By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
10-AUG-05
The beginning of the fall semester on most of the nation's college campuses is quickly approaching, a time for ivy-covered walls, football Saturdays, sleeping through classes and tuition hikes that would bust the Rockefellers.
Tuition rates have been increasing at an alarming rate over the past 20 years, raising concerns that potential middle- and lower-class enrollees will be either priced out of the market or accumulate huge debt to achieve a college education.
"We all dream about the day when we will send our children off to college," said Elaine Weiss, president of the Illinois CPA Society. "But figuring out how to pay for college can be the stuff of nightmares."
The problem isn't new, just growing more critical.
According to the College Board (which administers the SAT test) tuition and fees in the 1980s increased at triple the rate of growth in median family incomes. Over 10 years concluding with the 2002-2003 academic year, average tuition and fees at both public and private four-year colleges and universities rose by an inflation-adjusted 38 percent.
While the increases are slowing, they remain problematic. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities estimated that costs rose 10.5 percent for the 2003-2004 academic year and another 13 percent in 2004-2005. The average tuition at a four-year public college or university last year was $5,132.
This year, according to the association, an improving national economy will lessen the impact. Even so, tuition is expected to jump another 8 percent, well above the rate of inflation.
"The situation is improving, but there's still a real concern about college affordability out there," said Travis Reindl, director of state policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "We're still seeing campuses trying to play catch-up from the time their funding was way down. Lots of states have rising enrollments that are putting a squeeze on classrooms and dorms. In some places, faculty and staff haven't gotten raises in two or three years."
Most of the problem stems from state financial support, or lack thereof. During down times, state colleges and universities have proven to be easy budget-cutting targets. As state financial commitment declined, schools were forced to increase tuition to balance budgets , sort of a quiet tax increase on workers sending their kids to school.
In Michigan, for instance, state universities wrestled with three straight years of cuts in state aid totaling $212 million. Since 1982, state funding for Michigan's colleges and universities has dropped from 62 percent of the schools' total budgets to 40 percent.
That trend is evident elsewhere. Over the past 20 years, Reindl said, "We have definitely seen a persistent decline in the percentage of total funding the state kicks in, down to about one-third and still falling."
The problem lies in the limited pool of available dollars. Harry Moberly, a Kentucky legislator who chairs the state House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, acknowledges that "there's not enough public support at this point" for colleges and universities, but states find themselves hogtied.
States are pouring more and more resources into health care, Moberly said, particularly Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides medical services to the poor. Over the past five years, Medicaid costs to states have risen 63 percent. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Association, said Medicaid represents about 22 percent of the average state budget and is a larger percentage than all elementary and secondary education.
"If you look in most states, when you get beyond Medicaid and look in other areas of the budget, and you're trying to protect elementary and secondary education, the only other big pot of money in the budget is higher education," said Moberly, who also is director of the Office of Student Judicial Affairs at Eastern Kentucky University.
Reindl said higher-education funding often winds up on the "nice-to-do" list but often finds itself crowded out by other priorities. That means students have to pick up a higher percentage of the tab and college presidents "spend a heck of a lot more time with donors" trying to get them to increase gifts and grants.
"When a recession rolls around, higher education gets the wind knocked out of it," he said. "There's a very real danger out there that students will be priced out of higher education and I think campuses are taking that to heart. I think they see that. The difficulty is how to serve and how to keep the doors open to all students needing higher education while at the same time you have to live with what you get from the state."
All this has led desperate parents to look for various means to finance their children's college education. Weiss of the Illinois CPA Society noted that many states now offer special savings plans that allow funds to be withdrawn tax-free to pay for college expenses. And there is financial aid in the form of loans, grants, scholarships or work-study programs. Federal Pell grants are a popular form of assistance, but more and more prospective students are applying for the funds, leaving a smaller pie for all.
(Contact Bill Straub at StraubB@shns.com)
