Category Archives: Affordability

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In Search of the Best University

Too often, we allow the decisions of others to influence our choice when it comes to selecting the right college

We Americans are a funny lot. Whether because of our heritage as a nation born through revolution and blessed with size and an abundance of natural resources, or because of our fascination with winning, as we do in athletics, we seem inordinately fond of defining, and being associated with, “the best.” Tonight and tomorrow night, respectively, we will determine “the best” men’s and women’s collegiate basketball teams in the country, and ice hockey will soon follow. We’ll get to baseball in late spring, and next January it will be time to declare “the best” college football team.

This fascination with determining “the best” carries over to colleges and universities themselves. Shouldn’t we urge our children to attend “the best” college or university – or at least “the best” institution that will accept him or her? Why settle for second best? We want “the best!”

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Where Should the Talented Poor Attend College?

Arguments for and against elite schools for high-achieving, low-income students

In his March 17 column (“Better Colleges Failing to Lure Talented Poor”), David Leonhardt of The New York Times wrote about a study that found that only 34 percent of high-achieving students in the bottom quartile of family income enrolled in one of the nation’s 238 most selective colleges, as compared to 78 percent of high-achieving students in the top quartile of family income.

One conclusion is that elite schools, for all their rhetoric, are failing to recruit an economically diverse entering class of students.

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Down the Up Staircase

How about our wealthiest colleges freeze tuition, rather than cut need-blind admissions?

When we tire from worrying about North Korea, Iran, fiscal cliffs and sequestering, we can sit back and luxuriate in the knowledge that our institutions of higher education are still doing their job of opening the door of opportunity to permit successive generations of students to achieve both educational and economic advancement. Regardless of the circumstances of their birth, or of the wealth of their families, talented and ambitious students rest secure in the knowledge that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded by top colleges and universities. Because of their enormous endowments, these institutions now more than ever have the capacity to be need-blind in the admissions process, meaning that students will be admitted without regard to their ability to pay.

Oops! Maybe it’s time to go back to thinking about nuclear weapons and cliffs. Several of the wealthiest campuses have recently announced that they are reducing their aid packages for needy students and are no longer offering need-blind admission.

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The Debt Problem – Part II

Student debt has risen dramatically. But is $26,000 in debt unreasonable if the payoff is $1 million?

Last week, I commented on Charles M. Blow’s March 9 column in The New York Times, which focused on the problem of student debt. I discussed the factors that contributed to the sudden growth of educational debt and steps that are necessary to rectify the problem (or would at least prevent it from becoming worse).

I ran out of room before I could get to the issue of assessing how big a problem student debt really is – hence, Part II this week.

On the one hand, student debt has increased dramatically: roughly $1 trillion in total debt, more than twice what it was just eight years ago, and larger in size than the total of all credit card debt. On an individual level, approximately half of the student population borrows to finance their education, and they graduate owing an average of about $26,000.

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The Debt Problem – Part I

Student debt is no small problem, but colleges can take the first step toward addressing it.

In his column in The New York Times on March 9, Charles M. Blow states: “We are reaching a crisis point in this country’s higher education system” because of “staggering levels of debt.” He notes that student loan debt has more than doubled in the last eight years, to almost $1 trillion, and that, not unexpectedly, student loan debt is hardest on families in the bottom quintile of family income. Mr. Blow ends his column with, “We are on an unsustainable track. This will not end well.”

How is it that this problem has become so large so quickly? How do we fix it? Is this as big a problem as people claim?

I’m glad you asked. This is a problem that resulted from many intersecting forces:

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The Folly of Early Action

Early action pressures colleges to award financial aid without information on student need.

Some years ago, a few of the most prestigious colleges and universities adopted a new model for admitting students. Rather than facing a delay of several months after making application before hearing the university’s decision, a prospective student could choose to apply for “early decision.” The very best applicants would learn much earlier in the admissions cycle that they had been accepted – but the catch was that they then had to commit to attend the university that had accepted them. No longer could they wait and compare offers from other institutions. “Early decision” cut both ways: in return for an early answer, the student was obliged to make an irreversible commitment.

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Moody’s Blues

The time for bold action by university leaders is now, the credit agency says.

On the 16th of January, Moody’s Investors Service issued a report entitled “US Higher Education Outlook Negative in 2013.” Inside Higher Ed followed with an article on the findings in the report the next day. The report, and the article, were sobering reading for university administrators, and, in some quarters, more than a little frightening.

Moody’s, one of the three major credit rating agencies worldwide, has downgraded its outlook for the entire U.S. higher education sector from stable to negative. Based on a careful analysis of data over the past several years, Moody’s concludes that there is “mounting pressure on all key university revenue sources, requiring bolder actions by university leaders to reduce costs and increase operating efficiency.”

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A Modest Proposal

To boost Pell Grants and address economic inequity, why not tax income earned via investment of college endowment funds?

Readers of this blog are aware of my none-too-subtle concerns with wealthy campuses that do not exemplify best practices: rather than use their wealth to lower their sticker prices and create greater affordability for more prospective students, they have done just the opposite – they have raised their tuition prices and increased their already obscene levels of per-student expenditures.

But it is more than just a few well-known campuses behaving badly. At a time when American families are only too aware that colleges have become less and less affordable, the underlying cause of this unaffordability is the skewed distribution of revenue to institutions of higher learning in general.

More than one-third of all undergraduates are enrolled in two-year colleges. Some are focused on a two-year degree, but many of them plan to transfer to a four-year school and earn their baccalaureate. This is the least expensive level of higher education, with annual tuition generally around $3,000 – and it is the low cost that has led to swelling enrollments in community colleges.

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Should Price Reflect Cost? (Part 2)

When it comes to pricing, higher education and health care have much in common

In Part I of this post, we discussed how the “high cost/high aid” model of price and cost in higher education has led to growing educational debt and a widening achievement gap between affluent and low-income students. This week, we’ll talk about how (and why) to change this model.

But first: consider the following hypothetical conversation between an admissions officer and two prospective students, as he explains the college’s financial aid policy: