swimming upstream
May. 19th, 2003 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonark"Now,let's discuss what will probably be your most important decision, the choice of your fish. Oh sure, you can go into the shop and ask for a pair of guppies, and that's all you will get, just two small fish of no distinction at all".--Carroll Friswold
Tonight on NPR, the program "All Things Considered" featured a story on the increased burden which post-secondary education places upon families, teens and young adults. The combination of a rough economy, spiralling educational cost inflation, and massive governmental cut-backs are serving to .
The College Board suggests that the average cost of a year's private tuition, room, board and fees at the average private university is now $ 22,541 per year, which increases at an inflationary rate of 5% per year. The analogous cost for a public university is $ 8470.
Meanwhile, federal and state aid to students seeking an education is in the main being cut back, as government tries to reduce budget deficits and fund tax cuts by siphoning the funds from higher education. Students must incur substantial debt in order to make ends meet. Students acquiring a bachelor's degree from the public University of Texas in 2002 averaged $ 15,800 in debt per student. UT Graduate students averaged $ 31,800, while the average law student incurred $ 47,800 in debt. In addition to conventional student loans, statistics suggest that a substantial percentage of students are picking up credit card debt (at accompanying interest rates) before they leave the should-be-ivy-covered university walls.
Community college enrollments are increasing, as families at the bottom-ish end of the spectrum can no longer afford public universities. Private universities become inaccessible to the middle class.
Let's talk anecdotal here. My own undergraduate institution was the University of Arkansas, to which I matriculated in 1977. The tuition per semester then was $ 230, perhaps $ 500 to $ 600 after adjusting for inflation. Today, the same tuition for an in-state resident is $ 1667, still inexpensive, but almost three times as expensive.
By contrast, a year's tuition at Cornell University is $ 26,000 per year, with some 48% of the undergraduate population receiving little or no financial aid.
The federal Education Department spent something in the range of 50 billion dollars on education in 2002. The Center for the Study of Education Policy found that in the 2001-2002 year, total state spending on post-secondary education, excluding building construction, was 63.6 billion dollars. Thirteen states did not increase their funding enough to keep up with the rate of inflation.
By contrast, the tax cut approved by the US Senate is 350 billion dollars, while the House version is 550 billion dollars. Congress has thus far approved 62 billion dollars as an initial installment of paying for our action in Iraq.
I'm not going to wring my hands too much about the state of education funding in this country today, because hand-wringing seems to me to be ineffective at best. But I am troubled by the way in which education increasingly becomes the province of the rich.
Many fine institutions and grant offerors pitch in to help kids get educations. Princeton University, one of the nation's top schools, boasts that it can provide student aid to every student who needs it. Yet I worry that college education is becoming beyond the means of too many people.
I consider the mass expansion of post-secondary education spurred by the GI bill enacted after World War Two to be a key ingredient in the United States' unprecedented economic booms of the 1950s and 1960s. This program educated people across socio-economic lines, creating a generation of increasingly educated career professionals and middle class consumers, where before the war these same folks had been in many cases lower middle class people trapped by the depression. The 1960s educational funding initiatives helped the US consolidate a post-secondary educational system that could compete in the global marketplace. Although some governmental funding waste did take place, particularly in the area of fly-by-night vocational education, on the whole these programs were resounding successes.
Student loan and grant programs work. They generate highly qualified and skilled American professional folks and labor.
On fiscal issues, I tend to the pragmatic. I prefer government to pay for itself. I like programs like police, libraries, schools, and roads that make basic sense better than I like complicated and controversial things like agricultural subsidies and ill-advised benefits programs. I want taxes and government services to be moderate. I tend not to trust big government, especially when the party to which I do not belong has control of it.
By the same token, though, I do support funding what works. Post-secondary education works as an economic engine to help our national economy grow. Technology innovation fueled our economic boom. Educated consumers contribute more to the economy, and spend more in the economy. In our consumer/service society, education is one governmental investment that pays off.
I want to see more funding for post-secondary education, but I want to see most educational funding handled differently as well. The growth of community colleges marks a milestone in accessibility to
education for less well-off people. I want to see tuition assistance and liberal scholarships/living stipends introduced so that people now denied any post-secondary education can afford to go. It takes more than just tuition help to get someone through college. I want to see the public universities move away from an emphasis on research and academic prestige, and focus instead on providing quality education to students. I am convinced that educational spending outpaces the general rate of inflation because universities focus on "big ticket" prestige items, instead of the "smaller ticket" mundane task of getting as many qualified students educated as pragmatically possible. The recent move toward distance learning has been a welcome thing, but universities should focus on delivery of effective distance learning at a fraction of the current cost of these programs. In this internet-connected age, there's no reason why distance education should cost so much. There's every incentive to adopt a Free University system which permits almost anyone to afford to go to college by modem.
I'm not one of those starry-eyed dreamers who thinks every kid can or should go to an Ivy League school. But I know that education dollars spent on our university system prove a good investment for the American economy. The alternative is just what I fear is happening today--further stress on our national values as the economic gap among classes of people widens. I also perceive that a focus on "prestige" and "exclusivity" on the part of some public universities works a detriment in their achieving their main mission. Our two great Texas public universities make a habit of stiffening admission requirements in a bid to be seen as "top" schools. The average SAT score for U of Texas admittees is now 1262, while Texas A & M rejected a record 6000+ out of its 17,000 applicants this year. This is not the end of the world, of course, as Texas has fine second tier universities and admissions in neighboring states' state universities is relatively easy. But there is an air of "our mission is to be elite" that I find inconsistent with the mission I conceive for public education--to make affordable quality post-secondary education available to all.
I do not limit my wish list to college. I perceive that literally millions of Americans become displaced workers as economic fortunes in particular industries wax and wane. Now that community colleges are proving that they can handle masses of students, I want to see more one and two year programs made accessible and available to help re-tool and re-train people. We live in a funny country, in which we have an all-time shortage of nurses--and yet we do not fund enough nursing schools to meet the needs. We have a desperate need for medical technology people in a half dozen specialties, and yet scholarship monies to train displaced high tech workers for these jobs are lacking.
I'm not really worried about "handing out" money to people necessarily. Student loan programs have a place, as do work/study.
But I am concerned that post-secondary education made this country's economy hum, as one of the three great American societal levellers--affordable and accessible college, fluid and mobile small businesses, and workable financing for home ownership. This great socio-economic weapon against class distinction is now endangered.
I think that a university education should be available to anyone who wants one, with moderate debt and flexible availability. One shouldn't have to be a child of wealth to be a product of our educational system. The current course, cutting taxes while universities must raise tuition, is counter-productive. The net result, sadly, will be more people denied a college degree, and, ultimately, lost opportunities to maximize economic growth.
I perceive an underlying current of elitism behind this trend. The working idea is that getting the ordinary student through the ordinary college is no great priority. But my own view is different. I'm not really worried how many kids get through the B.A. program at Harvard or Amherst. But I care deeply that each student capable of doing the work be able to afford to go to a solid State U. Kids can't help who their parents are. They can only help their own grades and work ethic. Kids who overcome less spectacular hands should not have to be "top of the top" to get an education they can afford.
Tonight on NPR, the program "All Things Considered" featured a story on the increased burden which post-secondary education places upon families, teens and young adults. The combination of a rough economy, spiralling educational cost inflation, and massive governmental cut-backs are serving to .
The College Board suggests that the average cost of a year's private tuition, room, board and fees at the average private university is now $ 22,541 per year, which increases at an inflationary rate of 5% per year. The analogous cost for a public university is $ 8470.
Meanwhile, federal and state aid to students seeking an education is in the main being cut back, as government tries to reduce budget deficits and fund tax cuts by siphoning the funds from higher education. Students must incur substantial debt in order to make ends meet. Students acquiring a bachelor's degree from the public University of Texas in 2002 averaged $ 15,800 in debt per student. UT Graduate students averaged $ 31,800, while the average law student incurred $ 47,800 in debt. In addition to conventional student loans, statistics suggest that a substantial percentage of students are picking up credit card debt (at accompanying interest rates) before they leave the should-be-ivy-covered university walls.
Community college enrollments are increasing, as families at the bottom-ish end of the spectrum can no longer afford public universities. Private universities become inaccessible to the middle class.
Let's talk anecdotal here. My own undergraduate institution was the University of Arkansas, to which I matriculated in 1977. The tuition per semester then was $ 230, perhaps $ 500 to $ 600 after adjusting for inflation. Today, the same tuition for an in-state resident is $ 1667, still inexpensive, but almost three times as expensive.
By contrast, a year's tuition at Cornell University is $ 26,000 per year, with some 48% of the undergraduate population receiving little or no financial aid.
The federal Education Department spent something in the range of 50 billion dollars on education in 2002. The Center for the Study of Education Policy found that in the 2001-2002 year, total state spending on post-secondary education, excluding building construction, was 63.6 billion dollars. Thirteen states did not increase their funding enough to keep up with the rate of inflation.
By contrast, the tax cut approved by the US Senate is 350 billion dollars, while the House version is 550 billion dollars. Congress has thus far approved 62 billion dollars as an initial installment of paying for our action in Iraq.
I'm not going to wring my hands too much about the state of education funding in this country today, because hand-wringing seems to me to be ineffective at best. But I am troubled by the way in which education increasingly becomes the province of the rich.
Many fine institutions and grant offerors pitch in to help kids get educations. Princeton University, one of the nation's top schools, boasts that it can provide student aid to every student who needs it. Yet I worry that college education is becoming beyond the means of too many people.
I consider the mass expansion of post-secondary education spurred by the GI bill enacted after World War Two to be a key ingredient in the United States' unprecedented economic booms of the 1950s and 1960s. This program educated people across socio-economic lines, creating a generation of increasingly educated career professionals and middle class consumers, where before the war these same folks had been in many cases lower middle class people trapped by the depression. The 1960s educational funding initiatives helped the US consolidate a post-secondary educational system that could compete in the global marketplace. Although some governmental funding waste did take place, particularly in the area of fly-by-night vocational education, on the whole these programs were resounding successes.
Student loan and grant programs work. They generate highly qualified and skilled American professional folks and labor.
On fiscal issues, I tend to the pragmatic. I prefer government to pay for itself. I like programs like police, libraries, schools, and roads that make basic sense better than I like complicated and controversial things like agricultural subsidies and ill-advised benefits programs. I want taxes and government services to be moderate. I tend not to trust big government, especially when the party to which I do not belong has control of it.
By the same token, though, I do support funding what works. Post-secondary education works as an economic engine to help our national economy grow. Technology innovation fueled our economic boom. Educated consumers contribute more to the economy, and spend more in the economy. In our consumer/service society, education is one governmental investment that pays off.
I want to see more funding for post-secondary education, but I want to see most educational funding handled differently as well. The growth of community colleges marks a milestone in accessibility to
education for less well-off people. I want to see tuition assistance and liberal scholarships/living stipends introduced so that people now denied any post-secondary education can afford to go. It takes more than just tuition help to get someone through college. I want to see the public universities move away from an emphasis on research and academic prestige, and focus instead on providing quality education to students. I am convinced that educational spending outpaces the general rate of inflation because universities focus on "big ticket" prestige items, instead of the "smaller ticket" mundane task of getting as many qualified students educated as pragmatically possible. The recent move toward distance learning has been a welcome thing, but universities should focus on delivery of effective distance learning at a fraction of the current cost of these programs. In this internet-connected age, there's no reason why distance education should cost so much. There's every incentive to adopt a Free University system which permits almost anyone to afford to go to college by modem.
I'm not one of those starry-eyed dreamers who thinks every kid can or should go to an Ivy League school. But I know that education dollars spent on our university system prove a good investment for the American economy. The alternative is just what I fear is happening today--further stress on our national values as the economic gap among classes of people widens. I also perceive that a focus on "prestige" and "exclusivity" on the part of some public universities works a detriment in their achieving their main mission. Our two great Texas public universities make a habit of stiffening admission requirements in a bid to be seen as "top" schools. The average SAT score for U of Texas admittees is now 1262, while Texas A & M rejected a record 6000+ out of its 17,000 applicants this year. This is not the end of the world, of course, as Texas has fine second tier universities and admissions in neighboring states' state universities is relatively easy. But there is an air of "our mission is to be elite" that I find inconsistent with the mission I conceive for public education--to make affordable quality post-secondary education available to all.
I do not limit my wish list to college. I perceive that literally millions of Americans become displaced workers as economic fortunes in particular industries wax and wane. Now that community colleges are proving that they can handle masses of students, I want to see more one and two year programs made accessible and available to help re-tool and re-train people. We live in a funny country, in which we have an all-time shortage of nurses--and yet we do not fund enough nursing schools to meet the needs. We have a desperate need for medical technology people in a half dozen specialties, and yet scholarship monies to train displaced high tech workers for these jobs are lacking.
I'm not really worried about "handing out" money to people necessarily. Student loan programs have a place, as do work/study.
But I am concerned that post-secondary education made this country's economy hum, as one of the three great American societal levellers--affordable and accessible college, fluid and mobile small businesses, and workable financing for home ownership. This great socio-economic weapon against class distinction is now endangered.
I think that a university education should be available to anyone who wants one, with moderate debt and flexible availability. One shouldn't have to be a child of wealth to be a product of our educational system. The current course, cutting taxes while universities must raise tuition, is counter-productive. The net result, sadly, will be more people denied a college degree, and, ultimately, lost opportunities to maximize economic growth.
I perceive an underlying current of elitism behind this trend. The working idea is that getting the ordinary student through the ordinary college is no great priority. But my own view is different. I'm not really worried how many kids get through the B.A. program at Harvard or Amherst. But I care deeply that each student capable of doing the work be able to afford to go to a solid State U. Kids can't help who their parents are. They can only help their own grades and work ethic. Kids who overcome less spectacular hands should not have to be "top of the top" to get an education they can afford.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-19 11:14 pm (UTC)there is a lot of funding in Maryland for nursing. the big problem is the lack of desire for the job. it's tough, the hours are long and social-life unfriendly, and, despite their marketing spin, they don't get much respect from co-workers above or below their actual standing in te job place.
too often, the community college is viewed as - and used for - thirteenth grade. add that to social promotion (instead of promotion by merit) and the 4 year schools begin to insulate themselves from those that they believe cannot make it.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-20 08:18 am (UTC)I agree that community college has become the 13th grade, although a few community colleges are moving in the "college prep" direction, with some success. I think that in the long run, secondary school improvement, which the government claims to focus upon but does not fully fund, is also a key priority.
Thanks for commenting
no subject
Date: 2003-05-20 05:58 am (UTC)When he came to his own conclusion that University of Maryland had everything he needed (except the small school environment) and decided to go there, our sigh of relief must have been audible on Pluto.
With tuition, room and board we're now looking at $12,000 a year. Which is less than what we've paid for yearly tuition alone at Friends School the past 6 years. We actually will not have to go into debt to put Ben through college.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-20 07:31 am (UTC)...but I'm terribly curious as to why you would spend (a LOT of) extra money to send your child to a private high school, and yet be pleased that he's chosen to attend a state university... along with all the children who went to public high schools for free.
Why do you not feel that what you've paid for his education to this point is somewhat wasted? He may be more educated NOW than his peers, but shouldn't he be capitalizing on that advantage and using it to get a better education from here on out, also, at a private college?
I realize that Maryland has some nationally ranked departments, and maybe that's your answer, maybe it's simply a matter of your son being old enough now to make a choice of his own... but I have to believe that the overall quality of professors, other students, resources and atmosphere are *far* better at Bard or Oberlin. Lack of destructive riots, perhaps, is one standard.
Truly, I am not being judgmental... but I'm just curious: what is different conceptually about paying for a private college than paying for a private high school?
(FWIW, I do think our Bens (I have one also, but mine is twelve) will succeed based on their own initiatives AFTER college, rather than on their degrees: there is not nearly as much weight given any longer to the university attended. Unless it is Ivy League, I think a Bachelors degree is a Bachelors degree so far as employers are concerned... unless it happens to be the same college the CEO attended!)
Re:
Date: 2003-05-20 07:37 am (UTC)You have to understand the situation with the public schools in Baltimore City. Neither my husband or I ever went to private schools, nor did we envision sending our son to private school. From kindergarten to 5th grade we sent him to a good public school nearby that had a very strong volunteer parental component that helped make up for the shortfalls in the public system. It was also wonderfully integrated at about the 50/50 mark.
In middle school everything broke down...people that could afford it fled to private schools. Ben would have been in a 2% minority had he attended public middle school-- in schools that had problems with violence and drugs. We chose, reluctantly to send him to private school but we wish we hadn't had to. The solution we had in elementary school was the best--a public school with strong parent base. It just didn't exist in middle or high school.
Re:
Date: 2003-05-20 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-20 08:23 am (UTC)Of course, lots of kids stop at the bachelor's. But a year or two at an MFA program can be much cheaper than 4 at a BA program at these top dollar schools.
I see Hummmers on our freeway, and I ask "how do you do that?".
I see tuition at Oberlin or Harvey Mudd or Vanderbilt, and I also say "how?". It's so expensive! Here, for music, everyone goes to North Texas, which is not expensive. But Oberlin! Wow! I'd glad Ben is going less expensively. Of course, if he wants to pursue music professionally, my rough understanding is that his chops and the contacts he makes make the biggest difference, anyway.
It's just an Oberlin can be a good contacts type of place.
I've never regretted that I got a public education. But it did make a difference to some degree in my career opportunities. I once wanted to be a law academic, but my lesser JD meant that it was a goal unlikely to be achieved.
Looking at it the other way...
Date: 2003-05-20 06:49 am (UTC)The 'leveling of the playing field' has made an undergrad degree easier to obtain, and therefore -requisite- for anything other than a skill-based job. A graduate degree is now expected of someone who truly wants to prove they can excel, be management material, make a contribution, etc.
We're not -truly- a better educated society simply because we're churning out more degrees.
There is a STRONG trend in public school elementary and secondary education today to make our educational system "better" by -lowering- the bar and making it simpler for students to succeed.
'Main-streaming' is the current trend: all children, regardless of skill level, should be taught in the same classroom on the theory that the faster learners, the ones with more ability, will 'pull up' the lower ones.
Plainly and simply put: that theory isn't valid: It's been proven that children learn best when grouped with peers of their own ability... at ALL ability levels. In a mainstreamed classroom, the teacher ends up forced to address the lowest common denominator... and so the quality of the education offered has suffered.
So we now have a collection of high school seniors who've all been put through the same classes, offered the same (less challenging) work, and many more have succeeded in graduating! We've improved education! Look at how our graduation rates have improved! Look how... many... more... are ... going ... to ... college.
Colleges, faced with this increase in (mediocre) applications, are forced to restrict entry in order to maintain the worth of a degree from their school.
The private universities are fine, because they may set their admissions standards almost anywhere they like. They are in the -business- of being elite *educationally*: Cornell offers a top quality education from top-quality professors and has every right to be selective about their admissions process so that that standard is maintained. That's their business.
The state schools wind up with everyone else.
They cannot simply accept everyone and cull the herd through stringent academic expectations... this only makes it look as though their professors are not adequate instructors.
One easy way to make that piece of paper with that school's name on it still count for something, to have it still impress employers and future truly-capable students, is to increase tuition rates, to weed out those who do not feel it's worth the expense.
Another way is to beef up their research departments so that they are still seen as producing -some- work of high quality, since the quality of their degrees is lessened.
It isn't a matter, I don't think, (but I could be wrong) of state schools wanting to be 'elitist' on a socio-economic basis... it's a matter of wanting to remain able to remain competitive in the quality of education offered.
After all, if just anyone can get that same degree, it's not worth nearly as much.
Many (many many) scholarships are based on merit, government grants are not difficult to obtain if a grade-point-average is maintained, and student loans are readily available to nearly anyone willing to accept the debt. I don't beleive there are many students who are capable and who really and truly want to go to a college (any college) who are being denied for the sole reason that they cannot afford it.
I think there are many parents who cannot get their children into the school they -wanted- them to attend... but that is something else ENTIRELY.
I STRONGLY agree that an education should be available to anyone who wants it... and I'm still a firm supporter of public education... but in order to retain the value of the degree itself, is IS fair to make it attainable only by those to whom the degree is worth the price, in time, effort AND money.
Re: Looking at it the other way...
Date: 2003-05-20 07:55 am (UTC)As a faculty member for 9 years at a small Catholic women's college, I would emphasize *effort* over everything else. I saw students come and go who were so uninterested in being there it wasn't even funny. I failed several students (and always got complaints) because they didn't do the work. I promoted students who demonstrated their enthusiasm by completing extra work, or going the extra mile in their presentations, but they were the exception. (Oddly, or maybe not, most of those excellers were Asian transfer students whose work ethic was so different from the rest of the slacker Americans that they just blew everyone out of the water.)
ways and means
Date: 2003-05-20 08:14 am (UTC)We agree that grade inflation has had a negative impact on education, and that some efforts to remove nuance from the educational program exist nowadays. We perhaps disagree on the extent to which this is the case. Since 1972, SAT scores (a crude indicator, but not a useless one) are down, but only slightly.
At the same time, the demographic of the people who take the SAT is much more broad. The inference I draw is that although educational standards have slipped (albeit SAT is a slender reed for comparison), it's not that drastic, and some other factors explain a portion of the change.
I agree that some private schools are among the best in the country. I believe that the conventional rankings put something like 15 of the top 25 or so as private schools. But I don't see a broad public/private dichotomy in the way implied by your post.
Private SATs run a bit higher, but so do private socioeconomic demographics run a bit richer. Richer kids make higher test scores, taken en masse.
We agree that a college degree must mean something, and I would add a statement with which I believe you would agree, which is that grades should be indicative of something. In recent years, even Harvard has begun to award most kids the "A",and I think that's wrong.
But your post suggests that public education is inherently so flawed that it is merely lowest common denominator, and I do not go at all in that direction. Instead, I think that a disdain for public institutions, with their populist orientation, has been a real setback for the way we treat post-secondary education funding. We have had a competitive university system precisely because state schools have been able to impart quality educations to the masses. This separates us from some of the excellent but less universal systems in other countries, without causing us to descend to the universal but low quality systems of a few countries.
The trend at the major public universities is to "cull the herd", and I do not have that much problem with a stratified system such as TX or CA have; i.e., the top schools take only top kids, but lesser schools take less talented kids. But I am less concerned with "culling herds" than with educating as many kids as are appropriately educated in the system. I agree that college is not for everybody. I want non-college options for these kids, and some kids end formal education appropriately at high school.
But right now, we make it too hard for ordinary, talented but not amazing middle class kids to get a degree. That's what I would change.
Thanks for sharing your ideas.