While I agree with most of what Patrick is saying in this article, I think there should be several other points.

As to the personnel cost. If you work at an institution that is in a union environment, where everyone except management is tied to a collective bargaining contract, you have automatic increases. Likewise, there are increases in all cost especially utilities, maintenance, etc. If you do not acknowledge this fact then the rest of the argument on cost containment goes flat. Someone has to pay for these incrases either by taxes or tuition. Holding a “status quo” to cost vs how to pay for these cost does not work.

In economics this is principle is called there is “no such thing as a free lunch.” It works in all of higher education.

Also, the idea about streamlining administrative processes is great, most universities and colleges that I am aware of have very little in the way of “staff,” since the advent and proliferation of the computer, “staff” have been consolidated to such an extent that in some cases, students never see a person to solve a non academic issue. Where the increase in personnel has been apparent is on the academic side of the equation, with increases in all areas: lecturers, professors, adjunct, deans, dean assistants,etc. For good reason: this is a people business, and the product we are selling is education. So to think that streamlining adminsitration and staff will cut the cost, is a “dream.”

The other item is to understand your customer. Today’s student is a consumer of the highest order. They want the biggest and the best that money can buy. Money is not the object, parents and student complain about the high cost of education, then go out and borrow $10,000 above the cost of attendance, becaused they need it to live on, to support the life style. An example of this life style is in “dorm” living. University after universtiy are moving from “dorm” to townhouses and apartments. Instead of 4 people to a room and a communal bathroom (heaven forbide), we now have individual rooms, individual bathrooms, cable in everyroom, air conditioning in everyroom, etc,etc,etc. These things all cost and someone has to pay. Even with this students and parents “add” to the cost. This other “additional cost comes from students and parents who borrow excess funds, these come from alternative loans, which are private loans, that the higher education institutions have little to do with except to process the bank check, create a refund and issue a refund check under the educational facilities name, so the student and parent think they are receiving “financial aid” and then they have the right to complain about the high cost.When in fact they are receiving a bank loan that has to be paid back, which really has nothing to do with education.

This is an old story, not a new one. It goes deeper, it is how in America we view debt and consumerism.

Jim, at 9:25 am EDT on November 2, 2007

I wish I knew where the money goes at my public university. We have a union but contract raises were not implemented because funding from the state was inadequate. The use of adjuncts is greater than 50% in my dept. Efficiency means that we must teach more students in larger classes, without increases in the resources needed to teach them. There are too few tenure track faculty to staff important committees, but every year there is a new initiative from the administration, added to past ones and our ongoing duties. Assessment seems to be more important than teaching. Now we are being asked to join in the begging of external funds from donors, a form of “privatization” that came down this year.

I know that we are not seeing the funds at our level, nor are the students seeing the benefit in the classroom. Where is the money going? I really want to know!

Perry, at 11:30 am EDT on November 2, 2007

Cost drivers

New buildings (construction may come from a different pocket but maintenance and furnishings may not), rising cost of big athletics, administrative costs (e.g. new administrators in charge of assessment), certain big ticket high profile academic activities (not all science and engineering programs have all their costs covered by grants and teaching).

Actual teaching costs — given the increase in low cost adjunct teachers and the like I don’t think that’s where the problem lies.

Faculty Person, at 5:40 pm EDT on November 2, 2007

Fringe Benefits

The analysis in bold-faced item number 2 is incomplete. You can’t say costs are not due to “salary and benefits” and ignore benefits. The cost of health insurance has skyrocketed, and may also explain the shift from full-time to part-time instructors — because the latter do not have to be paid fringe benefits. Further, in the cases I am familiar with, dorms have nothing to do with tuition. They are self-funded out of rental income, and must be improved to compete with off-campus apartments (not to mention the expectation of a generation with private bedrooms and no military experience).

The analysis in the third item is also flawed. My expectation as a student was that a flagship state university should offer an alternative to a vastly more expensive flagship private university, including access to intelligent fellow students. This requires full-ride scholarships to top students, not just top athletes, and that is what my alma mater did. As an alumnus, I continue to support that scholarship program even though I only benefited from it indirectly. Supporting excellence at a flagship program is an explanation, not an excuse, and is probably justified even at a 3rd tier institution.

CC Professor, at 9:00 pm EST on November 4, 2007

In response to Jim’s comments...

“This other “additional cost comes from students and parents who borrow excess funds, these come from alternative loans, which are private loans, that the higher education institutions have little to do with except to process the bank check, create a refund and issue a refund check under the educational facilities name, so the student and parent think they are receiving “financial aid” and then they have the right to complain about the high cost.When in fact they are receiving a bank loan that has to be paid back, which really has nothing to do with education.This is an old story, not a new one. It goes deeper, it is how in America we view debt and consumerism.”

Jim, you make it sound like parents and students always have a choice, and that they only take out the loans for frivolous excesses like private rooms and all kinds of luxuries. And sometimes they do.

However, every year more and more students are forced to take out those loans just to cover tuition/fees, books and basic living expenses. I work for a non-profit in San Francisco that provides 4-year scholarships to underprivileged teens from public schools, and my job has increasingly required me to advise our freshman in financial aid and financial management. Granted, the Bay Area cost of living pushes more students toward loans for survival than in most other areas, but trust me — our students are not living it up. In fact, most of them are living at home and taking what they can get to help pay for rent, food and medical bills for an entire household.

Also, you make it sound like the schools and private loans are practically unaware of each others’ presence. Have you not heard of the college financial aid and admissions personnel who have been prosecuted for helping private lenders, or the “incentives” given to many such personnel to curry favor? I assure you that financial aid officers and school finance officers are ACUTELY aware of any and all options for students, and they capitalize on that every chance they get.

Example: it so happens that while working for this non-profit, I also happen to be pursuing an MFA in Photography at a local private institution. For the first time that I know of, the PLUS loan was offered to grad students a year ago (previously only offered to parents of undergrads). Most grad programs have little or no scholarships, especially in art school, and mine offers none. Almost simultaneously, I received a notice that my tuition was increasing by $100/credit and lab fees were increasing by $50 for each class, thus raising my total cost for the year by about $2500. The amount of the PLUS loan? About $3500 for the year. Coincidence? I think not.

The fact of the matter is that college costs not only have risen faster than income, but they move in lockstep with all federal and private funding increases — why wouldn’t they? They’d be crazy not to. If congress succeeds in increasing the Pell Grant to $4900 per year, I GUARANTEE costs will increase.

Caveat: I personally believe that it’s not necessarily the college who is first to follow the funding bar every time it’s raised. I’m pretty sure that most of the biggest private contractors in colleges watch the numbers and may actually jump first. If Sedexo/Marriott or the parking managers or security firms or janitorial service vendors see that students suddenly are given a windfall in funding, why not increase their fees, too? They know that the school will eventually pass the cost on to the student...

The bottom line: I am pretty sure that higher ed funding will become the new mortgage lending crisis. It’s been ripe for the picking for years now. There’s a huge, steady supply of students and plenty of demand for college grads in the economy (not only to replace retiring baby boomers, but also as part of the American corporate frenzy to push costs as low as possible by keeping salaries low). Let the feast begin. In 20 years, we’ll see college grads who can’t contribute to the economy because their paychecks will mostly be going to repay school for 10-20 years. They won’t buy houses, new cars, invest in stocks, purchase many goods, etc., etc....

To put this into perspective, I remember how my grandfather paid for his private college education after the Depression. When he was a freshman in 1934, the school was struggling to survive, and enrollment was small. So they accepted cartloads of apples from his parent’s orchard as part of his first year’s tuition. Apples! Thereafter, to supplement his scholarships so he could live on campus, he brought the family’s best milk cow to school and sold eight bottles of milk locally every morning for $0.10 each. Milk! And apples!

After graduating, he married my grandmother, took a teaching job in a nearby rural town and promtly borrowed a bit of money and built a two-story house (which still stands in Gooding, Idaho to this day) and bought a truck. For most of the rest of his working life, he supported 5 kids and my grandmother on a teacher’s/professor’s salary.

Those days are LONG GONE. Why should they be, though? I hate to sound like a fuddy-duddy (I’m only 38), but why is it that even blue-collar workers as recently as 30 or 40 years ago were able to have a house, a car, raise a family and retire in relative comfort, and now we’re castigating college students for griping about financial aid??? We should ALL be griping about this.

It’s seldom true anymore that a college student can just get a few grants and scholarships and work very hard and come out with a college degree ready to participate fully in the American Dream. But what choice do they have?

I decided to get an MFA so I could teach in a college setting like my father, grandfather and many other relatives — it’s in our blood, and I’d be damn good at it. But I just don’t know if I can even stomach the fact that: a) I’ll be getting paid crap and most of it will go to pay off my loans, and b) I’ll have to teach knowing that my students are getting the shaft with a long line of government agencies and private vendors reveling in the spoils.

Shane, at 8:35 am EST on November 7, 2007

Shane

Obviously, there is some connection between tuition increases and the availability of financial aid. Why shouldn’t there be?

But to say it’s lockstep is inaccurate. Pell Grants and annual limits on federal loans have not icnreased in years, yet that hasn’t stopped colleges from raising prices.

Finally, no one has been “prosecuted” as a result of Cuomo’s or any AG’s investigation.

Alex Hamilton, at 3:05 pm EST on November 8, 2007