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Point
Tuition Crisis Calls For Hands-On Government
by Freddi deBoer |
Counterpoint
Get Your Government Hands Off My Education
by Cameron Luther |
President Obama’s recent speech on education and the economy, delivered here at the University of Michigan a week and a half ago, revealed that constructive policy and the bully pulpit can work hand in hand.
President Obama’s speech touched on many issues confronting the American system of higher education. His proposals covered a wide range of problems facing colleges and college students across the country. Obama explained the need for report card for colleges and universities, which would convey important information to students and parents about the quality of university education. He further spoke of the need for greater information and transparency in student loan aid, referring to his proposal jokingly as “Know Before You Owe.” But by far the most significant—and what will likely be the most controversial—proposal announced during this speech was his plan to link tuition cost controls and access to federal aid, a “Race to the Top” for low tuition.
A Race to the Top program would tie tuition rates to the access of federal financial aid to universities, a vital part of the funding and economic apparatus of almost all American universities. The proposal addresses a grave and growing national problem. According to PBS, the average cost of college tuition increased by 400% between 1985 and 2005, and doubled during the past decade. This has led to far greater pressure on individual families and saddled millions of young adults with huge debts. While going to college still remains a good economic bet for most, and represents one of our most practical means for broadly increasing economic opportunity, such an immense rise in cost is simply unsustainable. Those of us working within the university, whether on the academic or administrative side, must be clear and forthright: the spiraling cost of a college education directly undermines the values, ethics, and goals of the research university, and they must be brought under control. If we cannot provide an education without wrecking the financial future of a significant portion of our students, we have no business calling ourselves inheritors of the academic tradition.
The finer-grained details of President Obama’s plan remain to be revealed, and as usual, those details will mean everything for this proposal. The President and his administration would do well to avoid an approach that is too heavy-handed or that takes a one-size-fits-all view of colleges and universities. But let me be clear: real, direct action from the federal government is necessary here, and such action must entail real consequences for universities which don’t take adequate steps to control costs. The majority of University administrators have been slow to act, demonstrating that they will not address this problem without a “big stick” to motivate them; the Obama administration is providing one.
Also vitally important was President Obama’s call for more state funding for public education. As a product of public universities, and a current educator at a public university, I find that those outside of academia routinely overestimate the amount of state funding that colleges receive. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that 43 states have cut funding to public colleges and universities since the beginning of the recession. This is merely an acceleration of a decades-long reduction in state funding of higher education. This dynamic cannot continue if the burden on students is to be eased. The economics are simple: while colleges have a great responsibility to lower costs, crushing student loan debt cannot be solved through colleges cutting costs; public universities also need more revenues. States must increase their funding to state universities, with progressive tax increases if necessary. Research suggests that states will receive substantial returns on investments in higher education.
The modern research university’s reputation has seen better days. It is portrayed in the media and the popular consciousness, as being in permanent crisis. And yet historically, the university is a model of resiliency. John Sexton, the current president of New York University, is fond of pointing out that of 80 human institutions that have survived in their current form for 500 years or more, 65 are universities. While this current tuition crisis is real and serious, it is not an unsolvable problem, if we commit to solving it. As the blogger Noah Millman is fond of saying, things that are unsustainable won’t be sustained. The university and those invested in it can solve this problem and flourish in the future, but only if that future is guaranteed by committed and sympathetic stakeholders who want the best for both universities and students.
It should come as no surprise that President Obama expressed major concerns over the price of higher education during his speech on Friday. After all, everyone knows that the price of a college education has been steadily increasing for some time now. And despite the costs, students are still as willing as ever to fork over ridiculous amounts of money to attend their school of choice. Students know, as Obama reiterated, that college is “the most important investment you can make, even if it means racking up thousands of dollars of loan debt. Of course, the ideal would be to get students a college education without the debt that often comes along with it. Well, the time has come that President Obama thinks he has the solution.
He is calling it the “Race to the Top.” This proposal will involve governmental pressure on universities to bring their tuitions down. In a nutshell, if tuition does not come down, the funding the university receives from taxpayers will come down instead. Conversely, if tuition does come down, the university will receive more funding. President Obama is also callingon the states to pick up the slack and spend more on higher education. This way, the universities and the state government will be “doing their part.” At first glance, “Race to the Top” may seem like a good way to bring college tuition down. However, in reality, there is a much easier way to solve this problem.
The first thing that needs to be asked is “why are tuition prices so high?” Ask anyone who attended college thirty or forty years ago, and they will tell you that things used to be much different. Back then, students could work full time over the summer and make enough money to pay their entire tuition for the school year. Nowadays, that would be nearly impossible. To make matters worse, on top of high tuitions costs, education quality seems to be getting worse as well. Many schools have succumbed to grade inflation in order to make it appear as though students are performing at a higher level than they really are. It is time that we acknowledge who is responsible for the counterintuitive fact that technology is improving, but at the same time, the price of education is increasing while the quality of education is decreasing. The responsible party, I will tell you, is none other than the Department of Education.
Because a quality education plays such a vital role in the success of individuals, people assume the Department of Education to be both positive and necessary. The Department of Education’s key mission is to promote education and make it more affordable. However, because of the subsidized loans that the department will give to just about anyone, tuition prices have skyrocketed. As a result, colleges are becoming very inefficient—making poor investments, putting money into buildings that are not necessary, funding programs that do not work, etc. However, because subsidized student loans are so easy to obtain, students still pay the excessively high tuitions currently charged by colleges without much hesitation. Basically, society has drilled into students’ heads the idea that college is an absolute necessity. For this reason, students refuse to let the cost of tuition stand in their way, even if it means going deep into debt.
If the government did not give these subsidized loans, things would be much different. Instead of being guaranteed a loan for school, prospective students would, instead, have to take out personal loans (which are much more difficult to get), try to earn scholarships, or possibly reconsider attending college at all. This might not seem ideal at first, but consider the following: If students are unable to afford to go to college, or decide it is not worth the investment, fewer students will attend. Without subsidized loans from the government, it will no longer be possible for students to attend colleges charging excessive tuitions. Students will begin to choose schools that are willing to charge reasonable tuitions, as these are the only schools the students will be able to afford. The colleges with excessive tuitions will be forced to compete, thus bringing prices down. By freeing up the market and creating competition among schools, the current problem of excessive prices can be solved. This competition existed among schools in the 1970’s and explains why it was once possible for students to pay their own college tuition while doing nothing more than working a summer job. If President Obama’s real goal is to lower tuition prices, then rather than intervening even more with his “Race to the Top” program, his next logical step should be distancing himself and the government from education altogether.
About the Issue
Point author: Freddi deBoer is a doctoral student in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University. His personal website is http://fredrikdeboer.com/.
Counterpoint author: Cameron Luther is a junior at the University of Michigan, majoring in Economics. He enjoys sports, politics, and reading.
Edited by: Consider Staff
Cover by: Jill Brandwein
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8 Comments
Competition is precisely what has driven costs up!
The government decided to make higher ed affordable for many families by offering generous loan guarentees. Access to easy cash then allowed a lot more people to go to university.
As a result of this huge new market, colleges competed with one another for different segments of potential students by offering large athletic programs, luxury dorms and student centers, and a ton of other unnecessary additions to the university experience.
Now simply dialing back student loans isn’t an option. It would unjustly and unproductively disadvantage the current generation of upcoming university students. So the only option is for the government to step in an reward good competition (i.e. competition that drives costs down/outcomes up) rather than bad competition (i.e. competition that incentivizes universities to market themselves like luxury resorts).
One last note. Grade inflation is a symptom of, not the cause of, poor education outcomes. I’m only 2 years out of the asylum, and I can speak from my generic state university experience that secondary ed had failed to prepare my fellow students for the rigor of higher ed, and that these students had no desires to work at preparing themselves as a result.
Private universites and colleges will continue to exist as an alternative. So cost-controlling the public ones is far from a market take-over by the boys and girls in DC.
Anonyous,
With all due respect, you liberal education is clear in your thinking.
1. Whenever, the government takes-over private enterprise and free market competion, it damages the natural outcomes. Please look at the history of the “boys in D.C.”,or any other place on earth, where centeralized (autocratic) economic control has been implemented. It is normally a disaster.
When our tax monies are infused into the educational process the government then makes demands and imposes rulings that are damaging. Centeralized control nearly always fails.
2. As a professor of 36 years I have watched administrations prostitute their high values for increased funding from any source.
3. Regarding grade inflation, to gain more money from various sources, administrations must not flunk too many students. What passes for a college student with government loans has to be seen to be believed! So “student retention: becomes the montra and professors are forced to wet nurse students who won’t study and won’t come to class (“call them up and give them encouragement”, etc.). Student loans (as now configured) way too often is attracting a class of flim-flamers, liers, cheats who often use our tax money to buy personal luxuries. They try to withdraw, take incompletes, or coerce their professors into giving them passing grades so they will not loose their student loans. Yes, some do well. Too many are destroying our educational systems.
4. We should dial back the student loan system. “Social Justice” concerns are the progressive-socialist’s rational for all things ruinous. It was governmental intervention that caused the housing bubble..it is the government that will not allow the painful natural adjustment needed in our current economy. Debt is mounting as our economy is failing. You wish to suggest that “education is too big to fail’? It is time for an adjustment there, as it is everywhere in our economy. Life is not fair, and when a government trys to make it so, it makes it more unfair. Witness Europe, Watch Greece burn. That is what the “social justice” idology will get us.
5. I agree with your second to last paragraph. Secondary education has not prepared our young people for college. There are things wrong with lower education. There are things wrong with families(or the remenants there of)that do not prepare our youth for life in general.
I am now done with this discussion. I am happy to leave it to the readers to determine the truth of these matters.
The decline of America is a very complex matter. If you are interested in a broad discussion of this sad matter, join me at:
http://www.culturalsurvivalskills.com
V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D.
@Anonymous, I think you are mistaken that you believe we are are in some way granted a right to higher education. I have a BA, and MBA and a MA all of which were paid for by me. I worked and saved to be able to afford each one. We begin to fail as a society when we think others deserve to pay for what we want. AND you speak of the government as if they have a checkbook. They don’t; every cent granted to you by the government comes from 1. US tax payers or 2. foreign debt. Both 1 and 2 are over extended and will soon come back to haunt us.
Cameron Luther wins the debate!
He wins because free market competition wins the contest every time. Our colleges, and right down to our grade schools, should teach this elemental fact to all Americans. The failure to acculturate our children and youth in our historically successful values and practices has led to our present decline in all areas, including education.
Free market competition, with just a few regulations, builds increased performance on the part of the competitors, increases the quality of products, lowers costs, and the rising tide of success floats everone’s boat.
Everyone: Read Adam Smith…Then read Thomas Sowell.
V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Indiana University South Bend
I genuinely wonder how someone prone to totalizing statements like “free market competition wins every time” managed to get a professorship, well, anywhere. But I guess it’s inevitable when a Psych prof pretends to be an Econ prof—he thinks he actually knows something, when anyone who actually knows anything about econ knows that “free market competition” is a classical econ concept, and like most classical concepts (cf. classical physics), it’s more intended as a thought experiment for the real world rather than a guide. You can tell he’s never had to do real econ, because he doesn’t take into account the market value of a college degree (which is much higher than current costs), the market forces driving up prices, the problems of imperfect information, and all the other factors that complicate his simplistic little model.
But perhaps an “emeritus” prof has been away from peer review for too long, and has forgotten how to actually prove things.