To stay alive, these schools are firing personnel, increasing class size, snuffing courses, limiting enrollment and cutting out some majors. But most of all, they’re hiking their tuition and fees. Tom Mortenson, a higher-education policy analyst, calls this “creeping privatization.” If the public can’t or won’t pay enough for state schools (“no new taxes”), then the students must.
For lower-income people, that’s easier said than done. The cost crisis is resegregating higher education, not by color but by class. Students of modest means are finding it harder to afford a bachelor’s degree. Increasingly, they’re shifting out of four-year colleges and universities and into two-year community colleges.
You can see it in the numbers. In 1973, 40.5 percent of the students receiving federal Pell Grants (for the needy) attended four-year public schools. In 2001, that portion was only 31 percent. More of the needy went to community colleges instead.
Fine as our community colleges are, their missions differ from those of four-year schools. They lean toward practical job training (for which Bush just proposed an extra $250 million in funding). For higher-level jobs, however, businesses usually want college graduates, so fewer of the able poor will have the opportunity to rise.
Here’s what’s going on:
The majority of states, strapped for tax money, are slashing spending on public higher ed. Over the past two years, 27 states have cut their appropriations and 17 have raised them (sometimes by small amounts), while six have held essentially even (that’s a cut in real terms). Even when the economy returns to normal, all but a handful of states won’t be able to fund their current level of public services without raising taxes, says Donald Boyd of the Rockefeller Institute of Government. (“No New Taxes!”)
Tuition hikes have reached double digits. Two-year publics raised their charges by an average of 13.8 percent last year (to $1,905), according to the College Board. That brings the increase to 53 percent over the past decade–nearly twice the inflation rate. Four-year tuitions were up 14.1 percent (to $4,694–and $10,636 including room and board). That’s an 85 percent jump over the past 10 years.
For most families, these 10-year increases aren’t as horrible as they seem. The published cost of four-year public colleges and universities has hung at a pretty constant 5 to 6 percent of income for the upper-middle class. For middle-income families, it runs about 17 percent (before tuition discounting), although charges jumped to 19 percent of income in this academic year. The money squeeze mainly affects the poor. Published costs amounted to 64 percent of their income in 1993, but 71 percent today. Yes, they get aid–but compared with their resources, costs are still way up.
Federal aid doesn’t buy nearly as much education as it used to. When the Pell program began, the maximum grant, for the poorest students, covered 84 percent of the cost of a public four-year college. Today, at $4,050, it covers only 39 percent. The maximum federally subsidized student loan hasn’t risen in a decade. The student-aid program is up for congressional reauthorization this year. Becky Timmons, of the American Council on Education, says that Congress used to try to increase grants. But she’s not getting that signal now.
States and colleges are allocating more aid to well-off “merit” students who can afford to pay, and less to the neediest, says the College Board. Many leading state universities are accepting fewer Pell kids and more out-of-state students, who pay higher tuitions.
Who earns a college degree by the age of 24 is largely determined at birth, Mortenson says. Among families with incomes exceeding $85,000 or $90,000, 51.4 of children get their sheepskins young. But with family income in the $35,000-$65,000 range, only about 12.4 percent of children do. Among families with lower incomes, the portion is only 4.5 percent. Even comparing kids with the same academic scores, low-income students enroll in college at sharply lower rates. Costs count. Opportunities aren’t as equal as Americans think.
You’ll hear more about privatizing public education. At the University of Virginia, the business and law schools went private. They now set their own tuition and don’t depend on state aid. In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford asked the legislature to let the state’s public colleges and universities go private if they want–giving up state aid in return for getting the deed to their campuses free of charge. The no-new-taxes crowd thinks it’s great that students are paying more. But that’s the route to less higher education–bad for the country, bad for all.
