State appropriations for public higher education have just faced another tough year. And yet, public institutions have faced many such years over the past three decades. Despite steadily growing student demand for higher education since the mid-1970s, state fiscal investment in higher education has been in retreat in the states since about 1980.
In fact, it is headed for zero.
Based on the trends since 1980, average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero by 2059, although it could happen much sooner in some states and later in others. Public higher education is gradually being privatized. – American Council on Education, Winter 2012 newsletter.
There have been increasing complaints about college tuition costs. I, myself, have been shocked at the incredible price per year of some colleges. The question keeps being asked as to why the costs are increasing faster than inflation. Well, there is a reason, and it is not what you think.
In this country, the privatization wave has been growing since the 1980’s. That wave has included colleges. Not just the American Council on Education, but other organizations are now beginning to warn on what is the real problem. The real problem is not overpaid university professors. As an aside, I am becoming rather tired of the most common American solution being to lower someone’s wages. The real problem is that the states have slowly been losing their commitment to higher education.
There used to be a time when the states saw the support of higher education as part of opening the doors to the youth of today so that our tomorrow might be better. That is slowly going away under the pressure of pay-your-own-way philosophies. We used to believe that by giving opportunities to youth who might not otherwise be able to attend college, that we could uncover future leaders who might otherwise be underused in an unsuitable job. We used to believe that it was worth investing in our youth in order to ensure their success.
Funding figures show that, whatever we might give lip service to, we have stopped believing that. While many countries, including some of the most successful, subsidize higher education heavily, we are going the other way. While we are seeing more and more foreign higher education graduates come to fill slots in the USA, we fail to see that this is because we are not supporting enough of our own citizens to fill the needed gaps in this country. We blame the teacher, or we blame the professor, or we blame this supposed system. We fail to note that education spending per capita is dropping.
Finally, we leave our youth with an even worse burden with books. The foreign graduate who comes to work here comes to work here with little debt. They are quickly able to set up a successful practice, or a successful office, or a successful professional career at an early age. Meanwhile, our youth are burdened and shackled to servicing a debt that disables them from setting up successful practices or businesses for several years. Consider winning a grant or a scholarship, law school scholarships is a great opportunity to study abroad.
Philosophically, we point to the exceptions (the great entrepreneurs, the great inventors, etc.) and set them up as though they represented what is possible for each and every person. By philosophically making the uncommon person into the common ideal, we make the common person into into an uncommon failure. Not only do we leave our children with massive debt, should they go to college, but then we even look down upon them for failing to be uncommon successes.
I doubt that our spending habits will turn around. The pressure is for us to have more money to spend now, while caring little for the future. The fear that our children have about Social Security is a fear that should be extended to higher education. We are spending our children’s future with Social Security. We are failing to spend for our children’s future with higher education. We are filling the Social Security gap with meaningless political arguments. We are filling the college gap with imported foreign graduates while shackling our children with additional financial burdens.
I hope that someday we will see our way to up our higher education spending before it is too late.
Is another issue though the temptation for colleges to compete on everything except cost? Stuff like new buildings, lavish landscaping, small class sizes, etc. are great, except that they do cost a lot while only marginally improving education.
That is a part of the issue, but proportionally, it’s a very tiny part. Cut everything back to the bare bones everywhere, and you might make up for perhaps one year’s tuition increases. Maybe.
Still, when I had reason to visit a local UC campus a few years ago, I kept comparing the Student Union amenities there to those I remembered from my Cal Poly days in the Seventies.
Today’s Student Union had upscale mall fast-food courts instead of local foodservice and a choice of recreational amenities — full bowling alleys, rock-climbing walls, first-run theaters, resort spa gyms — more associated with a high-end cruise ship than a college student center. Amenities they would never be able to afford after graduation, even without counting student loan repayments. What gives? Other than encouraging perpetual students (once you graduate, not only do you lose all those cruise-ship amenities but you have to start paying off a loan whose payments are probably more than your take home, so why not just stay in college and take out another loan?)
A lot of those things — fast food especially — are self-supporting commercial enterprises. In many cases, rent from those places partially supports the rest of the amenities.
The pressure is for us to have more money to spend now, while caring little for the future. The fear that our children have about Social Security is a fear that should be extended to higher education. We are spending our children’s future with Social Security. We are failing to spend for our children’s future with higher education.
I remember when my parents retired and soured in attitude. Their attitude about “their children’s future” (i.e. my future) narrowed down to “We’ll be gone by then, so That’s YOUR Problem.”
And since I turned 40, I’ve been on the AARP junk mail lists and see the exact same attitude there that I did in my parents after their attitudes hardened in retirement — “DON’T LET THOSE BABY BOOMERS GET THEIR MITTS ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY! I’M ENTITLED! I’M ENTITLED! YOU GOTTA GIMME! YOU GOTTA GIMME!”