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• February 9, 2012 04:22 PM Buy Now, Pay Later

  In other news from California, some college students have proposed a plan to change the way students pay for college, or at least when they pay for college.

  According to a piece by Larry Abramson at NPR:

  Under the Fix UC proposal, the bill would not come due until students graduate and start making money. “Under our proposal, students would pay 5 percent of their income for 20 years” following graduation, [University of California at Riverside junior Chris] LoCascio says.

  Fix UC recently presented the idea to the university regents. The idea is that students would have a dependable bill to pay, rather than wrestling with unpredictable tuition increases and rising debt.

  It’s not the first time someone has proposed an idea like this. Indeed, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom all support higher education sort of like this.

  Instituting such a funding plan would be difficult, however. According to the NPR piece, the proposal, would mean that California’s college funding would operate “essentially like Social Security, in that the earnings of graduates would cover the tuition costs of the next generation.”

  It would, perhaps therefore, have many of the same problems that now impact social security. If there are dramatically more college students in future generations, or if working graduates don’t make much money, the system will suffer funding problems.

  But it’s worth considering. The current system, after all, has its own persistent funding problems.

  “In its current form, it’s frankly unworkable,” explained University of California president Mark Yudof.

  by Daniel Luzer tags California

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• February 9, 2012 03:03 PM Funding California Colleges: Brown Tries Again

  California Governor Jerry Brown’s new plan to try to fund higher education is running into trouble. In an effort to try and stop the financial troubles in the Golden State’s public universities, he promised state revenues would increase, automatically. The proposed generosity is troublesome, however.

  According to an article by Kevin Yamamura in the Sacramento Bee:

  After the state slashed its higher education spending by 21 percent during the recession, the Democratic governor has proposed 4 percent annual increases to the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges for three fiscal years starting in 2013-14 — but only if voters approve his plan to hike taxes on sales and wealthy earners. If voters reject the plan, the systems would lose state funding in 2012-13.

  Brown made the 4 percent promise as a sweetener to his tax proposal, which he’s trying to bill as a plan for funding education and public safety. The [California Legislative Analyst’s] Office recommended that lawmakers reject the 4 percent promise. Pledging to give automatic increases presents problems, the LAO said, because other parts of the budget could suffer, lawmakers would have little discretion if one higher education system needed more money than another, and the pledge ignores enrollment and inflation, among other reasons.

  The problem is that the state can’t promise automatic funding increases if it can’t count on tax revenues to support those increases. And California can’t really do that, at least not anymore. Its economy is far too fragile. And the tax hikes might make that worse.

  That wasn’t the only problem the office identified. According to the report the Legislative Analyst released yesterday, there’s also a problem with Brown’s proposal to increase the GPA needed for students to qualify for state-funded education grants.

  Under Brown’s proposal, low-income students would need to earn a 3.25 GPA in high school in order to qualify for tuition waivers. (They currently need to earn only a 3.0.) As the report pointed out, however, this change would adversely affect 26,000 students. While the GPA requirement was apparently designed to improve completion rates, since better-prepared people are more likely to succeed in college, the reality is that the change “would have disproportionate impact on students with the greatest financial need,” according to the report. Apparently one third of students now covered by the waivers would become ineligible.

  Since 2007, when the recession began in California, the state has hiked tuition at University of California campuses by 79 percent. California State University campuses have increased net tuition by 55 percent.

  by Daniel Luzer tags California

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• February 9, 2012 11:02 AM Stereotypes, Kentucky-Style

  

  In Kentucky, like in many, many other states, the legislature continues to cut the budget for higher education. Students are protesting. These cuts will make students poorer. Poverty and ignorance are stereotypes of Kentuckians. These are the impressions many Kentucky politicians are eager to overcome. Good luck with that.

  Failure to invest in education is how people become poor, students argue. According to a piece at WDRB 41 News:

  [About ] 300 college students bared it all below the ankle on Tuesday to prove a point — cuts to higher education play right into a stereotype.

  The fresh faces of the next generation quickly learned the soles of their feet as they hit the cold concrete and then chilly Capitol marble floors can speak right to the ears of politicians. “If they’re going to keep cutting higher education, we’re going to fulfill our own stereotypes and we’re going to end up being the barefoot state everyone makes fun of,” says University of Louisville student Olivia McMillen.

  Kentucky’s Democratic Governor, Steve Beshear, proposed cutting the budget for higher education by more than $50 million. This is, according to the WDRB story, the 12th year that Kentucky higher education has faced cuts from the state.

  Beshear’s budget also calls for $43 million in tax breaks to support the construction of a creation-themed amusement park in Northern Kentucky.

  Yea, they don’t need no more book learning. [Image via]

  by Daniel Luzer tags Kentucky

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• February 9, 2012 10:00 AM Too Early College?

  For the last 20 years education reformers have been excited about early college, a program that encourages high school students to take classes at local colleges. The idea is to help students save money when they eventually go to college (because they’ve already earned credits) and motivate them by providing them with challenging courses.

  It turns out that doesn’t always work so well. According to an article by Neal Morton in (Texas’s) The Monitor:

  Hoping to close a higher education gap among poor and minority populations, efforts to help high school students earn college credit early have rapidly spread across the Rio Grande Valley.

  But once the students graduate and officially enter college, some professors have found their performances disappointing, prompting the teachers to doubt the wisdom of public school programs that they feel hinder college readiness.

  “They are intentionally setting these kids up for failure,” said Sam Freeman, a University of Texas-Pan American professor and academic advisor. “(Early college) students simply do not perform well.

  Freeman cautions that, at this point, his impressions are mostly anecdotal. Early college high school students just don’t seem to do a good job in college course. Perhaps the college courses they’re taking are watered down and fail to prepare them for real college.

  Or maybe not. It’s actually rather difficult to tell at this point. But with no evidence of success or failure, Freeman wonders why $20 million in state funds is going to create and support early college.

  In fact there is extensive about the success of early college. The trouble is that much of the research has to do only with credits earned and high school graduation rates. But that’s not really the point, is it? No one seems to know what happens to the early college students once they get to actual college. Do the early credits they’re earned make them more likely to graduate than their high peers who take normal high school classes. How to they fare compared to other college students, those who didn’t take part in an early college program.

  Freeman might be wrong about early college. But at this point, despite spending $20 million of Texas taxpayers’ money, it’s a mystery.

  by Daniel Luzer tags high school, Texas

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• February 8, 2012 06:40 PM A Little Lie and a Big Problem

  

  Over the course of six years Claremont McKenna College lied about its incoming students’ SAT scores, inflating them by 10-20 points. When administrators discovered the problem, the ramifications were serious. They may become even more serious. This is despite the fact that the actual deception was pretty meaningless.

  As I wrote earlier in the week “the financial planning magazine Kiplinger’s has dropped Claremont McKenna College from its prominent “Best Values in Liberal Arts Colleges’ list.” U.S. News also plans to recalculate its rakings due to the Claremont deception.

  But, according to Daniel de Vise, it’s not just the rankings the school needs to worry about. As he writes in the Washington Post:

  This apparently went on for several years. And that presumably means inflated SAT data were sent to the Education Department, which publishes consumer-oriented college data on its College Navigator site.

  Bad data must also have been included in Claremont McKenna’s periodic internal review documents, submitted to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges to support its case for academic accreditation. Accreditation is the regulatory lifeblood of a college.

  As he explains:

  Dropping the school from the list is about the worst penalty a ranker can inflict on a college. What about Claremont McKenna’s accreditor? What about the Department of Education? Claremont McKenna must have reported inaccurate SAT numbers to them, too. Either of those agencies could conceivably inflict real penalties— such as suspension of accreditation, or of student aid — on a school that breaks the rules.

  As he points out though, it’s not clear that the SAT lies were symptomatic of any larger structural problem, or even plan of deception at the school. It appears that one admissions officer, Richard Vos, was responsible for the whole thing.

  But then, what’s really so odd about all this is why Vos even bothered. A 10 or 20 point difference is, as de Vise points out “the equivalent or answering one or two more questions correctly on the test.” Why?

  Well it may sound ridiculous from the outside, but a 15 point difference in SAT scores, students moving from the 94th to the 95th percentile, is very much the sort of thing on which an academic admissions officer is evaluated.

  Perhaps that’s the problem. [Image via]

  by Daniel Luzer tags admissions, standardized testing

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• February 8, 2012 05:46 PM College Financing: Reform vs. Reform

  

  Earlier in the week Cornell University’s president, David Skorton, announced a promising plan to save higher education from bankrupting students. Four hours south, however, the governor of Pennsylvania proposed a plan that will almost surely make college more expensive. Which man represents the future?

  “If state support for higher education does not stabilize and, eventually, increase at a reasonable rate, public colleges and universities will have no alternative to raising their tuitions… and our nation will no longer be an equal opportunity society,” Skorton wrote for the Huffington Post. “Our great public colleges and universities deserve robust public investment, in good times and bad. Without it we cannot offer the superlative education for which our country remains the world leader.”

  What Skorton proposes is a potentially promising idea, but it may not be terribly realistic. Welcome to the unequal opportunity society.

  Yesterday, for instance, according to an article by Steve Esack and John Micek in The Morning Call:

  [Pennsylvania] Gov. Tom Corbett [above] wants to fundamentally reshape the way Pennsylvania pays for all levels of public education, a move he says is good for the mind, soul and wallets of taxpayers in an economy that’s left state coffers $710 million short of revenue.

  The biggest change in the $27.14 billion spending plan for 2012-13 would come in higher education, where Corbett proposes a $1.4 billion cut as part of what he calls an attempt to right-size the state’s system.

  “Right-size” means cutting $330 million (a 20 percent reduction) from Pennsylvania’s 14 state colleges, and $147.4 million (that’s 30 percent decrease) from the other state institutions (Penn State, Temple, and the University of Pittsburgh). The state will take $8.8 million away from community colleges.

  This comes in addition to a $362 million cut in state-supported student loans.

  Corbett’s plan is a characteristic example of what many see as the fundamental problem in higher education, and the reason for escalating tuition and student debt: declining state support for public colleges.

  Corbett, a Republican, said the cuts were “necessary.” He’s apparently going to convene a committee to issue suggestions for more changes so that “our universities can best serve the students and citizens of this new century.” [Image via]

  by Daniel Luzer tags reform, state universities

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• February 8, 2012 04:36 PM Endowments Bounce Back

  At long last, American college endowments are finally paying out again. But this isn’t going to help students immediately. After suffering losses, in many cases severe ones, due to the Great Recession, the Wall Street Journal reports that the money is coming in again.
  
  According to an article by Annamaria Andriotis:

  New figures show university endowments averaged total returns of more than 19% for the fiscal year ended last June, the second consecutive year of gains, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund, a nonprofit asset manager.

  Yet schools say they can’t cut tuition until their endowments have had more years of strong growth. The average annual cost of tuition and fees at a four-year private university this year is $28,500—a 15% increase from five years ago, according to the College Board. The cost at a four-year public college for in-state residents has risen 28% to $8,244.

  The reason for this is that endowments are often devoted to very specific things; all university money doesn’t go into some general fund for institutions to delve out as they see fit.

  There’s perhaps something a little disturbing about correcting high tuition last—since colleges trying to build up their wealth after suffering deep financial setbacks are, after all, taking money from families trying to do the same thing—but endowment returns might eventually impact tuition prices.

  According to the article revenue increases from endowment investments could eventually result in decreased cost and increased financial aid. When even targeted endowment money increases that “places less pressure on other college costs,” Andriotis writes.

  The University of Oregon, University of Illinois, and Princeton, for instance, aren’t actually cutting tuition, but all three colleges have also all seen endowment increases this past year. These institutions have announced plans to offer more generous financial aid.

  by Daniel Luzer tags economy, endowments

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• February 8, 2012 10:00 AM The Vending Machine Option

  

  Some of America’s religious conservatives are really very worried about Shippensburg University, a public college in Pennsylvania that’s taken an unusual step to prevent student pregnancy. According to a piece by Joshua Rhett Miller at Fox News:

  The vending machine at Shippensburg University’s Etter Health Center that provides Plan B emergency contraceptive pills for $25 was installed after a survey found that 85 percent of student respondents supported it, according to Peter Gigliotti, the university’s executive director for communications and marketing. The machine also dispenses condoms, [decongestants], and pregnancy tests.

  Does the machine also dispense inexpensive bottles of wine and individually wrapped fake roses? Because that would be an entire bad date experience, all in one convenient appliance. [Image via]

  by Daniel Luzer tags campus

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• February 7, 2012 06:23 PM The Real College Cost Solution

  One of the better takes on President Obama’s college affordability plan comes from Cornell President David Skorton this week. As Skorton writes in the Huffington Post, sure, it’s time to cut college costs, but that’s not really the important fix here. As he writes:

  Public colleges and universities, which enroll two-thirds of four-year college students, need to be treated differently than institutions in the independent sector. As President Obama said in his State of the Union Address, “States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets.” If state support for higher education does not stabilize and, eventually, increase at a reasonable rate, public colleges and universities will have no alternative to raising their tuitions to maintain quality - and our nation will no longer be an equal opportunity society. State support and tuition are major sources of revenue for public colleges. When state support declines — as it has dramatically nationwide — then colleges have two alternatives to maintain quality: increase tuition and reduce costs for operation. Our great public colleges and universities deserve robust public investment, in good times and bad. Without it we cannot offer the superlative education for which our country remains the world leader.

  Colleges certainly spend money. They hire expensive staff they don’t need, build expensive buildings with no educational components, and fund much of this with ever escalating student debt.

  But while spending decisions like these are attention-grabbing, they’re the equivalent of pointing to the National Endowment for the Arts or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to explain the escalating national deficit (in fact, it’s virtually all Medicare costs).

  Sure, the bright new gyms are luxurious and unnecessary. But they’re not really that much money.

  They’re not really the cause of the financial struggles American college students are experiencing. At state schools, which 80 percent of the student population attends, tuition is not rising at twice the rate of inflation because colleges are wasteful; tuition is rising because students are forced to pay for more and more of their college experience themselves. That’s because states aren’t providing enough money to fund their state universities.

  The trouble with Obama’s discussion of college affordability is that many Americans seem to think of this mostly as a project for colleges. How can they cut costs? But it really shouldn’t be a challenge for colleges; it should be a project for America’s state legislatures. They’re the ones responsible for this problem.

  by Daniel Luzer tags college costs, state universities

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• February 7, 2012 11:00 AM Taxing Brown

  Large portions of America’s upper middle class would probably not even know that Providence, Rhode Island existed if it weren’t for Brown University, the hyper-liberal Ivy League college that is the alma mater of so much of the spawn of American celebrities.

  But apparently mere name recognition is not enough to protect the 250-year-old institution from the struggles of municipal financing.

  Providence is going bankrupt. According to an Associated Press article by Erika Niedowski:

  Mayor Angel Taveras painted a bleak picture Thursday of the city’s finances, saying Providence faces “devastation” and could go bankrupt if retiree benefits aren’t cut and tax-exempt institutions like Brown University don’t pay more in lieu of taxes.

  The mayor said he wants the Ivy League university to make an additional $40 million in payments over 10 years. According to the city, Brown owns more than $1 billion in property that would bring an estimated $38 million to Providence if it were taxed as a private entity.

  But, of course, Brown isn’t a company. And so Brown can’t leave the city.

  “Everyone must sacrifice or everyone will suffer the consequences,” the mayor said at a press conference. “We need everyone to be part of the solution.” Taveras was joined by the governor, Lincoln Chaffee, who earned a B.A. in Classics from Brown in 1975 and was a professor at the university between 2007 and 2011.

  It’s unclear if the mayor also plans to extract voluntary payments from other nonprofits in the city like, say, the Diocese of Providence.

  by Daniel Luzer tags Brown University

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