[R-G] College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.

[Richard Menec]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?_r=1&hp

College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: December 3, 2008

The rising cost of college - even before the recession - threatens to put 
higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual 
report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Soaring College Tuitions

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 
percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family 
income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last 
decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller 
grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent 
families. "If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won't have an 
affordable system of higher education," said Patrick M. Callan, president of 
the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher 
education.

"When we come out of the recession," Mr. Callan added, "we're really going 
to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and 
the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we're 
one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than 
older workers."

Although college enrollment has continued to rise in recent years, Mr. 
Callan said, it is not clear how long that can continue.

"The middle class has been financing it through debt," he said. "The 
scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to 
college will do whatever if takes, even if that means a huge amount of 
 debt."

But low-income students, he said, will be less able to afford college. 
Already, he said, the strains are clear.

The report, "Measuring Up 2008," is one of the few to compare net college 
costs - that is, a year's tuition, fees, room and board, minus financial 
aid - against median family income. Those findings are stark. Last year, the 
net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the 
median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent 
of the median family income.

The share of income required to pay for college, even with financial aid, 
has been growing especially fast for lower-income families, the report 
found.

Among the poorest families - those with incomes in the lowest 20 percent - 
the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median 
income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000. At community colleges, long seen as 
a safety net, that cost was 49 percent of the poorest families' median 
income last year, up from 40 percent in 1999-2000.

The likelihood of large tuition increases next year is especially worrying, 
Mr. Callan said. "Most governors' budgets don't come out until January, but 
what we're seeing so far is Florida talking about a 15 percent increase, 
Washington State talking about a 20 percent increase, and California with a 
mixture of budget cuts and enrollment cuts," he said.

In a separate report released this week by the National Association of State 
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the public universities acknowledged 
the looming crisis, but painted a different picture.

That report emphasized that families have many higher-education choices, 
from community colleges, where tuition and fees averaged about $3,200, to 
private research universities, where they cost more than $33,000.

"We think public higher education is affordable right now, but we're 
concerned that it won't be, if the changes we're seeing continue, and family 
income doesn't go up," said David Shulenburger, the group's vice president 
for academic affairs and co-author of the report. "The public conversation 
is very often in terms of a $35,000 price tag, but what you get at major 
public research university is, for the most part, still affordable at 6,000 
bucks a year."

While tuition has risen at public universities, his report said, that has 
largely been to make up for declining state appropriations. The report 
offered its own cost projections, not including room and board.

"Projecting out to 2036, tuition would go from 11 percent of the family 
budget to 24 percent of the family budget, and that's pretty huge," Mr. 
Shulenburger said. "We only looked at tuition and fees because those are the 
only things we can control."

Looking at total costs, as families must, he said, his group shared Mr. 
Callan's concerns.

Mr. Shulenburger's report suggested that public universities explore a 
variety of approaches to lower costs - distance learning, better use of 
senior year in high school, perhaps even shortening college from four years.

"There's an awful lot of experimentation going on right now, and that needs 
to go on," he said. "If you teach a course by distance with 1,000 students, 
does that affect learning? Till we know the answer, it's difficult to 
control costs in ways that don't affect quality."

Mr. Callan, for his part, urged a reversal in states' approach to 
higher-education financing.

"When the economy is good, and state universities are somewhat better 
funded, we raise tuition as little as possible," he said. "When the economy 
is bad, we raise tuition and sock it to families, when people can least 
afford it. That's exactly the opposite of what we need."

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