Posted on 05/08/2015 9:31:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Over the last decade, states have made massive cuts to higher education, with average state support falling from $9,729 per student in 2001 to $6,815 in 2011. While a large share of the blame for these cuts can be pinned on the financial crisis and subsequent recession, some of the decline is due to a deliberate effort to eviscerate public higher education. For instance, Bobby Jindal plans to savage higher education spending in Louisiana to the tune of $141.3 million, or about 12 percent of the state’s higher education budget, to pay for tax cuts. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is cutting $300 million over two years, again to pay for reckless tax cuts. Kansas is an even sadder story. Though the state had a large reserve fund in 2012, Governor Sam Brownback quickly depleted it with a massive tax giveaway to the rich. Now he’s cutting K-12 and university funding to the tune of $44.5 million. There’s a good reason our list of governors seeking deep cuts is shaded a uniform red: Both research and history shows that Republican-controlled states are more likely to cut higher education. One study found that when Republicans take over governors mansions they reduce spending on higher education by $0.23 per $1,000 in personal income (a measure of the state’s total tax base). Each 1 percent increase in the number of Republicans in the legislature leads to a $0.05 decrease. Given that the average spending on higher education across all states in 2014 was $5.47 per $1,000, the effect is large.
Nationwide, the total impact of these cutbacks is breathtaking. Between 2008 and 2013, states cut a total of $16 billion, adjusted for inflation, from their higher education budgets, even as enrollments rose more than 11 percent. Funding per student dropped even more dramatically, falling by more than 27 percent, or about $2,500 per student. These cutbacks, in turn, have translated nearly 1-to-1 into tuition increases, which averaged nearly $3,000 over the past decade. But the question is not simply deficits, but priorities: Just seven months of funding for the F-35 Fighter would be enough to fully restore higher education spending across the nation.
A new Demos study estimates that 78 percent of tuition increases at public universities in the past decade can be explained by decreased state spending on higher education (see chart). Commonly cited factors like “administrative bloat,” are far less important, accounting for only 5 percent of the increase in higher education costs.
These state cuts and resulting skyrocketing tuition prices are incredibly worrying for upward mobility in America, because they’ve forced young people seeking a college education to borrow unprecedented amounts just to earn a degree. Low-income students and students of color leave college with more debt than wealthy white students (see chart), and they bear the brunt of austerity.
Public universities and community colleges are important, because the top tier of private universities are very exclusionary, and few poor and middle class students are admitted. Further state cuts to higher education will create a world where only some, mostly wealthy Americans have a shot to better their life by completing higher education.
It’s not just progressives making this point; recently, Standard & Poor’s argued that inequality was slowing growth by reducing college graduation rates among low-income people, likely in part due to the effects of the debt necessary to finance low-income students’ educations. The analysts suggested that a way to bolster upward mobility and reduce inequality would be increased college attainment. Yet in recent years, many conservatives, who claim to support economic growth and business, have made savage cuts to education.
These cuts are particularly shortsighted because the benefits of higher education, both for individuals and society at large, pay for the cost of investment many times over. The body of research on the impacts of higher education is massive, but their consensus is that increased higher education impacts nearly every corner of society, from increased economic growth to lower crime, better health, greater civic participation, and even childhood development. A few highlights: One study found that 8.7 percent of all economic growth between 1959 and 1998 could be attributed to increased education. Other studies have found that increased higher education leads greater rates of voter participation, to the tune of 22 percent; a 15 percent reduction in crime, and better cognitive development among children of parents with college degrees.
On the flip side, the costs of state disinvestment in higher education are similarly staggering. Further state cuts will lead to even higher levels of student debt, which then leads to lower homeownership rates, less retirement savings, and fewer vehicle purchases, among other effects. Previous Demos work suggests that $53,000 in student debt will lead to lifetime wealth loss of $208,000, largely through lower retirement savings and home equity.
Although public investment in higher education is broadly popular, the wealthy tend to be the least supportive. In their recent study of the wealthiest Americans, Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels and Jason Seawright find that 78 percent of the general public agree that “[t]he federal government should make sure that everyone who wants to go to college can do so,” compared to only 28 percent of the richest Americans.
There are bright spots in this sad story: President Obama’s plan for free community college is a welcome opportunity for the government to step in and fill this gap. Two weeks ago Senate and House Democrats introduced a resolution to create debt-free higher education. Hillary Clinton says she’ll be rolling out a comprehensive plan to tackle student debt. On the other side of the aisle, the House Republican budget would eliminate guaranteed funding for Pell Grants, which helped 9 million low income students attend college in 2013-2014 school year. One analysis suggests that some students using the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) program would end up with twice the debt under the Republican budget proposal. They would also As the national discussion about higher education proceeds it’s important to remember the government has an important role to play in supporting debt free higher education.
That is clearly elitist. And anyone that should suggest that as part of full disclosure students in programs be given ROI stats on their major and their particular school should lower their head.
DK
Personally (and speaking as a college graduate), I’d rather see those who benefit from the education pay for their own education, rather than passing the cost on to total strangers. Among other things, I would expect students to choose more sensible majors if they had to pay for it themselves.
And don’t think it won’t make a difference to potential employers as to how a candidate financed their education.
Easier still, on-line classes. There is no 4 year degree. NONE. That cannot be learned by on-line classes with periodic lab work.
Having hired college graduates for years, I agree completely. I’m sure there are exceptions, but someone who worked through college or who took loans to pay for college is far more likely to have taken the academic side of college seriously.
The world needs ditch diggers, too.
So many of the undergraduate classes are taught by grad students or contract teachers who get paid a fraction of a college teachers salary. Further, so many depts are feather bedded by colleges requiring classes that are irrelevant to the actual degree courses.
You could cut a year or more out of a degree by getting rid of extraneous classes.
“With a massive tax giveaway to the rich” are words that immediately alert me to the slanted, left wing, class division crusaders who inundate our airwaves and “journalism” with their indoctrinated Marxist preachings. Never a point in reading any further.
When I went to school, the amenities were paid for via room and board. If you wanted those features you need up paying for them.
I would support the total withdrawal of all federal money from all higher education and the privatization of all state colleges.
:) Exactly. He’s making all the right enemies...
Get rid of all the departments and degrees that have no real place in a serious school.
"Gender Studies", African-American "Studies", etc., have no value as undergrad degrees. They should only offer a undergrad survey course, and let anybody interested work their way through real liberal arts degrees first, before becoming angry mis-educated Utopians blaming their boots for the faults of their feet.
Throw in AA as well. The not-ready-for-real school work types requiring remedial programs are a drain on the higher ed system.
Let such ill-"educated" go to either community college, or trade schools. Actual trades are almost always in demand, and they can do extremely well. Heck, one world renown theoretical physicist started off as a journeyman plumber.
The way the administrations and trustees have knuckled under to any given mob demanding this, that, and the other thing has devalued college degrees too.
And don't forget the increased "amenities" as mentioned in the thread as well. Lots of formerly respected schools have gone to appealing to the "all play and no work" demo.
U of W wanted to RAISE the tuition, and Walker locked them in, forbidding increases. The system was also hiding $600 MILLION while pleading poverty. The crime is the wasted resources from an out of control system that is largely beyond any accountability of any kind.
It takes chutzpah for salon.com to blame Walker for a problem caused by the system’s controllers and its enablers.
5.56mm
You read wrong. As Cincinatus' Wife frequently posts here:
January 3, 2011 - Walker assumes Office of Governor of Wisconsin.
June 27, 2011: Walker Revokes In-state Tuition For Undocumented Students Attending Univ And Colleges In Wisconsin "- On Sunday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) signed his two-year 2011-2013 budget, which included ending in-state tuition for undocumented students attending public universities and colleges. In-state tuition for undocumented students was approved two years ago by former Governor Jim Doyle (D) after the Hispanic community struggled for 10 years to pass it."
Those pie charts are self-reported B.S. What other industry could get away with passing this off as factual?
let the students pay and watch tuition drop..... except for perhaps the ivy league which is detached from reality and lost its aura of being a GOOD EDUCATION....hardly anymore...and is more of a commie training camp... look at the bungholes like hilary, cherokee warren, the kennedys, and bj clintoon.... and obumbler....
“the libtard investing in education” is simply buying educator votes and propagating communism... not worth it.
January 3, 2011 - Walker assumes Office of Governor of Wisconsin.
June 27, 2011: Walker Revokes In-state Tuition For Undocumented Students Attending Univ And Colleges In Wisconsin "- On Sunday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) signed his two-year 2011-2013 budget, which included ending in-state tuition for undocumented students attending public universities and colleges. In-state tuition for undocumented students was approved two years ago by former Governor Jim Doyle (D) after the Hispanic community struggled for 10 years to pass it."...
Wisconsin is the ONLY state that has ever revoked instate tuition for illegal immigrants.
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