Should the university and its faculty sponsor student lobbying? Hint: NO!

A few years ago, a group organized a pro-life (anti-abortion) event on campus.  They planned to include graphic photographs, including of aborted fetuses.  True to the image of university faculty being uber-Democratic, well, a counter-event was planned as a response.  The university president then emailed the entire campus on the need to provide space for free speech:

In a letter posted on the college's web site a few days before the event, Western President John Minahan notified students that the display would be on campus and that it complied with university and City of Monmouth scheduling requirements.
Minahan wrote that the presence of the project "represents an opportunity to test our commitment to respect the (free speech) rights of others and the challenge to use that respect to temper our individual response to potentially controversial material."

I stayed away from the protest, consistent with my own way of being a politically active faculty who doesn't abuse the privilege that I have been given, but did observe it--I am a curious person, and an engaged citizen!  (For the record, I believe abortion is murder, until and unless we figure out how to create life outside the womb. But, that does not make abortion illegal--I believe it is a pregnant mother's right to terminate the pregnancy.  Yep, the sperm donor has no say in it.)

Students need to think, organize, articulate, and act on their beliefs and understanding of the world, and our job is to help them understand only within the context of the classes we teach.  If they invite us to an extracurricular thinking, and if we want to help out, fine.  But, we have no business otherwise.  Leaving students alone is the best approach also because then we do not have to figure out where and how we can or should support any of their causes.

But, of course, the university and its faculty don't think that will serve the university and its faculty well.

The latest in this: first an email from the president (this is not the same as the one from the abortion story):

All WOU students, faculty and staff: On Thursday, April 25, the Oregon Student Association and the Oregon Community College Association will be holding a day at the Capitol to support higher education and help educate legislators on relevant issues.  The purpose includes statewide advocacy for higher education funding and need based student aid. A delegation of students from Western is being sponsored by the Associated Students of Western Oregon University (ASWOU). ASWOU has asked me to endorse student participation at this event and I do, wholeheartedly.  I encourage students to attend as much of the day that they can and let their voices be heard. All student attendees must make appropriate prior arrangements directly with their professors and instructors for making up assignments and other course related requirements. Faculty are encouraged to accommodate the reasonable requests of students that desire to participate in this worthwhile activity. Sincerely,Mark Weiss, WOU President

But, April 25th is not a weekend--we have classes that Thursday, including mine.  Students and taxpayers together pay significant amounts to make those classes possible.  Yet, we would want students to ditch classes, wasting the money invested, and spend time chanting slogans at the steps of the capitol?

And then came another email--from the president of the faculty union (full disclosure: I am not a member of the union):

Dear Colleagues,
As some of you know, I have enjoyed the privilege of serving on the State Board of Higher Education for the past year and a half. At each board meeting, the president of the Oregon Student Association delivers a presentation about OSA's impressive work on behalf of students in our state. This year, OSA has organized a statewide lobby day and informational rally at the Capitol for college students on Thursday, April 25. You recently saw a message from President Weiss encouraging your support of student involvement in the Lobby Day. I would like to take his message one step further by urging you to make accommodations for students missing class in order to participate in this civic engagement opportunity. Student voices make a significant impact on our legislators and their decisions and, as we all know, higher education needs all the help it can get from the Capitol.
Thank you for considering this request from a colleague and for helping students learn the value of civic engagement and advocacy for the issues that matter most to them.
In solidarity,
Emily
Emily Plec
Professor

So, the president says that it is ok if students want to ditch classes and head to Salem.  The faculty leader takes it "one step further" and urges us to accommodate this.  (BTW, notice the signing off: "In solidarity" ... yes, comrades!)

The faculty leader says there that it is to help "students learn the value of civic engagement and advocacy for the issues that matter most to them."  Hmmm .... so, why then did they feel the need to counter the pro-life rally?  Shouldn't they have equally urged us to help students with advocating for issues that matter most to them?  Or should we help students advocate only for issues that matter most to us and not to them?

Of course, this time students engaging in the political process is in the interest of the faculty and the university--students are being used to press the legislature for more funding, so that we can continue to do higher education the way we do, even though it is screwing up students' lives.  After all, "institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are a solution."

If only students would critically think about all these issues, they will soon figure out there is something rotten for them when the institution and faculty are urging them to lobby for a "greater cause."  In fact, maybe students ought to be like the typical fourteen-year old who does exactly the opposite of what the parents would want the teenager to do.  Here, if the university and faculty want students to go to to Salem and lobby for more funding, then that is the last thing they should think of doing ;)

When colleges boast of enrollment growth, be scared. Be really, really, scared!

Suppose hospitals boasted about the massive increases in the number of patients who had to be taken care over weeks within their facilities.  The public and the government would be alarmed that either there is something seriously wrong with the hospitals.  More so when heath care costs are soaring.

The increases in in-patient numbers would also make us worry about possible public health epidemics--the possibility that there was something significant that was making people really, really sick.

Fortunately, hospitals don't work that way.  Their goal is not to go into an overdrive and increase the hospitalization rates.  If at all, the complaint often is that hospitals are always too keen on sending patients packing quite early in the rehab stage.

Now, compare that behavior with the trend in another service industry where too costs have risen dramatically: higher education.

As the following chart from Carpe Diem shows, costs of college have outpaced even the much talked about health care costs.

Is all that college tuition worth the investments though?  Not at all. I have blogged enough about this (including this op-ed in the Oregonian.)

Isn't it an unfortunate irony then that the only goal of public colleges and universities seems to be to maximize enrollment!  To use that hospital analogy, more patients, with patients taking longer and longer to get better even while paying high costs, and when they leave the hospital many of them are worse off than when they entered it :(

Yet, again, I find that public universities, like here in Oregon, are only too thrilled about the unheard of and historic growth in the numbers of students.  Only one university seems less concerned about enrollment itself:

It also might be tougher to get in to Portland State University in the future but for different reasons. School officials there have shifted the emphasis from enrollment to retention and graduation, said PSU spokesman David Santen.

Which is how it ought to be--focus on quality patient care, so to say.

Back in 2009, David Leonhardt, who later won a Pulitzer for his succinct analytical writings in the NY Times, observed that a big problem with higher education was:

the focus on enrollment rather than completion, the fact that colleges are not held to account for their failures.

As far as colleges are concerned, it seems to be a variation of the old sarcastic comment, "the operation was successful, but the patient died."

The leaders of educational institutions don't seem to care; in fact, their worry is that there is not enough money coming from the federal government in order to subsidize students:

Current proposals in Congress to cut funding for Pell grants — the federal government’s primary program to help economically disadvantaged students go to college — are shortsighted and could have a devastating effect on students’ access to higher education and work force training, especially in today’s weak economy.

As noble as it might sound, cheap money handed out by the feds ends up benefiting the colleges and not the intended beneficiares--students.  Here is an explanation of how that happens:

[The] U.S. federal government is directly behind the bubble we observe to exist in the cost of U.S. higher education, with federal spending during years of recession effectively insulating U.S. colleges and universities from the nation's economic circumstances by subsidizing their operations.
These subsidies, delivered at times of recession, free U.S. higher education institutions to set the price of their tuition independently of their students' ability to pay based upon their or their family's current household income.
The only limiting factor for U.S. higher education institutions then would be the actual growth of U.S. federal spending. This would be why the average cost of college tuition in the United States would appear to have come to track the total level of federal government spending so closely.
As a result, the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed with respect to the typical family's household income. Consequently, when a student attends college today, they must increasingly rely upon subsidies from the federal government that fill the gap between what their institutions charge and what they must pay for out of their own pockets.

So, yes, the college tuition and fees keep increasing, and quite rapidly--an example, also about Oregon, in this news report:

Oregon's seven universities have proposed an average 7.5 percent tuition increase for full-time, resident undergraduate students next year, pushing the average annual cost of tuition and fees to $7,634. ...
The proposed increases, which the State Board of Higher Education is expected to approve Friday, range from 5.1 percent at Western Oregon University to 9 percent at PSU, the University of Oregon and the Oregon Institute of Technology. Proposed increases are 8.1 percent at Oregon State University and 6.8 percent at Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon universities.

Where does all the additional money go?  I suppose we need all that extra money for rock-climbing walls, re-branding, ... who cares if students are screwed in the process, right?

Don't go to college if you don't need to

So, the board of the Oregon University System approved the tuition increase across all the campuses.

The following is a letter in the Oregonian.  The writer, "Wes Shoger lives in Beaverton. He is an unemployed graduate with a bachelor of landscape architecture."

Oregon universities recently proposed an average 7.5 percent increase in tuition for undergraduates, and no community in Oregon is without debate on what to do with their schools and lack of funding. Even with rising costs and school closures, most parents and educators are still touting the value of higher education as the only option to success.

In debating education reform, little has been discussed on the value that vocations play in our schools and economy. Higher education and attaining a degree have been pushed on our youth as an economic panacea, while "lesser" forms of education that highlight practical skills are swept into the corner. Schools have turned into a one-size-fits-all factory with few options for those who cannot afford the outrageous price of college, those struggling with high school, or even individuals who dare question the efficacy of a degree in today's world.

In elementary school, I was told by my teachers that attaining a college degree would allow me to earn a million dollars more than my high school-only counterparts. That sounded like a lot of money back then. In middle school, disdain for practical skills couldn't be more apparent, where the transformation of a wood shop in the sixth grade became a computer lab by eighth grade. In high school, little was discussed about trades for students who don't care about college or simply have a difficult time plugging into school, where learning welding part time might allow that student to flourish.

Like so many graduates, I am closer to 30 than 20, I have a five-year degree from a university, attained in 2009. I have been sparsely employed with no real career to speak of, and I live with my parents. What hurts most is that I have no hands-on skills to fall back on.

Heed my advice: Don't go to college if you don't need to, and learn a trade instead. Don't cast aside education, but make yourself useful in the labor market by learning a skill. As for the educators and politicians who have hindered skilled labor with the idea that higher education is the only answer to prosperity: Please wake up from your delusional thoughts, as recent graduates seeing little in return from their degrees are growing in numbers.

This is not a warning message or a feel-good essay. This is a call to order that we need to fundamentally change the way we think about education and work in America. Oregon should take note and lead the way in pushing for trade schools as a solid option, or we can keep having this perpetual discussion as to why schools are barely graduating half of their students on time, or wonder in amazement that college is not returning what it originally promised.

Graduate School: It is not unemployment if you pay tuition

A student "D" sends me an email with a link to the video embedded here, and adds "I saw this clip about Grad school and thought of you...real short, only a couple minutes, well worth your time"

And I thought no student ever listens to me, or reads what I write :) 

Seriously though, my thanks to "D," who has on more than one occasion engaged me in discussions ...

Tuition increase in Oregon ... and the money kept rolling in ...

With the slowdown in the economy, and the free falling home prices, the talk of a double-dip recession is getting louder and louder.  Against such a background comes this news report:

Oregon's seven universities have proposed an average 7.5 percent tuition increase for full-time, resident undergraduate students next year, pushing the average annual cost of tuition and fees to $7,634. ...
The proposed increases, which the State Board of Higher Education is expected to approve Friday, range from 5.1 percent at Western Oregon University to 9 percent at PSU, the University of Oregon and the Oregon Institute of Technology. Proposed increases are 8.1 percent at Oregon State University and 6.8 percent at Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon universities.

I suppose we need all that extra money for rock-climbing walls, re-branding, ... who cares if the promise of college education as the ticket to economic prosperity is a mere selling strategy, right?

In my op-ed piece, I wrote that:

At the end of the day, the only beneficiaries are colleges and universities that are, naturally, recording enrollment increases -- even in my classes in the summer. This enrollment growth then triggers the need for additional facilities, which necessitates a demand for more money from students and taxpayers.

Such a higher educational system cannot go on forever. As economist Herbert Stein famously remarked, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." I suspect that it will come to a crashing halt when students, and their families and taxpayers, begin to see the numbers flashing by really fast on their meters.

But, if the rates are going up 7.5%, .... oh wait, didn't I voice the same worries quite a few months ago?

The college tuition crisis

If you prefer a video, instead of reading text (no, it is not me in the video!) ... this is why we are now "re-branding" ourselves :(
Listen to them talk using all the words I have used in this blog for years now--words in the context of higher education: ponzi, bubble, taxpayers, athletics, .... I can only hope for the ponzi scheme to crash soon ...

Damn, if only they listened to me! On rising college costs

The cosmos regularly reminds me the same idea that Martin Krieger, one of my grad school professors, told us: it is not what you say, for the most part, but who says it that matters!

So, what is it this time?  More than a fortnight ago, I sent one of the newspapers here an opinion piece where my point was that the cost of attending college is not affordable, even at community colleges and teaching universities like mine.  And, to quite an extent, this is encouraged by government subsidies.
Apparently the editor thought otherwise, and it has not appeared in print.

And then today, I read this in the Chronicle:

College leaders often argue that the way to attract more low-income students to college is to increase the amount of need-based financial aid that states offer to those students.
But doing so may also increase the cost of attending college, according to a study that was presented this month at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. The researchers who conducted the study found that an increase in need-based aid resulted in higher tuition and fees at both public and private institutions in the state.

Hmmm .... so, what was the opinion piece I wrote, you ask?  Here it is:

Higher education, particularly here in Oregon, has been in an economic crisis for years now, and has resulted in it becoming an expensive investment, especially for those from lower-income backgrounds.  To a large extent, it is only the private sector that can help out—by shedding the requirement of college education and degrees for many jobs where such expensive credentialing is not required.

Often, we operate with a misconception that community colleges are significantly less expensive than a teaching university like Western Oregon University (WOU) where I am employed, and that research universities will be the most expensive among public institutions.

It ain’t so!

Consider, for instance, the tuition rates at WOU and its two immediate neighbors, Chemeketa Community College and Oregon State University.  For an Oregonian who is a full-time student taking fifteen credits per term, the annual tuition at Chemeketa will amount to $3,645, while it is $6,135 at WOU and $5,760 at Oregon State. 

Of course, decrease in state support is a big reason for tuition increases in the public system.  Rapid increase in non-academic expenditures is a significant factor as well. 

In addition, over the years, government subsidizing higher education has also contributed to tuition increases.  “Political Calculations” noted that between 1976 and 2008, there is “a really unique correlation between the average annual tuition at a four-year higher education institution in the United States and the total amount of money the U.S. federal government spends every year.” 

Government's role in subsidized loans to students has an effect which is not that different from how low interest rates led to higher home prices during the real estate bubble years. 

When monthly payment amount is a critical variable in the home purchase process, low interest rates make it possible for buyers to go after larger-value homes.  However, soon the homeowners also sense this, and home prices are correspondingly adjusted upwards. 

The later entrants to this crazy market do not realize that such a system will only help those who are already homeowners and, before they know it, those who joined this game towards the end find themselves "underwater."

In higher education, colleges and universities, like homeowners looking to sell in a bubble market, have been similarly adjusting their tuition upwards.  The net result is that increasingly students now are like the late entrants to the real estate bubble, and end up graduating with debts, loans, and underemployment that do not justify the costs.

In such a higher education bubble, we are wasting considerable individual and taxpayer investment through requiring college degrees for many jobs where such qualifications are way more than needed for productive performance. 

One better model could be for employers to appropriately scale down the higher education requirements.  And, by offering to pay for college courses as rewards for productivity on the job, they could actively encourage employees to value education as a life-long learning experience.  After all, there is infinitely more to education than pecuniary calculations, which is why I teach, and that too in Geography!

The High Cost of College

In the quarter system in which our university operates, the academic calendar has just about started ticking.  I wish my students well.  Many of them will be in college because they have often been told that a college degree is the only route for personal economic security, even if this takes them more than the four-years we normally think about (In the Oregon University System, "Just over half (53%) of bachelor’s graduates complete their degree in four years.")

Most students will be in colleges and universities across this country for this simple economic reason, and not with the idea of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I hope to contribute to both these goals, which are often in conflict with each other.  (I might even explore related questions at an academic conference early next year)

But, in any case, all the students will come to know about one thing: the high cost of college. I am not talking about the opportunity costs, but simply the out-of-pocket costs.  At dinner, and later in emails, a friend asked the same question that Megan McArdle takes up in her blog (the title of this post was triggered by McArdle's post of the same title).  First, the question:

costs have gotten out of control. Why have tuition rates gone up so much? How does a six figure student loan burden affect a person's future? How are these costs affecting middle class families? Are middle class kids ending up at the University of Phoenix or the local community college, because they can't afford this nonsense? 

McArdle quotes Glenn Reynolds (better known as the Instapundit):

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we'll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren't causes of middle-class status, they're markers for possessing the kinds of traits -- self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. -- that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn't produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

What does this mean, you ask?  McArdle writes:

In the case of higher education, the form this subsidy took was particularly pernicious:  student loans. 

Ok, so let us see ... government notices that successful middle class existence seems to be neatly correlated with college education. So, why not then facilitate college going in order to help a lot more Americans realize that American Dream?  As with many noble ideas, there are unintended consequences.  Or, as we learnt quite early enough in urban planning, the road to hell is paved with good intentions :(

In the past, college degrees conferred higher incomes on those who earned them.  But almost all of that surplus went to the student rather than the college, because aside from a small number of extremely affluent families, the students were young and did not have that much cash.  If colleges wanted to expand their market, college tuition was constrained to what an average student, or their family, could pay.

Introducing subsidized loans into the picture allowed students to monetize that future income now.  It's hardly surprising that colleges began to claim more and more of the surplus created by their college degree.  Think about it this way:  if colleges create an extra million in lifetime salary, you're theoretically better off if you pay them the discounted present value of $999,999 in order to earn that extra million.

Or, in other words, government subsidies and loans have become a way to transfer monies from taxpayers to colleges--and not to students!  Will this continue for long?  Even in the new world after the Great Recession?

$1 million is close to the lifetime value of a college degree (it's actually about $1.4 million), and colleges are getting better at extracting quite a lot of that value for themselves.  And I expect that trend to continue for a while, until either the political will for the program is overwhelmed by the side effects (the diploma mills add little value, and burden students with high loans), or the middle class simply revolts, and decides the risk and the higher tuition aren't worth the benefit.  The present value of an extra $1.4 million is well over a quarter of a million dollars. 

The ultimate irony is this: most of the employees of colleges and universities--public and private alike--are middle class folks.  So, we are the ones perpetuating this and making lives increasingly difficult even for our own children and grandchildren?  Sounds bizarre, right?

How colleges flush money down the athletic toilet!

Not a topic new to this blog. 

This time, let me quote from this LA Times piece by the hottest contemporary critics of higher education (and apparently not my university's favorites!) Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus:

If you look at how that added revenue is being spent, it's hard to argue that students are getting a lot of extra value for all that extra money. Why? Colleges aren't spending their extra revenues, which we calculate to be about $40 billion a year nationally over 1980 revenues, in ways that most benefit students.

One thing colleges are spending more on is athletic teams, which have become a more pronounced — and costly — presence on campuses everywhere. Even volleyball teams travel extensively these days, with paid coaches and customized uniforms. Currently, 629 schools have football teams — 132 more than in 1980. And all but 14 of them lose money, including some with national names. It's true that alumni donations sometimes increase during winning seasons, but most of those gifts go specifically to athletics or other designated uses, not toward general educational programs.

On a percentage basis, I suspect that athletics at smaller schools require a larger percentage of subsidy from general funds than larger schools do; yes, I am basing this on our own experience.

The average football squad has gone from 82 to 102 players, due to sub-specialties required by esoteric coaching strategies. The number of women's sports teams has also risen sharply. Since 1980, for example, the number of women's soccer programs has soared from 80 to 956. And teams cost money — often lots of it. Varsity golf at Duke, open to both genders, costs an estimated $20,405 per player per year. Because there are no revenues for most sports, the deficits often have to be covered by tuition bills.

When higher education is no longer about the education part, and is so focused on entertainment, is it any wonder then that America seems to be falling behind?  These costly investments are only as good as ... well, like that old Iceland adage of peeing on yourself when out in the cold: feels nice and warm for a second, but in the end you are worse off than before!

So, what is the bottom line according to Hacker and Dreifus?

A whole generation of young Americans is being shortchanged, largely by adults who have carved out good careers in places we call colleges.

Or, as I tell my students sometimes: "you are screwed"

Tuition increases in universities, while worry elsewhere is about deflation?

Hmmm ... something does not make sense ...
The Oregon University System approved the new tuition rate structures for the institutions that it oversees:

Including all credit hours, the campuses’ averages for tuition increases overall are 6.2%, with individual campus overall increases at the following: Eastern Oregon University = 2.6%; Oregon Institute of Technology = 6.2%; Oregon State University = 6.0%; OSU-Cascades Campus (Bend) = 6.2%; Portland State University = 6.0%; Southern Oregon University = 5.2%; University of Oregon = 6.0%; and Western Oregon University = 5.2% for non-Promise program students, and 8.8% for new cohort Promise students (students who have a guaranteed, stable tuition rate for 4 years while at WOU). More detail of nonresident and graduate program tuition and fees and room and board rates are available at: http://www.ous.edu/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc100604-FB.pdf .

And the inflation rate? Nation-wide, according to the May press release from the BLS:

Over the last 12 months, the index increased 2.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.

And, get this, the US and the world is increasingly worried not about price increases, but about deflation.  Because, deflation is not easy to deal with--just ask the Japanese ...

Anyway, even the least increase at EOU is greater than the national inflation rate.  But, EOU is an outlier in the data, which is otherwise in the 5 and 6 percent categories.  Really?  The cost of providing higher education has gone up that much more compared to everything else?
Well, I understand that the increase in tuition is mostly to offset the decrease in state allocation, and not entirely because the total cost of providing the service has gone up.  But,
a. I wish the universities would make clear what that total cost is, and how much is being supported by taxpayers, and
b. More so because that total is not made clear, students and their families will know only how much they have to pay, which then will make it seem like tuition increases far outpace inflation.

(Note: the chart on the left is about overall national data)

More intriguing?  That attending WOU is more expensive than going to OSU or PSU, which are two of the research universities in the system: WOU is far more expensive than the other two teaching universities--EOU and SOU.  Wouldn't the normal taxpayer expectation be that a teaching university would be less expensive than a research university?

Oh boy! More data then to confirm my worries that cost control in higher education is not unlike cost issues in the other often talked about topic--health care.

Saving the public universities

Public universities have been forced to raise tuition largely because state governments, facing huge budget shortfalls, have reduced spending on higher education. But many education experts said colleges must do a better job of cutting costs.
“Colleges need to be looking for ways to permanently restructure, not just cut their budgets,” said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability. “A perfect example is furloughs, in hopes that eventually the work force can come back. But this isn’t a one-time problem, and eventually they’ll have to bite the bullet and reduce their work force.”

Read the entire NY Times story

State budget cuts leave students with higher costs

A new academic year has begun. But we continue with the same old issues of tuition increases and budget cuts at Oregon's universities.

Public university systems — in Oregon and elsewhere — reflect a notion that higher education is a public good and that citizens should not be deprived of an opportunity to gain higher education simply because of lack of money. The kind of money it would take to attend private universities like Harvard.

Harvard, the country's oldest university, charges about $52,000 a year for the annual tuition, fees and dormitory expenses. It might surprise more than a few readers that the university is managed by the Harvard Corporation, which is, according to the university, the "oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere." Yes, Harvard is the oldest multinational corporation!

But our public universities are not corporate entities. However, while it is a wonderful ideal that the sticker price of higher education should not prevent any Oregonian from pursuing knowledge, we ought to recognize that knowledge, like most things in life, has costs associated with it. Unfortunately, we do not have enough loose change in the state's coffers to pay for knowledge.

Thus, it is a no-brainer that when state governments decrease allocations for higher education, universities are then forced to suddenly increase tuition and fees — even if that were not in prior plans and even if it means disastrous public relations.

The lack of state funding has, therefore, resulted in the shifting of the cost burden onto students and families. No wonder that a typical graduate of the Oregon University System carries debts of more than $20,000.

Thus, if dramatic reductions in state funding are now making it more expensive for students to attend public universities, what happens then to the original notion to ensure that Oregonians do not walk away from higher education because of lack of money?

It appears that we are at the metaphorical fork in the road where decisions made could result in lowering the quality, or making higher education inaccessible, or both.

In no way do I mean to suggest that there is an easy way out of the conundrum. But I would prefer public discussions on our commitment to public higher education instead of relegating this to backroom budget negotiations at the Capitol.

In the current chaotic approach, we force universities and students to manage their ways through uncertainty when it comes to their respective budgets. In a recent research paper, Professors William Doyle (Vanderbilt University) and Jennifer Delaney (University of Wisconsin, Madison) conclude that "the costs of an increasingly volatile system, with unpredictable finances for institutions and unexpected tuition increases for students and families, are too great to continue to ignore."

Indeed! I suppose we can only take comfort in the news that Harvard, too, is having a tough time with the economic downturn. Its endowment has taken a huge hit and has lost $11 billion over the past year. The Harvard Corporation now manages an endowment of only $26 billion.

Wait a second, $26 billion?

For the Statesman Journal, October 4 2009

Oregon is no Harvard

“We are no Harvard.”

Harvard, the country’s oldest university, is managed by the Harvard Corporation. This executive body is formally known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College and is, according to the university, the “oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere.” Yes, this educational corporation is older than any of the American multinational business corporations that we are familiar with. To phrase it in another way, Harvard is the oldest multinational corporation!

On the other hand, the public university system in Oregon, and in other states as well, reflects a different notion that higher education is a public good. And the idea that citizens should not be deprived of an opportunity to gain higher education simply out of lack of money—the kind of money it would take to attend a private university like Harvard.

In case you are wondering, the tuition, fees, and dormitory expenses for four years at Harvard works out to about $52,000 for 2009-2010. For all practical purposes then, expenses for a year at Harvard can pay for all four years at any campus of the Oregon University System!

But, the commitment to a notion of affordable and accessible higher education has to be followed up with extensive public subsidies because knowledge, like most things in life, has costs associated with it. Unfortunately, we do not have enough loose change in the state’s coffers--yet another consequence of Measure 5, and the decisions of citizens to vote down funding proposals since then.

Thus, it is a no-brainer that when state governments decrease allocation for higher education, universities are then forced to suddenly increase tuition and fees—even if that were not in prior plans, and even if it means disastrous public relations.

The lack of state funding has, therefore, resulted in the shifting of the cost burden on to students and families. This increase over the last thirty years in Oregon is more than three times the increase in inflation over the same time period, mostly because of the decrease in state-support, which has worsened particularly over the last twenty years.

If because of dramatic reductions in state funding we are now making it more expensive for students to attend public universities, what happens then to the original political notion to ensure that Oregonians should not walk away from higher education for lack of money? Or, perhaps worse, what if students are graduating with debts, which is the reality now? The average debt that a graduate of the Oregon University System carries is now more than $20,000!

The current chaotic approach then forces universities to manage their way through uncertainty, when it comes to planning for beyond the biennial budget horizon. In a recent research paper, Professors William Doyle (Vanderbilt University) and Jennifer Delaney (University of Wisconsin, Madison) conclude that "the costs of an increasingly volatile system, with unpredictable finances for institutions and unexpected tuition increases for students and families, are too great to continue to ignore."

It appears that we are at the metaphorical fork in the road where decisions made could result in lowering the quality of our universities, or making higher education inaccessible, or both. It is quite possible, therefore, that it is only a matter of time before Oregon and, perhaps, the rest of country decide to consciously walk away from the goal of providing quality higher education that is accessible to everyone.

In no way do I mean to suggest that there is an easy way out of the conundrum. But, I would prefer public discussions on our commitment to public higher education, instead of relegating this to backroom budget negotiations at the Capitol.

I suppose we can take comfort in the news that Harvard, too, is having a tough time with the economic downturn. Its endowment has taken a huge hit and has lost $11 billion over the past year. The Harvard Corporation now has an endowment of only $26 billion to manage. Wait a second, $26 billion?