NEW YORK, Dec 4 — 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 Centre for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Overall, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 per cent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 per cent. 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 centre, a non-partisan organisation that promotes access to higher education.
"When we come out of the recession," Callan added, "we're really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we're one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers."
Although college enrolment has continued to rise in recent years, Callan said, it is not clear how long that can continue.
"The middle class has been financing it through debt," he said. "The scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to college will do whatever if takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt."
But low-income students, he said, will be less able to afford college. Already, he said, the strains are clear.
The report, "Measuring Up 2008," is one of the few to compare net college costs — that is, a year's tuition, fees, room and board, minus financial aid — against median family income. Those findings are stark. Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 per cent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 per cent of the median family income.
The share of income required to pay for college, even with financial aid, has been growing especially fast for lower-income families, the report found.
Among the poorest families — those with incomes in the lowest 20 per cent — the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 per cent of median income, up from 39 per cent in 1999-2000. At community colleges, long seen as a safety net, that cost was 49 per cent of the poorest families' median income last year, up from 40 per cent in 1999-2000.
The likelihood of large tuition increases next year is especially worrying, Callan said. "Most governors' budgets don't come out until January, but what we're seeing so far is Florida talking about a 15 per cent increase, Washington State talking about a 20 per cent increase, and California with a mixture of budget cuts and enrollment cuts," he said.
In a separate report released this week by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the public universities acknowledged the looming crisis, but painted a different picture.
That report emphasised that families have many higher-education choices, from community colleges, where tuition and fees averaged about US$3,200 (RM11,500), to private research universities, where they cost more than US$33,000.
"We think public higher education is affordable right now, but we're concerned that it won't be, if the changes we're seeing continue, and family income doesn't go up," said Shulenburger, the group's vice-president for academic affairs and co-author of the report. "The public conversation is very often in terms of a US$35,000 price tag, but what you get at major public research university is, for the most part, still affordable at 6,000 bucks a year."
While tuition has risen at public universities, his report said, that has largely been to make up for declining state appropriations. The report offered its own cost projections, not including room and board.
"Projecting out to 2036, tuition would go from 11 per cent of the family budget to 24 per cent of the family budget, and that's pretty huge," Shulenburger said. "We only looked at tuition and fees because those are the only things we can control."
Looking at total costs, as families must, he said, his group shared Callan's concerns.
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.
"There's an awful lot of experimentation going on right now, and that needs to go on," he said. "If you teach a course by distance with 1,000 students, does that affect learning? Till we know the answer, it's difficult to control costs in ways that don't affect quality."
Callan, for his part, urged a reversal in states' approach to higher-education financing.
"When the economy is good, and state universities are somewhat better funded, we raise tuition as little as possible," he said. "When the economy is bad, we raise tuition and sock it to families, when people can least afford it. That's exactly the opposite of what we need." — NYT
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
Except for certain subjects, teaching can reach students everywhere. What we should have is a global educational institution where everybody can be a student. That should save a loytof teaching resopirces and quality can be stardardised. Afterall, should knowledge be free?
In malaysia, we call upon the govt to start the ball rolling. Promote free education for primary up to university through e-education. All should be allowd to enroll freely in their course of choice.