Examining the "Cost" of Higher Education

Examining the “Cost” of Higher Education
By: Jennifer Derushia

According to the College Board, individuals who possess higher levels of education will, as a result, have higher salaries and will be more employable than others (College Board, 2010). This is a certainly a boon to higher education, particularly in the current economy. In fact, enrollments to colleges and universities have dramatically increased due to the economic downturn. Continuing education appears to be a necessity in a time when budgets are being cut and jobs are tenuous; however, there is a looming question as to the overall access of higher education. A recent article from the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the College Board’s report—entitled Education Pays—and attempts to determine how much a college degree is worth in today’s market. Tuition for colleges and universities has risen steadily, while household incomes have either declined or gone stagnant. Students who borrow money to pay the expenses of higher education are being burdened with huge debts, and many end up not completing their degree. In addition, the job market continues to be extremely competitive and difficult to enter (Supiano, 2010).

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education began publishing a biennial national and state “report card” on higher education beginning in 2000, entitled Measuring Up. These reports focus on many factors and issues of higher education, including affordability. Some leaders in higher education have published commentaries on the trends they observed from the past decade of these reports. James B. Hunt, currently the Chairman of the Board for the National Center, wrote an essay in 2006 based on the data published in Measuring Up 2004. He looked at national statistics on improvement of providing access to higher education—and discovered that no real progress had been made since the early 1990s. One factor was due to state budget cuts; however, even in years without major cuts, tuition for two-year and four-year institutions rose faster than both inflation and family income. Furthermore, financial aid failed to keep up with the increase in need. At the time of Hunt’s essay, it was estimated that the cost of tuition for a four-year public institution would be equal to approximately forty percent of a lower-income family’s take home salary (Hunt, 2006).

Higher education in the United States is, in fact, more expensive than any other nation. If one looks at the cost of tuition, room, board, and books, private institutions are averaging about $45,000 per year, and $15,000-$20,000 for many public universities. With these kinds of price tags, students from middle-class families are being “priced out” of higher education (Freedman, 2006). Socioeconomic diversity is being more highly represented in the “less prestigious” sectors of higher education, which also accounts for the increasing growth of for-profit institutions. For-profit colleges and universities are gaining a greater share of the market not because of price or affordability, but because it is responding directly to student needs in terms of flexibility and convenience (Zemsky, 2006). Seemingly, higher education continues to thrive with increasing enrollments without having to decrease costs or improve quality.

What is the answer, then, on how to achieve a more affordable system of higher education? From the standpoint of the institutions, do they need to make this change? Should they be concerned that the nation’s top institutions are becoming increasingly under-representative of society as a whole? The truth is that in its competitive and merit-based nature, higher education continues to privilege those with economic and social resources. One response could be to redefine merit as “the distance between the academic levels reached by students and…(their) diverse handicaps…” (Clancy & Goastellec, 2007). This type of selection would offer funding to “elite” students from all social and economic backgrounds, and create an admissions process for higher education that offered more access and equity. Perhaps changing the definitions of what higher education considers “need-based” and “merit-based” may continue the democratic opportunities and diversity that are important to the core of this nation—instead of allowing a resource as fundamental as education to become increasingly elitist and exclusionary. As it stands now, the question must be asked: At what cost is higher education worthwhile for the average American?


REFERENCES:

Callan, P.M. (2008). The 2008 National Report Card: Modest Improvements, Persistent Disparities, Eroding Global Competitiveness. Measuring Up 2008. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://measuringup2008.highereducation.org/commentary/callan.php

Clancy, P., & Goastellec, G. (2007). Exploring Access and Equity in Higher Education: Policy and Performance in a Comparative Perspective [Electronic Version]. Higher Education Quarterly, 61(2),136-154.

College Board. (2010). Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. Retrieved from: http://trends.collegeboard.org/files/Education_Pays_2010.pdf

Freedman, J. O. (2006). Prospects for Higher Education. Continuing Higher Education Review. 70, 8-24. Retrieved from: http://www.ucea.edu/pdfs/cher/2006CHER.pdf

Hunt, J.B. (2006). Educational Leadership for the 21st Century. American Higher Education: How Does It Measure Up for the 21st Century? The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://www.highereducation.org/reports/hunt_tierney/hunt.shtml

Supiano, B. (2010). Education Pays, but How Much? The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://chronicle.com/article/Education-Pays-but-How-Much-/124552/

Zemsky, R. (2006). Three Challenges for Higher Education. Continuing Higher Education Review. 70, 37-46. Retrieved from: http://www.ucea.edu/pdfs/cher/2006CHER.pdf