College, The Great Plutocracy: Serious

The other day, Suzanne Mettler, a professor of government at Cornell wrote an opinion piece that was published in the New York Times about inequity in higher education. At first I was going to respond to this article and then I decided against it. Then I changed my mind and agin quickly shelved the idea. Finally I am back to where I began; in this article I am going to be serious, then snarky, and finally optimistic.

Serious:

Jumping into the article, one comment I find interesting that Dr. Mettle wrote was, “Higher education is becoming a caste system, separate and unequal for students with different family incomes.” I have to ask; was there ever a time in higher education when opportunity was equal and different colleges and universities did not represent the American caste system? Dr. Mettler did mention the GI Bill at the beginning of the article and that legislation did a lot of good but did it make everything equal and ‘flatten’ the economic divide? What could possibly be done today to give everyone equal opportunity?

Next, she comments on sticker price. “Private nonprofits, schools like Stanford or Vassar, list the highest “sticker prices, but the average student pays less than half of full fare.” I can’t imagine many people are interested in sticker prices even when the price is cut in half at an elite institution. Yearly fees at Vassar are $60k; if the average student pays less than half, they are still paying between $25k to $30k a year; multiply that by four years and you have $100k to $120k. I do not know many ‘average’ middle class families that can afford that much per child. In addition, if a low SEC student attends Vassar they might feel out of place because they might struggle fitting in. The last time I checked, 18-year olds, no matter what socioeconomic status they come from, who they are, or what they look like do care about their social circles and want to fit in no matter if they are at Vassar or at a directional university.

Next, Dr. Mettler goes through three points in the middle of her article; less bang for your buck at public universities, dwindling government support, and the big bad for-profits.

Point one, less bang for your buck, “In the 1970s, the maximum Pell grants for low-income students covered nearly 80 percent of costs at the average four-year public university, but by 2013-14 they covered just 31 percent.” I agree this is concerning because it means that in the 1970s, if you were eligible for the maximum Pell you could graduate from a four-year public virtually debt free. So what has happened in the last few decades? (Dr. Mettler does not go into why; maybe her book does.)

Point two; dwindling government support. Government support for higher education has decreased over the past fifteen-years; funding increased during the great bull market of the 90s but then took a steep dive because of the recession after 9-11 and more recently, the Great Recession. A sober stat I found while writing my article, The Tennessee Promise presents this point perfectly. In Tennessee , four-year public institutions received 58.2% of their funding from state appropriations during the 1990-91 academic year while in 2011-12, it was 32.1%. Almost a 50% drop! Colleges and universities, as do any large organizations struggle to change quickly especially when it comes to money. (Dr. Mettler does not offer a fix; maybe her book does.)

Point three; the big bad for-profits. Dr. Mettler briefly discusses the for-profit higher education sector and presents nice graphs about how much funding the top five get from Title IV funding. She also recommends regulating for-profits more, “Tougher regulations of the for-profits, long overdue, are the quickest way to help the poorest Americans who seek college degrees.”

According to the National Student ClearningHouse Research Center, 1,321,107 students were enrolled at four-year for-profit institutions in the Fall of 2013. Of this total, 81.4% that attend for-profits are over 24 while the other sectors are 38.7% at four-year publics; 38.5% at four-year privates; and 29.4% at four-year publics. Also from the Research Center, for-profits are educating ,more females (like all of higher education); 66.4% are women at four-year for-profits; 55% at four-year publics; 58.3% at four-year privates; and 57.1% at two-year publics are women.

For-profit institutions educate a different demographic than public and private four-year institutions, two-year public institutions, and they educate students who are by a supermajority over-24 and women.  

I am not going to defend the for-profit industry, but if the government regulated for-profits out of business by the summer; what percentage of those students could be absorbed by the rest of higher education? Could Arizona State University, University of Maryland-College, Southern New Hampshire University, or the dozens and dozens of smaller online public schools absorb all the University of Phoenix, Ashford, Kaplan, and Capella students? Do they have the capacity? Do these schools all have online student support services to help students who are older than 24 with numerous risk factors and be successful? Do they have scheduling flexibility? Will tougher regulations help the poorest Americans get college degrees and save money? (Dr. Mettler does not offer a fix besides more regulations; maybe her book does.)

Read the next part of this article: College, The Great Plutocracy: Snarky and Optimistic.