College Costs Hamstring Opportunity

A comprehensive report just out on American higher education gives 49 states a failing grade on college affordability. "Measuring Up" is the report of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. You can peruse the entire 36-page report here. The only state not failing-California-earned a "C" by virtue of its relatively affordable community college system.

The implications of the study are ominous for the nation. At a time when a better-educated workforce is needed to compete in the global arena the United States' proportion of highly qualified people is in relative decline versus other nations. As access falls, we waste a greater percentage of our human capital and ensure a lower standard of living for succeeding generations.

Among the findings: While the consumer price index has risen 106% since 1982 in constant dollars and the median family income 147%, college tuition and fees have gone up 439%. That's a classic bubble that cannot be sustained. For the lowest income quintile net college costs for a four-year public university after factoring in financial aid now constitute 55% of yearly family income. That's up from 39% in 2000. For the middle quintile they have risen from 18% to 25%. For the highest income quintile the increase has only gone from 7% to 9% of family income.

"Measuring Up" concludes, "...improvements (in college preparation) are overshadowed by larger gains by other countries, and by the deterioration of college affordability throughout the United States. The relative corrosion of our 'educational capital' has occurred at a time when we need more people to be college trained because of Baby Boomer retirements and rising skill requirements for new and existing jobs."

In the current bad economic atmosphere when states "are grappling with substantial budget shortfalls," the report decries the "usual patterns of the past" that continually address this with "precipitous tuition increases, cuts in student financial aid, and drops in college access." If this model is continued, "then our national and state gaps in college access and completion will worsen, and college affordability will continue to deteriorate."

The upshot of this would be the denial of opportunity to more potential business and societal leaders and the resultant slippage of the American economy further in world rankings. Proposals for cuts to the community college system here in California, for example, are expected, if enacted, to freeze 260,000 students out. Spread that across the nation and you get a picture of the kind of limits to opportunity and the American dream such short-sighted policies would and are engendering. There may be areas where cuts have to be made in tough economic times, but failing to invest in our own national competitiveness and the future earning power of our best and brightest surely must not not be among them.