Continued decline of the public university

Parents Forum
201

@lostaccount, research labs are rather important for a research university. I know that some folks want to turn public flagships into vocational schools (the Scott Walker vision), but research actually benefits the public as a whole.

@ucbalumnus, true. Lab equipment, then.
I’ve pointed out to @northwesty that the top publics have fallen behind the top privates over the past few decades if you measure by criteria like faculty salaries, but he hasn’t addressed that issue. Maybe he embraces the Scott Walker vision as well.

202

@musicprnt No one ever said “free ride” - VA state schools like UVA and W&M are fixed at, I believe, 67% of in-state students in their enrollments. In-state tuition for UVA is roughly $10K, W&M roughly $13k - well below prevailing rates at a flagship school.

The difference between in-state tuition and OOS is the amount of “subsidy” an in-state student receives by virtue of being in-state and presumably paying state taxes - rich, poor, middle-class - if you’re paying in-state tuition, you get that subsidy.

That “full-freight” you keep referring to, well, isn’t for 2/3 of the class - those numbers are well-below the actual cost of educating the students. Not a “free ride” - but neither “full-freight” - that subsidy is worth, (top of my head), perhaps $100K over 4 years.

Not saying that’s not “fair” - their parents did pay taxes to support those schools - (though not as much as they’d like to think, and certainly nowhere close to $100K - maybe $1K - turns out, much of that subsidy is actually paid by OOS tuition payers, not by the state) - but the point that President was making was that there are millions paying taxes to support the few thousands that would actually attend school there - and he thought those who could afford it, in-state, should give up that subsidy, so that more poor students could attend.

Not saying I agree with all that - but like I said, his initial point is a fair question - how far do you go to make a state school affordable for, primarily middle- and upper-class students, on the backs on the in-state taxpayers who’ll never attend those schools?

203

Of course, at most schools, that research funding - including lab equipment - comes from external sources, like the federal and state government grants, as well as grants from non-profits, businesses, and private contributors.

So, let’s not pretend the colleges are self-funding those activities.

204

Depends on the field—in, say, English studies, a lot of the research being done is internally funded. Of course, that research tends to be relatively cheaper, but travel costs and such to do add up.

Further, even in the lab sciences, startup lab costs for new faculty tend to be internally funded.

And that’s not to mention the seed money most research (and not just high-end research) universities spend on promising but not yet ready for external funding projects, many of which will end up not panning out and so not even move to the external grant application stage.

Plus, even for those that get external funding, there are costs associated with the administration of grants. A well-written grant proposal will cover those costs, but it’s not like external research funding is free money.

So yes, there’s (a dwindling pile of) external research funding—but let’s not pretend that we can say that research money isn’t an expense for higher education.

205

On the bit I emphasized, I’ll note John Green’s explanation for why that’s entirely fair:* “Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order. We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education. So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don’t personally have a kid in school: It’s because I don’t like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.”

  • And I realize there are decent arguments taking issue with what I quote here. (Many of the arguments against that you find on the internet are along the lines of "no, that's dumb", though—please let's ignore those, okay?) However, it's a decent initial counterargument to arguments that subsidies to education from taxes paid by those not using the public education system are inherently unfair.
206

This reminds me of how we fund K-12 education, through property taxes. Why do property owners subsidize K-12 education? Because, as dfbdfb said, it’s a public good, that serves the community…

Means testing public higher education? I’ll pass on that…plenty of other ways to support lower income students, without opening this can of worms.

edit: Note that we already use EFC (and COA) to determine grants, loans, etc. In a sense, this is “means” testing, without using true means testing to determine tuition.

207

And to build on what @dfbdfb said, the US was a research powerhouse and the general populace benefitted immensely from that. I say “was” because it’s not so certain that the US will be going forward. Research may still be funded in the private sector for the profit-motive and by private institutions, but that part that is funded by the Federal government or subsidized by states spending on their universities has definitely fallen off as a per capita measure.

208

Purple #200 – I completely agree that costs at private colleges have also expolded.

As I’ve said before, the real story is the exploding costs rather than reduced funding. The money being made available to colleges (public and private) keeps increasing. State money, federal money, student money. As with health care, at some point we need to come up with a different cheaper model. Especially since so many more people are accessing higher ed (which is a good thing).

The states didn’t reduce their overall level of support for state universities. But the states have pretty much said they will no longer continue to increase their funding. The reason why tuition went up is because university budgets (public and private) continue to increase rapidly.

209

The SHEEO data you so fondly love to cite (but only in the aggregate, and only when it suits your argument) show that in at least 21 states, there were real cuts in state support for public higher education between 2000 and 2014, due either to actual cuts in nominal appropriations (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa) compounded by losses in purchasing power due to inflation, or because increases in nominal appropriations didn’t keep up with inflation (Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, S Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin). In another 6 states, increases in nominal appropriations nearly kept up with inflation, or were slightly under it (Alabama, California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, all around 30% nominal increases, or just under the SHEEO-calculated cumulative rate of inflation, but real cuts on the order of about 7% if you use the BLS cumulative inflation rate).

In the remaining 23 states, there were real increases in state aid to higher education over the 2000-2014 period, some quite large, e.g., Texas +$2.313 billion in nominal dollars (+50.9% in nominal dollars), Illinois +$1.587 billion (+70.9% in nominal dollars), New York +$2.251 billion (+83.8% in nominal dollars), Florida +1.155 billion (+44.5% in nominal dollars) during a period in which aggregate inflation was 31% or 37.5%, depending on which source you believe.

You keep pushing the falsehood that public universities haven’t been hurt by state budget cuts. Many have been, especially those in roughly half the states that have made real (inflation-adjusted) cuts to public higher education. In other states public colleges and universities collectively are getting as much or more money than ever in both inflation-adjusted and nominal dollars, though in almost all cases they’re being called upon to educate more students, so inflation-adjusted per-student state appropriations have declined even in most states where absolute state appropriations have kept up with or exceeded the rate of inflation.

Moreover, in some states the legislature has changed the formula by which funds are allocated in ways that have hammered some schools–often the state flagship… A document you yourself linked to in post #169 shows (Appendix A) that between 1989 and 2004, inflation-adjusted state general fund appropriations to the University of Virginia were slashed by 37.6%, while statewide general fund appropriations to higher education were cut by only 12.3% overall. William & Mary (-23.8%) and Virginia Tech (-19.6%) were also hit particularly hard, while some schools saw sharp increases, e.g., George Mason (+17.2%). And the legislature largely shielded the community colleges from budget cuts (-3.2%) while hammering the 4-year institutions (-15.0%).

Given how unevenly these cuts and increases fall, it seems pretty irresponsible to make blanket statements like, “The states didn’t reduce their overall level of support for state universities.” Many, roughly half, did. Others actually increased their overall level of support for public higher education–though it’s not clear how much of that increased support is going to 4-year public “universities” as opposed to community colleges, and it’s not clear that the older and better-established public flagships are enjoying that largess. In many states it seems that newer and faster-growing schools–often the pet project of some powerful state legislator–get priority funding, and it’s apparently assumed that the better-established, better-resourced flagships will find a way to fend for themselves. As they have, in large measure by raising tuition.

210

Federal spending (via NSF) has increased from $44.8 Billion in 2004 to $67B in 2013. It flatten out after the end of the stimulus package (it was basically unchanged from 2011 to 2012, going up by $2B in 2013), so the process to win a bid has gotten much more competitive, but funding is still strong.

http://issues.org/30-1/the-new-normal-in-funding-university-science/

Since (public) research universities can’t depend on increasing funding from NSF, they are looking at alternatives, such as commercialization and startups.

211

BC –

So your point is that 23 states increased support, 6 maintained support, and 21 had less support. We know that nationwide support was slightly increased (in constant dollars) over the past 25 years.

You also show that within some states, the support got shifted around. UVA, Va Tech and WM got less money (probably because they are pretty strong schools financially) while other schools (George Mason and VA CCs) got increased support.

Fine. But did I miss all of the stories that said something like:

“Most states increase their support of state universities”

“Texas, NY and FL massively increase their investments in public education to all-time highs”

“Despite recession most states continue to funding public higher ed at historically high levels”

Because I’ve only seen the stories where the university presidents complain about how their cheap legislatures are starving them.

"Hey its not my fault the state legislature would rather build prisons than let kids go to college. I have no choice but to jack up tuition. I mean the money for my seven figure salary has to come from someplace, right? And I still make way less than what my buddies at private colleges make! "

212

@northwesty, on a per-student basis, state support has gone down at most places.
And again, do you want the top flagships to be top-tier research universities or not? If you want a vocational school, many CC’s and directionals are cheaper and most are affordable at in-state rates. But yes, the costs of being a top global university has gone up a lot. So when state support goes down per capita, if you don’t want tuition rates going up, would you rather that a flagship become more like a directional instead?

213

I repeat (along with others), @northwesty, that it’s only honest to look at per-student (per-FTE, actually) state support.

This is particularly the case when legislatures or government boards required public universities to increase enrollment.

I mean, are you really saying that “you have to admit 15% more students, and we’re increasing your appropriation 5% to cover that” is an actual increase in state support? 'Cause that’s just severely bizarre logic, if you are.

214

@Squiddy Who is this Virginia President you’ve mentioned more than once? Is there a link to this person’s exact statements somewhere? Taxpayers in any state are paying taxes that support their public colleges, not just the flagship. If a kid is not able to get into the flagship, there are always other options. There are only so many seats available at any flagship. And as @Gator88NE noted, there are already ways that a public school, flagship makes determinations for cost for instate students based on EFC. We were full pay for both of our children at our state schools, some other instate kids paid less for the same education, but that’s just the way it is. And that’s okay with me.

215

DFB – state support per FTE student went down primarily because the denominator (enrollment) increased. State support as a percentage of university budget went down mostly because the denominator (university budget) increased dramatically. It is really expensive to try to keep up with those private college Joneses! But people only talk about the numerator (which overall stayed pretty flat in constant dollars).

It is exactly like social security or health care. Because of demographics and cost increases, the cost needed to support the university has exploded well beyond the ability of the states to continue to increase their funding.

It is naive and unrealistic to expect that today’s huge, sprawling and uber-expensive state university would continue to be funded in the same way that the mom/pop State U of yesteryear was funded. It was good while it lasted, but that time is over and is not coming back. Newsflash – your 8-track and VCR aren’t coming back either. Bummer.

If HRC or The Bern get their way, then there will be a de facto federal financial takeover of State U’s. That’s one possibility going forward. Maybe we will get Obama’s free CC plan, which would transform the State U’s mostly into 2 year upper college institutuons. Or we will get something else.

216

I don’t see the parallel with Social Security. SS is an entitlement program- if you meet the criteria and follow some pretty simple rules, you get your check. Is there a flagship state U out there that admits everyone of a particular age without some screening process (rigorous if you are Berkeley or Michigan, less rigorous if you are Nevada or New Mexico)? If more people apply for social security in a given year than the actuaries have predicted, they don’t “cut off” access to the program by telling you “sorry, all full” like they can at capacity constrained state U’s (and impacted majors).

What’s the connection here???

217

In response to some comments above, apparently Squidly is referring to a UVa President who served several years ago. I have no idea whether those comments are correct or not, but the President for the last several years has been a female (Terresa Sullivan).

He also posted some out of date tuition costs for in-state UVa. It is $15,000 to $19,000 for tuition and mandatory fees for next year in-state, depending upon the program. However, UVa does have very good need-based aid for all US students, and housing and food is more affordable than in many large cities.

https://sfs.virginia.edu/cost/15-16

218

Back in the good old days, those entitlement programs could provide ample benefits and were easy to fund because (i) costs were low and (ii) a lot fewer people used the benefit. The funding needs get a lot bigger and tougher when the costs expand and when the number of people using the benefit increase.

The exact same demographic and cost issues apply to State U’s. Their increased size and increased cost structures have outstripped their historic level of funding.

219

The emphasized part is an unwarranted assumption about motivations on your part.

Which is fallacious. Why do you buy into it?

Where in the world do you get the idea that state universities could ever, ever have been described as “mom/pop” enterprises?!? That’s just a quite strange characterization.

220

And why shouldn’t state support for state universities have increased? Population has increased most places, the economy has gotten bigger (generally several times bigger) and the tax base has increased. Which means that most states are spending a smaller percentage of their budget on higher education compared to several decades ago. Why should that be considered proper and acceptable?