Speaking of bailouts, business and government must give urgent attention to another crisis-in-the-making with profound long-range consequences for U.S. society. That is, keeping college education affordable.
Trend lines are disturbing. Family income is down while college tuitions are rising.
Producing a large, college-educated workforce is not only socially desirable, but also an economic and technological necessity. Higher education both provides skilled professionals in complex social, scientific and commercial fields to keep America ahead in a competitive globalized economy and skilled faculties to teach future generations.
If keeping Detroit automakers and Wall Street financial firms afloat is vital to the national interest, how could an educated society be any less important?
A new report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education provides the unsettling data.
- College tuition and fees rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007, while median family income rose only 147 percent.
- Among the poorest U.S. families with incomes in the lowest 20 percent, the net cost of a year attending a public university was 55 percent of income in the 2007 academic year, up from 39 percent in the 1999-2000 academic year.
- Even at less expensive community colleges, the cost was 49 percent of poorest families' income, up from 40 percent.
- Further tuition increases can be expected nationwide beginning in January.
Although the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges optimistically argues that college educations still are affordable within a wide range of tuitions—$3,200 to $33,000 per year, not including other fees and housing—it agrees with studies that show the trend is toward less affordable costs for families.
Some cost controls are gaining attention: shortening college from four years, using high school senior years for college courses, creating more distant-learning college programs using the Internet.
Relying on wealthy families to produce most of the nation's college graduates is not an attractive option. Business, government and philanthropies must gear up to provide subsidies, endowments and scholarships that keep college in reach for the widest range of families. Future geniuses can be found anywhere.
A college degree is a sound investment, too. In a 2007 study, the College Board calculated that a B.A. degree is worth 60 percent more than just a high school diploma—or, about $800,000 in income over a lifetime.
The contributions of a college education to the nation are incalculable.
