On Access and Affordability
Nov. 25, 2009 at 02:49 PM | By Todd Gibby | Comment Count
According to an article in the Washington Post this weekend, the Regents of the University of California decided to increase student fees for residents next year by 32%, which will result in undergraduate students paying $10K annually – “triple what students paid a decade ago.”
At first I couldn’t quite figure out why a story that focused exclusively on an issue among California schools would be included somewhat prominently in a DC-based paper. Upon further reflection, however, two things occurred to me:
- 1) as with most things connected to higher education and accessibility / affordability, the issue is far more complex than it first appears and
- 2) the story relates closely to those that are being told all over the country, including here in the DC metro area.
NOT ENOUGH ACCESS
In the November 14th, 2009 Washington Post, a story (“In-state Students Admission Obstacle: Their Address”) highlighted how economic challenges are driving top state schools to admit more out of state students (who typically pay 3X the tuition of in-state students) in an effort to off-set funding cut-backs from states. The impact on in-state residents, of course, is that it is making it far more challenging for local candidates to gain admission to top state institutions.
In this case, University of Virginia, William & Mary, and University of Maryland were all featured as admitting a higher percentage of out-of-state candidates than historically; although the article points out that University of Washington, Penn State, and University of Iowa (among others) are doing the same. These same issues have been raised by Inside Higher Education, which pointed out in an October 16th, 2009 article (“Out of State Dreams”) that ¾ of the University of Vermont’s of enrollment is from out of state, and the University of Delaware regularly enrolls more students from outside the sate than it does residents.
All of these points raises a number of interesting and complex issues, including: the political ramifications of local students arguably being driven to attend school across state lines, the prospect being raised by some politicians of tougher limits on out-of-state students, the higher rates and higher percentage of tuition paid for by out of state students (2/3 of total tuition at William & Mary, in spite of representing (by mandate) not more than 1/3 of the student population), and the validity of campus executives’ claims that out of state students enrich the cultural diversity of campus life.
TOO MUCH ACCESS?
Meanwhile, this type of local, “back-yard” issue is occurring within the context of broader national debate on the very role, purpose, and value of an undergraduate degree in the first place. In a November 8th, 2009 article from the Chronicle of Higher Education (“Are Too Many Students Going to College?” ), a number of top professors and higher-ed / public policy administrators provide widely varying and often highly provocative views on the value of a B.A. degree. For instance, Bryan Caplan, associate professor of economics at George Mason University explains: “For whom is college attendance socially beneficial?”
My answer: no more than 5 percent of high-school graduates, because college is mostly what economists call a “signaling game.” Most college courses teach few useful job skills; their main function is to signal to employers that students are smart, hard-working, and conformist. The upshot: Going to college is alot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn’t encourage it.” A number of similarly provocative views are expressed in the article. Not surprisingly, these have stirred much debate: at the time of this blog-post, 76 comments had been posted in response to the article.
On September 18th, Inside Higher Education published a similar story (“Should Everyone Go to College?”) in which Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development, and others call into question the widely accepted premise that b roader access to traditional education is necessarily a good thing: “We tend to think of college now as a place – bricks, mortar, lecture rooms, tenured faculty, college presidents,” Kolb said, “and I think that has to change. …Just like we no longer have three network television stations, we have a variety and so we should rethink … the overall investment” the U.S. public and private sectors make in post-secondary education.” This follows yet another Inside Higher Education story from July (“The Case of the Disappearing Liberal Arts college) which ominously points out that of the 212 liberal arts colleges identified in 1990, only 137 remain in that classification.
Clearly this weekend’s Washington Post article identifies merely the tip of a very large, very important, and very fast-moving ice-berg representing the many changes that higher education is currently undergoing in the U.S. Where that ice-berg winds up (and in what configuration) remains to be seen. Undoubtedly, though, forces that will factor heavily in the outcome include:
- The economic climate and associated issues of access and affordability
- The rising heat being applied to traditional institutions by for-profit institutions
- The winds of change in terms of how education is viewed and consumed by an increasingly utilitarian and financially focused population
- The storm of accountability demanded of institutions by taxpayers and citizens throughout the country.