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Quality and Efficiency, Please, Not Tuition Increases
A recent Roper Survey, taken in conjunction with the 2011 update to What Will They Learn? shows that the American public is not interested in hearing more excuses for rising costs tuition costs and lackluster educational outcomes. 46% believe they do not get their money's worth from higher education. At a few colleges and universities at least, trustees and administrators have been listening to the public, to parents, and to students.
After years of runaway tuition increases and the grim calculus of a recession whose effects are now extending into a fourth year, they see the ever-rising cost of going to college as unsustainable. In 2009, ACTA and the Illinois Policy Institute criticized Illinois public universities for a history of massive tuition increases. Then Southern Illinois University Chancellor Sam Goldman, President Glenn Poshard, and the Trustees froze tuition and fees in 2010-2011 and increased the rate only modestly the following year.
Chancellor Goldman stated: "I think this decision, which says zero increase, says we understand the situation everybody is in." Increasingly, schools are freezing tuition rates.
Most recently, several private colleges -- including Sewanee and the University of Charleston -- have lowered their tuition rates, as seen in The New York Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education (here and here).
These actions represent real leadership in American higher education. America is #1 in higher ed spending per student among the industrialized nations of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, coming in at more than twice the average expenditure for those nations. Yet, our results are far below average in terms of student proficiency and skills. The answer is not more spending and higher tuitions. It's judicious and prudent use of the limited funds available.
Posted by dburnett on November 21, 2011 at November 21, 2011 05:41 PM
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