College and federal officials ignore skyrocketing tuition costs

Rising medical costs have long been in the public eye, and for good reason.  Over the last thirty-five years, medical costs have grown at a rate double that of inflation.  With wage-earner income remaining essentially constant, the burden on the average person shot up six-fold. 

At the same time, public college tuition skyrocketed over twelve times, nearly doubling the rate of medical increases. Like heart disease, the “higher education silent killer” has already taken its toll—$1.3 trillion in student-loan debt that has limited access for millions of people and greatly curtailed their economic purchasing-power. 

{mosads}Private university tuition during this period escalated ten times, more than tripling inflation.  Yes, that’s right, the percentage increase for public university tuition ballooned at a higher rate than that of private universities! 

Trying to address these costs, the federal government increased Pell Grant funding by a whopping 1700 percent.  But, because of the spiraling costs of higher education and the soaring number of students, the amount of the tab covered by these grants dropped from 72 percent to 34 percent.

Horrific as these percentages may be, the dollar impact on individual students was even more exorbitant. The costs for students attending a public university rose from $688 in 1978 to an average of $8,655 in 2013.  At private universities, student costs escalated over the same thirty-five years period from $2,959 to $29,056.

Universities did nothing to change; they plodded along like the proverbial dinosaur acting as if nothing had changed.  Corporations faltered and failed.  Kodak almost died.  General Motors was too big to collapse but it did.  

There are countless ways in which higher education could reign-in spending, starting first with how personnel are evaluated—assessing staff by the value they add, measuring faculty by the qualitative learning they produce, and evaluating leaders by their budgetary effectiveness.  

Inside the academy presidents could take simple cost-cutting actions to reduce the bloated size of mid-management.  They could apply the same concepts to reduce inefficiencies in the way faculty loads are determined.  Add-on curricula could be streamlined; thereby, eliminating deadwood-courses taught by “retired-on-the-job” professors.

Similar changes must be made in big-time athletics.  The most recent five-year study found only eight universities of the nation’s one hundred and twenty-five largest programs made a profit.  The rest of the institutions drained millions of dollars from their university coffers. 

Governors and state legislators need to tie new funding to cost-cutting measures.  Board members need to demonstrate greater fiscal responsibility. Budgetary expertise should be added to the selection criterion for presidents and annual financial training made a condition of employment.

The federal government, too, has failed miserably in its role to serve and protect the best interest of the general public.  There are no checks and balances for higher education. University tuition increases are simply passed onto students, mushrooming student-debt levels even more.

Some members in Congress have called for “forgiveness programs” in an effort to reduce the loan burden on student, but no one has proposed “common sense” changes that build upon our core values.  Such thoughts are not outlandish.  For example:  Ballooning loan default rates could be greatly curtailed by turning the process over to the IRS.  Pell Grants awards could be pegged to inflation so when an institution raises its tuition above the norm, awards to students would go down.   Significantly more emphasis could be placed on the use of college work-study opportunities: thereby, lessening the amount of loans and encouraging students to earn more as they go.  Incentives could be built into Pell Grants that encourage students to graduate sooner, focusing subsidizes on graduation requirements rather than elective courses taken for the fun of it.

Clearly, higher education must face its fiduciary responsibility, but without external motivation from Washington, little change will be forthcoming from our great universities. It’ll be more of the same—business as usual—escalating costs, less opportunity for students and more debt. 

We can’t afford to risk the demise of one of our country’s greatest resources. Action must be taken to reform higher education; once again, making high quality education available to all who qualify.                

Cochran is the former president of Youngstown State University.