Missing Rungs on the Social Ladder

When I was contemplating college long ago, I was fortunate to live in a state where access to higher education was not just an idea, it was a reality.  Tuition was a little bit more than $100 per semester if I remember correctly, not that much in any case, not for what I got for the money.  I am grateful to the state of California and to Chico State as it was mostly known then even though its name had already changed to CSU Chico. I don't like to think about where I might have ended up without the investment the state was willing to make in me.  For me, a naive kid from a small northern California town, and for kids in small and large towns all over California, it was our ticket to freedom, our ticket to choose what we wanted to do with our lives, it was my way out of the tractor store. Unfortunately, things have changed since then:

Soaring costs leave poor students struggling to make grade, by Scott Heiser, FT: … While US inflation has been contained for the past decade, the higher education sector has proved a glaring exception. The College Board … says tuition and fees rose 10.5 per cent in the 2004 academic term at four-year public (government-funded) universities, and 6 per cent at four-year private universities. Adjusted for inflation, students at four-year public institutions paid 51 per cent more in 2004 than in 1994, while those at four-year private universities paid 36 per cent more. … The rising cost of higher education in the US is raising new questions about whether universities will still be able to serve as ladders of social mobility. … US higher education is already the most expensive among advanced industrialised countries. ... Yet enrolment at US universities continues to surge, rising from 14m in 1995 to 16m last year. Indeed, the benefits have proved well worth the costs, in spite of the growing debt burdens for students. US Census Bureau data show that average lifetime earnings of college graduates are $2.1m, compared with $1.2m for high school graduates. Students from poorer families, for whom higher education has long been the best road out of poverty, are becoming especially concerned. Thomas Mortenson, a scholar with the Pell Institute, has found that … the number of bachelor degrees awarded to students from the poorest quarter of US families has stayed nearly level over the past decade, and has improved only slightly since 1970. In contrast, degrees given to students from the richest quarter of US families have risen steadily from about 40 per cent in 1970 to nearly 75 per cent today. In 2003, 74.9 per cent of the top income class attained degrees, compared with just 8.6 per cent of the bottom income class. Inequity at top schools is a particular problem …

Comments

[cm]

"We cannot find local talent. We have to hire talent globally wherever we find it."

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dear Mark . . .

I recall a few months ago, I heard a financial advisor suggest new parents begin saving for their children’s college education. She advised parents to begin saving at the time of birth and continue to save until the child reached the age of eighteen. She stated they needed to save more than a thousand dollars a month. This amount would cover the costs for a state school. Private preppy schools required greater savings and planning.

When I was attending the University of Wisconsin, many friends thought of moving to California. The universities here were far less expensive. Now, California State Universities are expensive. Classes are impacted.

When Bush introduced his budget and Arnold his, schools were severely short-changed. Yet, each politician promotes the idea of an “educated” populace. Sadly, American policy-makers do not practice as they preach. They do not invest in education.

Currently, only those that can pay outlandish prices receive an education. I know America wants to believe that we do not have a class system . . . humm, I wonder.

Betsy L. Angert Be-Think

[anne]

A note to which I will add when there is time. Catholic high school has just passed 10,000 dollars a year in this city, while independent school tuition is above 20,000. The hope for parents who cannot afford private education is an advanced class program in a public high school. Short of advanced classes a young serious student will be in trouble in the local high schools. Even in Catholic high school, advanced classes are quite important.

[anne]

Imagine being able to go to school in France for free from beginning to university, and to be comfortable with quality from the beginning. Now there are more and less comfortable schools atmospheres for children since neighborhood schhols will differ in family drawn from, and I could easily argue for more access to more prestiguous universities, but all in all....

[anne]

Spelling creatively counts :) Really.

[cm]

anne: Education in Europe is not "free", but paid for by taxes. Those taxes that are not spent on frivolous military ventures and an overblown military apparatus.

[cl]

cm brings up an excellent point. State funding for higher education has declined to such a level that it is almost silly to call the state "funded" schools in Oregon, public universities. The University Of Oregon receives 16% of its fundign from the state. The rest is tuition and donations. The part of the story above that is not discussed is the fact that as taxpayers, we are doing a much worse job of funding higher ed. What we do not contribute in taxes, the student makes up for in tuition. So I would bet a good part of the inflation in public university tuition is a result of declining state funding.

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dear Mark . . .

I hope that you and others will find this as humorous as I do. This morning I learned that some aspects of college life remain the same. As a resident of Wisconsin, I intentionally chose to stay away from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Decades ago, it was known as a party school and I was never a “party-animal.” I wanted an education. I love learning and for me, parties are often a sociological study. I looked for the school with the better program.

Today, the Princeton Review released its report, college rankings. University of Wisconsin Madison is the number one party school.

cl . . . agreed. Citizens are no better at funding schools than their representatives, state and federal.

Betsy L. Angert Be-Think

[anne]

CM

Apt and sad comments.

[ken melvin]

Here, in CA, Prop 13 marked the beginning of our decline. During the eighties, I was struck by the change in attitude from that of the previous generation's. As Prof. Thoma noted, Californians had been most generous with education through the sixties into the seventies. Then, in the eighties, everywhere I turned I met young engineers who hated taxes and the very idea of paying taxes to educate someone else's child although, almost to a person, they had gone to essentially tuition free schools. In a lot of ways, I think that the eighties marked the beginning of the decline in America. If you want a great country you have to pay for it.

[Lord]

Is the 0.9m down from 1.2m in earnings?. Is it real net present value? How old is this statistic? I suspect it will be much less in the future over the course of a lifetime. The price of education is rising to meet the net present value of expected earnings. When it does so, it will no longer make sense to pursue it, other than for intellectual satisfaction. At least students don't feel this way yet.

[Movie Guy]

Higher education costs have shot up so much in the past decade that I wonder how parents and students, other than the rich, can continue to foot the bills.

Imagine having three children, all approaching college age, within the next five years. Absent grants, loans and scholarships, the impact on household budgets is enormous.

The unversity I attended has raised tuition and fees substantially during each of the past five years.

I couldn't afford to attend many universities today without a full scholarship, loans, and/or support of a co-op program.

If given the choice of a $250,000 family loan to help start a business or attend a university, I'm not sure that I wouldn't opt for the business support plan. I could readily pursue a degree on line while growing a sound business.

[cm]

ken melvin: What you describe is true as an observation, but I have been getting the sense, often expressed explicitly, that people get nothing out of their taxes. While that's an exaggeration, I would think there is truth to it in that fewer benefits per unit of tax payment accrue to the US population than to the Europeans.

Rest assured that Europeans don't like paying taxes either, but at least the aggregate population gets more of the important things out of them.