College Guide
Blog
In light of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s challenge yesterday to American universities: cut costs, somehow, it’s time to consider options.
Since the challenge is so lofty that literally any idea might be welcome, let’s throw one around, just as a thought experiment.
Last week Bob Samuels wrote in a piece for the Huffington Post that all state universities should be tuition free.
The plan is vague, and not easily implemented, but it would acutally work at keeping costs down. He says:
Not only do we need to push our politicians to support free universal higher education, but we have to show the voting populace that a federal program would help to alleviate the incredible expense that postsecondary education now costs middle-class families.
He also recommends the federal government “set realistic caps on tuition increases.” That might not even be necessary.
If colleges were free for students, then all college costs would have to be met by the federal and state governments. That means that institutions would be beholden to the government whenever they wanted to buy more things. If colleges couldn’t easily raise money through tuition hikes, that would certainly keep them from spending it.
Granted, the consequences of this would be unfortunate for college budgets. Schools without devoted alumni or generous legislatures would defer campus maintenance, cut staff, offer fewer services, and generally become shabbier.
But isn’t that how state institutions generally operate?
As it is colleges can raise tuition if they need to spend more. This doesn’t mean that colleges are wasting money; it just means they’re behaving in an economically rational matter. If they can spend more without adverse consequences, why wouldn’t they do so? But if student tuition were entirely removed from the equation, you can bet that college costs wouldn’t increase nearly as rapidly.
Facebook
Twitter
A. Bear on November 30, 2011 8:30 PM:
Colleges and universities have not changed in decades or perhaps centuries. Yet the model of education that they provide is an expensive anachronism. Costs could easily but cut if more education were moved on-line. A number of universities are doing this, notably Carnegie Mellon and University of Washington. A pioneer in this area is Excelsior, which is a spinoff of the the New York State University.
By moving on-line colleges might start to compete with each other. Especially when it comes to Universities, there is the attitude among the faculty that the students are lucky to attend such an august institution. Universities in many cases feel little obligation to provide quality education. Course are taught by professors with poor english language skills and by TAs with little skill or interest in teaching. State schools, like the University of California, are particularly bad in this area. Despite the fact that the University of California is funded by the state largely for undergraduate education, many professors have no interest in educating undergraduates. Professors who get good teaching reviews are frequently denied tenure and teaching quality is far down the list for tenure an promotion.
In short, the system is broken. There need to be major changes. Education should move more on-line and colleges and universities should be committed to education, not just research.
Snarki, child of Loki on November 30, 2011 9:56 PM:
There are huge misconceptions running though this discussion.
College tuition is not set on a "cost plus" basis; it's a result of sticky prices, rudimentary competition with not-quite-comparable-products, and imperfect flexibility of "supply".
Problem is, there is tremendous demand. Yes, tuition is high, but students still want that degree. As long as that is the case, the tuitions can get jacked up.
But colleges are not like for-profit companies; they don't have shares options or dividends, and they're constrained to spend most of that tuition money on something, so what they do is hire more and more and More and MORE administrators. The waste is appalling, but worse, those administrators have to "do stuff", most of which is harassing students and professors. (and if you look at aggregate faculty cost vs. admin cost for the past 20 years: faculty cost barely keeps up with inflation, admin cost has rocketed...it was ~10% of the total back then, now ~50% and rising)
With the crap economy we're nearing a breaking point, where college is no longer "worth it" and demand drops off. That's one way to rein in tuition increases. Another is to vastly increase the supply, but that's difficult, since it takes time to build reputation, and a significant part of what a student is paying
for is the "reputation" behind that diploma.
I think rather than direct price-fixing (as the article advocates), it makes more sense to adjust the tax rules on education non-profits: keep your admin cost below 25% or lose tax-exempt status, for example.
RMcD on December 01, 2011 11:10 AM:
So many bad ideas here, so little time. First, the reason state schools raise tuition is because states all across the country have been slashing their direct support levels for decades. In my state U., the state's contribution has gone from 2/3 to 1/5 over the course of the last 30 years, and this is not atypical. But demand for state schools--and decent ones, not ragtag operations--keeps growing. So raising tuition is the only option. Call it supply and demand. "Reformers" can stomp their feet all they want and call for "tuition caps" or "free tuition" but it ain't gonna happen. It cuts entirely against the grain of state-level politics over the last generation. Nice dream, but it solves NOTHING.
Second, if I hear one more halfwit fulminating on the glories of "on-line education" I might just have to spring Ted Kaczynski from prison. On-line is a joke, and everyone who actually cares about educating kids knows it. Vastly inferior quality courses sold as a panacea by bean-counters who dream of a world without professors, only "content providers." Get someone to design a course, turn it into a standardized "module" and then mass market it while allowing a room full of undocumented migrant workers to grade multiple choice tests. Of course, the rich kids will still get real education with real classes. We'll just provide on-line for little Johnny Six Pack who won't know any better since he's first generation college. He'll never know he's living in a ghetto until he tries to get a job and it turns out he hasn't actually learned any useful skills.
I love this blog, but I am sometimes shocked at how little understanding it shows about the realities of state universities and their economics.