, then maybe no harm would be done. Can you say "Accountability"

[ljh312]

01:03 PM on 10/23/2012

The only individuals that have harmed Massachusetts Education have been those that have failed to implement policies and practices that are focused on improving outcomes for each child. Those that have placed their self-interests before the interests of children and our society. Those that have continued to operate according to the status quo and failed to implement accountability measures designed to identify gaps in practice and implement "evidence" based reforms that produce results. Those that have failed to take responsibility for their own "learning" to understand the complexities involved in improving education and the role they must play to make it happen. Specifically every single individual that has failed to engage in public discourse to understand the issues and hold everyone accountable... Not just children and parents....

[urbanite27]

12:47 PM on 10/23/2012

How about using Romney's actual history as a governor in ads? His claims are so bizarre, so dishonest, that it's really time to use "facts" to demolish his assertions. He may be suffering from memory loss or obsessive lying, for he uses information as though it is chewing gum.

His history reveals a great arrogance and indifference beyond his social circle. He has no understanding, sympathy, or empathy for others.

[eceresa]

04:49 PM on 10/22/2012

Clever hook for an article, but "Romney's No Oprah" is an inherently misleading title for an article about education. Oprah Winfrey has supported charter schools and cynical anti-public-education propaganda like "Waiting for Superman." Contrasting her with Romney's bad education policy, which includes efforts to privatize education, doesn't work for the simple reason that there's no contrast. She supports bad education policy and so does he.

[changing]

06:01 PM on 10/23/2012

Oprah,, Obama, Romney, Christie, Booker are all destroyers of public education. What a silly article.

[taina2]

09:53 PM on 10/26/2012

Someone better stop public education before it destroys our country.