The rising cost of college ”” even before the recession ”” threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.
“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.
I’ve got a great idea. First, let’s have state lotteries and use a portion of the proceeds to fund college scholarships. Second, let’s provide a government-guaranteed secondary market for student loans. Third, let’s allow charitable deductions from alumni and other patrons that colleges can use to fund capital improvements.
Put my plan into action, and college will be accessible and affordable to all.
When I started college in 1978, my school’s full annual tuition was $4,350. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to $14,450. Yet this year’s undergraduate tuition stands at $36,200, a consistent 2.5 times the rate of inflation for 30 years. It’s a fine school, and I’m proud to have gotten my degree there, but it was considered expensive in my day…today it is, IMHO, far overpriced.
[i]Mr. Shulenburger’s report suggested that public universities explore a variety of approaches to lower costs — distance learning, better use of senior year in high school, perhaps even shortening college from four years. [/i]
And lose revenue? Why in heaven’s name would they do that?
As usual the NYT avoids the key fact: colleges CHOOSE to raise tuition – because they CAN. And where is the erudite observation that government supports the prices (tuition) via subsidies (student loans/scholarships)?
The real crisis will occur if people decide that they don’t learn much of anything useful in college – they can learn what they need on their own – and decide not to buy the product. Then the poor universities will discover the brutal realities of free markets.
The bad news here is fully justified, but it is not true that the costs will close the doors in this fashion. Those who have the brains and the application can get into any of the reputable colleges and universities because the scholarships are available. We have to remember if we can that there are a lot of people who ought not be headed to college because they have neither the brains nor the industry. Community colleges are a different matter. They are set up to handle those who cannot get scholarship aid because they cannot meet the standards. This is what community colleges are for and this is an exceedingly important function. Moreover, so-called trade schools are also there, and they frequently provide excellent training in a wide variety of skills.
Somehow we have got it into hour heads that colleges and universities are simply extensions of high school – and they’re not. And they shouldn’t be. Larry
I agree that college is essentially worthless (95% at least of what I learned in my four years was in outside reading, classes were just something to burn time that could have been more profitably used otherwise while the prof waxed eloquent about the wonders of communism or else read the slides aloud to kids too lazy to do their reading) but the fact is the ticket punch of a BA or BS is pretty much required now. My degree has zero bearing on what I do, but if I didn’t have one I couldn’t have this job. And the schools know it. I personally saw internal memos at Ga Tech that referred to the undergrads simply as a revenue stream to be processed in order to have the maximum on the books & making payments.
I think the author of this piece has forgotten one of the basic laws of economics — if suppliers charge unreasonable prices then there will be no demand — if there is no demand, the suppliers die.
OPEC has in the past tended to forget the same thing — as do all the “peak oil” enthusiasts.
I am against making it “possible”, as Obama wishes, for all people to get a college education. As some others here have alluded, college is not for everyone. There are already too many individuals in college, and it is wrong for high schools to make college entrance the only thrust of the education that they provide. Many individuals would benefit from not going to college. But, as one commentator notes, a change in hiring attitudes is necessary, if a BA or BS degree in essential for consideration of many jobs where knowledge gained in college is not essential.