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College Affordability & Cost
There is a wide range of support at every level for cutting the cost of college. On Tuesday, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents more than 1,000 nonprofit, independent colleges, gathered to discuss strategies and concerns about the president's plans.
President Obama's proposed reform plan would require colleges that receive federal aid to create "a scoreboard" that gives actual costs, graduation rates and potential earnings for graduates. His idea for establishing a $1 billion fund to provide grants to states that improve graduation rates and reduce costs is a good one. Determining what amounts to good value will be difficult, and persuading Congress to move forward on any of these ideas will be hard. But Mr. Obama is right that the federal government should begin leveraging its sizable investment in higher education for reform.
During a panel discussion at the meeting of Christian colleges, a president challenged me on the need for additional government oversight. Let the "free market" correct rising college prices on its own, he said. The problem is, the current financing mechanism for college is far from a free market. Government subsidies account for close to 90 percent of revenues at some colleges when you add up grants, loans, and research funds.
Senate Republicans pushed back against President Obama's college-affordability agenda at an education-committee hearing Thursday, expressing doubts about the administration's plans to reward colleges and states that hold down tuition and maintain their higher-education budgets. "I don't believe the government's role is to pick winners and losers," said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, explaining that he was uncomfortable "shifting the determination of affordability to Washington."
Davidson College President Carol Quillen testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as part of a hearing on "Innovations in College Affordability." Here are excerpts from her remarks.
Even before President Obama announced plans last month to push colleges to improve affordability, a number of schools beat him to the punch by lowering tuition and helping students graduate in fewer semesters. These schools - typically small private colleges that lack the cachet of top-tier colleges and compete with less expensive state schools - are bucking the widespread trend of increasing costs. In the last year, a few have cut tuition by as much as 20 percent. Others promise that students will earn their degree in four years or the college will pick up the cost of additional coursework.
The Ashland University Board of Trustees recently approved the lowest increase in tuition, and room and board costs on record at A.U. The board approved a 1.1 percent increase for the coming 2012-2013 academic year. It represents a $428 increase in costs and the lowest increase since records were first kept at A.U. A.U. President Dr. Fred Finks says the university's administration and board of trustees are serious about helping to make a private education more affordable for students and their families.
Urbana University will not increase costs next school year in an effort to keep current students and attract new ones, University President Stephen Jones said. "What brought this about is this continuing economic situation that this region, really this nation, (is) in, but particularly this region," Jones said. Tuition increased at private, nonprofit colleges by an average of 4.6 percent nationwide in 2011-12, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
The stars are aligned for this new disruption to emerge - whether you call it "the unbundling of the university," the "modularization of education" or "eliminating the middleman" (the College). Steve Jobs said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." However, when some of the bread crumbs start to line up, it is an indication that a change is coming.
The president has criticized rising tuition costs and mounting student loan debts as obstacles to the middle class and long-term economic improvement. Last week's national unemployment report underscores the president's concerns about higher education costs. Employers added 243,000 jobs, the second straight month of better-than-expected gains, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. But economists worry that there are two job markets - a promising one for college graduates and people with advanced technical training, and a dismal one for those without higher education.
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