Continued decline of the public university

Parents Forum
141

"It’s a bigger country now—bigger population, bigger economy. As a consequence, states spend more on almost everything: K-12 education, health care, prisons, you name it. "

Not true. The number of kids in K-12 hasn’t increased all that much in the past 20 years. But college enrollment has increased 50% over that time.

More significant is that the cost of tuition over that time has increased massively over that time in constant dollars. Likely facilitated by the increased supply of federal dollars coming in on top of the state dollars.

It is more about how much bigger the university budget got than about how much smaller the govt support got.

142

The most heavily federally-subsidized colleges in the state of Michigan are private for-profit colleges, e.g.:

  • International Academy of Design and Technology - Troy: 91% of students take federal loans, median debt at graduation $42,103; 73% of students receive Pell grants
  • DeVry University – Michigan: 90% borrow, $43,068 median debt; 66% receive Pell grants
  • University of Phoenix West Michigan campus: 76% borrow, $35,500 median debt; 79% receive Pell grants
  • ITT Technical Institute Dearborn: 86% borrow, $25,834 median debt; 83% receive Pell grants
  • Art Institute of Michigan: 90% borrow, $27,667 median debt; 66% receive Pell grants

There are also a few non-profit private colleges in a similar range, e.g.:

  • Finlandia University: 83% borrow, $27,500 median debt; 65% receive Pell grants
  • Olivet College: 80% borrow, $27,000 median debt; 46% receive Pell grants
  • Davenport University: 70% borrow, $30,250 median debt; 53% receive Pell grant

Federal subsidies from Pell grant and loans (if you want to count federal student loans as a subsidy) work out to about $2,835 per student per year campus-wide at the University of Michigan, compared to $13,288 per student per year campus-wide at the proprietary International Academy of Design and Technology.

143

Not necessarily. At RPI, for example, 59% of students take out federal loans, and they graduate with a median debt of $27,836 (both figures substantially higher than the University of Michigan), despite the fact that only 17% of RPI students are eligible for Pell grants (essentially the same as Michigan’s 16%). The difference is that RPI doesn’t meet full need, on average meeting only 77% of need and meeting full need for only about 20% of its students determined to have need. I general I think the strength of institutional need-based aid is even more important than the % of low SES students in determining what fraction of students borrow and how much they borrow. At UC Berkeley, 32% of students are Pell grant-eligible, twice the percentage as at Michigan, yet a smaller percentage of students take out federal loans (30% at Berkeley, 37% at Michigan) and the median debt at graduation is lower ($14,667 at Berkeley, $22,000 at Michigan). UC Berkeley has great need-based aid.

144

The K-12 population is growing. It is a bigger country and a bigger school system. In the last 15 years, it went up 8,500,000 students.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp

145

Mama – K-12 population is up a little over 10% for that period. College enrollment in contrast is up 50%.

146

K-12 population up a bit over 10%. College enrollment up about 50% over the same time period. And how much has college sticker price gone up over that time period?

147

College sticker price over that time sounds like it’s behaving as you’d expect from a basic supply-and-demand curve, sorta.

148

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98

In roughly the time period under discussion, government statistic say college attendance increased by 24% (not 50%). The change was increased population, including an increase in older students, and increases in groups who did not have full access in prior times (women, URM, etc).

I would also say that the increase reflects increased internationals, a group that had grown by 72% during the period under discussion (2000-2015). Internationals are now 4% of US college students.http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2014/11/17/number-of-international-college-students-continues-to-climb

Northwesty, you throw around numbers, but I can’t substantiate them. It would be helpful if you documented your facts.

149

RPI to U-M is a poor comparison. RPI discounts it’s tuition for more than U-M, making it much more affordable (for OOS students). Very few students are full pay at RPI, while many (especially OOS students) are at U-M.

AT U-M, 47% of freshman received an Institutional grants or scholarships (need-based/Merit-based) for an average of $12,741 per student.

At RPI, 92% of freshman received an Institutional grants or scholarships, for an average of $23,993.

Lets look at UC-Berkeley vs. U-M…

UC-B is 70% or so in-state students (with great state support) and 30% almost all full pay OOS students. U-M is 55% in-state and 45% mostly full pay OOS students. The overall cost for in-state students is lower in UC-B (or any of the UCs or CSU’s…), so I would expect less debt than at U-M. However, both schools are fairly low cost for in-state students, and mostly full pay for OOS students.

UC-B is also far less costly (for in-state students) than (private) RPI.

The following link shows a state by state breakdown on student debt. If you click on a state, you’ll get a listing of each college and often, the average student debt.

http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data#

150

mama – just read the NYT article cited above.

In constant dollars, state support for higher ed quadrupled from 1960 to 1980. In constant dollars, it almost doubled again from 1980 to the peak of state support in 2009.

Since that golden age of the 70s, college enrollments have expanded greatly. Up 50 per cent in the last 20 years. And college costs have also greatly expanded – Michigan in state tuition increased 400% from 1980 to today.

The story is really that the size and (more importantly) the cost of state universities has far outgrown its traditional funding model. At some point, the states just couldn’t keep doubling (in constant dollars) their appropriations.

To fund the growth, the State Us had to add more federal dollars, more student dollars, more donor dollars while still taking state dollars. All in the U.S. spends the most per student of any country in the world. Even though college is still very expensive for families. Colleges have an endless ability to consume cash.

Funding the mom/pop State U of 1980 is nothing like funding today’s.

The other real story is how much the schools jacked up their price. Which is what happens when you have a big surge in demand, and when the customers have increased ability to pay (thanks to additional federal support, especially loans).

151

Most state schools are still pretty bare bones, if you consider amenities per student (in other words a $10 mil water park for 30,000 students is just not that much money) and that room and board are totally self supporting. Sports and all that infrastructure are self supporting from TV rights and ticket and merchandise revenue.

The frills are minimal in most state schools, which you can clearly see if you walk around the hallways of an average academic building. They are all old and simple, but they serve their purpose.

The growth in seats at state universities, especially flagships, is really not sky high either, these were all big schools 30 years ago. The OOS population is new, but they pay the bills.

The federal dollars are just not real. Student loans are student money (and many do not have the resources to pay that back) or basically work owed to a bank in the future. Work-study is work. Pell Grants serve a specific population, they support that population whether your politics agree or not, but they do not subsidize the school, just change the demographics of who can go there.

Looking at it another way, state schools really need money to keep their infrastructure intact, to retain and I would argue pay their faculty reasonably well (adjunct professors are wildly underpaid), to support in-house research grant proposal efforts, and to keep class sizes reasonable. UW-Madison is experimenting with major cost cutting … and it will be interesting to see if they can keep their status and their educational mission intact. However, starving a high value institution like state universities is a risky and likely unwise way to cut costs. I would venture to say that flagship graduates rarely get any more subsidies in life and quickly become net tax payers … unlike many other folks. During the Great Recession, this hasn’t always meant instant entrance into the fabled middle or upper middle class, but I don’t think many are starving and living in subsidized housing either.

I think when you mix up all kinds of institutions and students, you really have no clear picture of how money is being spent. The for-profit schools are eating up a lot of money with very little value. Some of the lower-tier state schools and community colleges might also be eating up a lot of money, it is unclear to me whether they serve their student populations or not. Graduation rates could be misleading and there is value in providing some education to students that were not served well by high schools.

Flagship universities need to be funded fairly well to serve their root mission to provide a good education to top students in a state at an affordable price, not because it is a nice thing to do, but because these folks form an absolutely critical part of a state’s economy and future. Similarly, the US needs to educate their population, both an elite and also people to staff many other jobs …

I thought the article was describing the lack of funding for flagships … and that is really hard to argue. Some schools due to their stature, alumni networks, and outright excellence have managed to overcome state pennypinching, like UMich or UVa but many just cannot. Again, exactly why are we doing this experiment ?

I would argue that states should be increasing their funding on a per capita basis, but just make sure that all capita aka students are gaining value from the state dollars invested.

Final comment is that I find the difference between $24K and $27K for a college graduate from a top 100 university to be completely uninteresting. I would argue that really digging deep with used books and lack of Frappacinos would make this difference go away either in school or in the few years following - and this $25K range of debt is simply a great value if you gain any income advantage that lasts 40 years.

How is what can easily be an overaggressive Christmas shopping season “substantially different”?

I would argue that the $100K to $140K cost of a state university education in states that do not provide financial aid might just be too high for students whose parents are not making above say 60,80K. That kind of debt, $1000 a month for 10 years, is really difficult to carry on today’s starting salaries.

152

I read the NYTimes OPINION piece. I do not share the opinion and question many of the numbers

Yes, higher education has changed. The traditional funding model, faced with climbing walls, sports teams, and bloated administration, is stressed, maybe destroyed, and public education is unavoidably more expensive. As the cheap humanities and social sciences slowly dwindle, high cost fields–like engineering, computer science, health science, etc.–are growing. The outlay on technology is mindboggling and very hard to slow. Salaries for faculty in the demand fields are significantly higher to compete with industry. The majority of state schools are not keeping up in key areas. Increased tuition and massive online systems are not acceptable or accessible. Whatever their positives, UG classes of 700 and G classes on 200 do not approximate the classes in private colleges. TA recitations are not the same as faculty-led classes of 40 (or 20).

Now most of us agree that administration can be cut and extras can be reduced (have you seen a university cafeteria lately?(though housing is a profit center)). The question is how to put pressure on state schools and legislatures to address the rising costs and falling quality. This has been made complex by the inertia of structures in place and the “success” of withdrawing support as students and parents suck it up for 4 years and move on. The loan debacle may create a moment for real discussion. Public education serves little purpose if it is unaffordable.

153

Mamalion, very thoughtful and well-stated analysis.

154

Mama – I mostly agree with your note above. Which pretty much agrees with the thesis of the NY Times piece.

Which is that big state universities have gotten bigger and also much much more expensive to run. If they are financially stressed, it is because they need more and more money to operate under their current model. They are not stressed because the money being made available to them is smaller than before.

So what would you propose as a fix? Presumably ramping up state appropriations and taxes? Anything else? Easy to say cut the waste, extras and admin. Hard to do though, especially after the plush cafeteria has already been built.

Myself, I’d pretty radically change the current high expense 4 year model. Like maybe have kids do two years at a lower cost place – CC or online or something else. Then just two years at the high cost residential campus. Would cost a lot less and would also double the degree output of your state flagship.

155

At least in my area, the completion rates of kids at CC’s for a two year degree are not encouraging, and the online rates are even worse. So creating a model which shoves kids into low performing community colleges who then drop out before getting to the state flagship doesn’t solve anything IMHO.

Online? Good solution for “adult learners”, the highly motivated, or someone looking to pick up an MBA at night on their employers dime. I haven’t seen any data that suggests it’s a good solution for the typical 18 year old who needs to pass Freshman biology and English Comp…

156

Actually, it is only a few big money sports (football and basketball) at some schools that make money, though at many of those schools, that money is used to help subsidize other sports (so that athletics as a whole counting all sports costs money and receives subsidies almost everywhere).

http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/D1REVEXP2013.pdf
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/dec/22/jim-moran/moran-says-only-20-colleges-make-profit-sports/
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

157

[QUOTE=""]
In constant dollars, state support for higher ed quadrupled from 1960 to 1980. In constant dollars, it almost doubled again from 1980 to the peak of state support in 2009.

[/QUOTE]

This is incredibly frustrating - either the statement is true or it is not. And how hard is it to get to numbers right?
The fact quoted above totally negates the other narrative of how the state schools have been de-funded since the 80’s - somebody is lying through their teeth.

158

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”

Keep in mind that it’s total (constant) dollars and not dollars per student. Public university enrollment has vastly increased since 1980 (3.97 million in 1965, 9.46 million in 1980, 14,66 million in 2014), as had tuition/fees, R&B, etc…

http://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/

159

Gator88NE,
However, this still does not add up. 14.66/3.97 = 3.7.
So, there is a 3.7x increase in public university enrollment since 1965.
The quote above is “quadrupled and then doubled” - so there is an 8x increased in funding (and it is in constant dollars and not nominal dollars)
If true, the spending per student should have doubled since 1960 (in real term).

160

Straight from the NY Times article:

“As the baby boomers reached college age, state appropriations to higher education skyrocketed, increasing more than fourfold in today’s dollars, from $11.1 billion in 1960 to $48.2 billion in 1975. By 1980, state funding for higher education had increased a mind-boggling 390 percent in real terms over the previous 20 years.”

“State appropriations reached a record inflation-adjusted high of $86.6 billion in 2009.”

“Enrollment in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs has increased by almost 50 percent since 1995.”

I’d tend to believe Prof Campos’ numbers. He is a law professor who has made a respected name for himself as a critic of our massively messed-up system for law school education in the country. Since he teaches at a law school at a State U, looks like his is now training his critical eye on that education system.