Paying for Public Benefit

It is without a doubt that the United States has some of the best higher educational institutions in the world according to U.S News & World Report. It is also without a doubt to attend one of these higher education institutions can cost you and arm and a leg. The New York Times reported on the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education’s finding that from 1982 to 2007 college tuition a fees increased 439 percent, while median family income rose 147 percent. The report also found that students borrowing money has more than doubled in the last decade. The president of the center, Patrick M. Callan, told The New York Times that the middle class has gone to such extremes to send their children off to college by “financing it through debt.”  David Shulenburger, co-author of a report done by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, toldThe New York Timesthey projected that by 2036 “tuition would go from 11 percent of the family budget to 24 percent of the family budget.”

Dr. David Tan, professor and Department Chair of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University Of Oklahoma’s Jeanne Rainbolt College of Education in Norman, Oklahoma said when it comes to understanding tuition and higher education’s finances it is complicated.  Tan said the government is not doing enough to handle the issue of increasing costs at the higher education level. “Institutions fail at doing the means necessary to raise money,” Tan said. “Especially with the economic situation they can’t expect state money anymore.” The importance of getting funding for higher education by persuading the public that there is a “public benefit” by people becoming educated at the higher level is an idea Tan strongly believes in. Lawyers can perform public services for their community. Medical doctors can keep the public healthy. School teachers can educate future generations. These are just a few ways the educated can contribute to the “public benefit”. Discussing and encouraging this idea of public benefit he said will “provide the resources to pay” and ultimately alleviate the rising cost of tuition.

As reported by The New York Times, while the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges did acknowledge the crisis of rising tuition, the report did place emphasis on other alternative and less expensive forms of education like community college.

“Nothing is wrong with community college,” Tan said. “Where it becomes problematic is where students don’t continue after two years. It has been shown that only a third of those who go to community college actually move on to get their bachelors degree.”

 As a nation, in order to stay competitive we need to aim for those bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees. If people fail to further their higher education, this country might fall in terms of competition in the global world.

“Already, we are one of the few countries where 25-to-34 year-olds are less educated than older workers,” Callan told The New York Times.



Dejuann Hayes patiently waits for her spanish class to start.
She is one of the many students who is dealing with the
high pricetag of getting an education.

“Middle and some lower classes are beginning to exclude themselves from higher education,” Tan said because their incomes can’t keep up with the gradual increase in the cost of going to school.

Dejuann Hayes is a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma and receives financial aid. “Even with financial aid it is very hard to handle all the expenses of college,” Hayes said. “It is even more difficult to have to pay back loans after college.”

It is clear that the expense of going to college is not going anywhere anytime soon.

According to Tan, this country’s education system is “not going to collapse anytime soon”, but one thing is for sure, “dwindling financial resources are not sustainable for the future.” Tan said that tuition costs can be decreased if state and federal governments can encourage the public to invest in education at the higher level with the idea of “public benefit” as the result.

Institutions looking at other sources of revenue other than raising tuition will help to decrease the cost as well. Callan told The New York Times, when universities are not properly funded “We raise tuition and sock it to families when people can least afford it. That’s exactly the opposite of what we need.”

One thing is quite clear and that is officials and professionals in the education field must be able to move away from the idea that the only way to survive is to pass the financial burden on to the students. As Tan said, the topic of higher education finances is complicated, but the way to stop or at least slow the progression of rising tuition costs is as simple as that.