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Cost-Conscious Colleges

Letter Submitted to the Washington Post

November 16, 2007

By Donald R. Eastman III
President
Eckerd College - www.eckerd.edu
(For more information, contact Alizza Punzalan-Hall, director of community and media relations, 727-864-7979, punzalat@eckerd.edu.)

To the Editor:Steven Pearlstein seems to believe that the college options available to prospective students are homogenous and based on the large public university model that he extols ("Cost-Conscious Colleges," November  16).  Not mentioned in his column is the incredible diversity that makes up American higher education, particularly in the nonprofit, private sector. Women's and men's colleges, faith- and religious-based institutions, schools based on experiential learning and the great books of the Western canon, and countless other types of institutions collectively enroll millions of students. 

Those learning  environments are not--and will never be--provided by the state-funded higher education system. Students are not only attracted by the array of unique options in private higher education, but by the personal attention they receive  from our professors and administrators. The economies of scale that  manifest themselves at many state institutions in the form of classes that overflow with hundreds of students, faculty who are inaccessible  outside of the classroom, and sprawling administrative bureaucracies that view students as numbers, not individuals, cannot be applied en masse to our schools without destroying the very character that makes them the best choice for one out of every five students in the nation.

As to Pearlstein's claim that "we've known for years that you can get  as good an undergraduate education from a top-notch state university  as you can from the most select private universities, at roughly half  the cost," well, maybe, but only if:

• you can get in (less and less likely for most students)
• the student-faculty ratio is roughly the same (very unlikely; most good private colleges try to keep it around 12 to 1; most state universities are nearly twice that)
• the public university is focused on undergraduate education (almost never the case; most public universities build their strategic plans, PR campaigns and faculty reward structures around research, not undergraduate teaching and  mentoring)

The value of a student's college experience is measured by much more than the simple cost of a credit hour. At private colleges, it  includes such factors as financial aid policies that lower the average out-of-pocket cost of tuition by 40 percent and the unquantifiable benefit of being in a close-knit and nurturing campus environment that  fosters intellectual and personal growth in and outside of the  classroom.

Sincerely,

Dr. Donald R. Eastman III
President
Eckerd College
St. Petersburg, Florida