Posted on 06/27/2002 3:42:35 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON - Even as the nation launches sweeping reforms to get kids ready for college, new trends signal that hundreds of thousands who make the grade won't be able to afford to go.
This trend is hitting middle-income families, as well as the poorest first-generation immigrants. It's not inevitable. But, for now, it's only getting worse.
Here's the pattern: Rising college tuition, which has outpaced inflation since the 1980s. Less need- based student aid to pay it. And record levels of personal debt at the end of it. For many families, a college education is a bridge too far.
Nearly half of all qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates couldn't attend a four- year college this year. By 2010, that will add up to 4.4 million students, according to a report released Wednesday by a Congress-appointed commission on financial aid in America.
Several studies in recent years have raised alarms about how inaccessible college is becoming, but none as emphatically as this one, which for the first time looks both at financial data and information about student academic preparedness.
For a nation that in 1965 committed to the promise that no student should be turned away from higher education because they can't pay for it, it's a sobering conclusion.
Moreover, it comes at a time when most states face budget deficits they are resolving in part by further cutbacks in higher education. This was the response of state legislatures to the most recent recessions in the early 1980s and 1990s. But today's budget decreases – and double-digit tuition increases at some state colleges and universities in recent months – are making access an even more remote prospect for many students.
Budget cuts for colleges
"The trend is to cut budgets for higher education and increase tuition. We're looking at another famine in higher education," says Marga Torrence, a policy analyst at the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
Midyear budget cuts in Wisconsin even prompted a freeze of admissions at state universities, after which the legislature proposed cutting another $44 million in higher education funding.
The new report, released by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, finds that the students being shut out of higher education aren't just kids in lower-income brackets. They are also students who have done the right things to get ready for college: They have taken college preparatory courses, graduated near the top half of their classes, maintained an acceptable grade- point average and SAT scores. Still, they can't get over the financial obstacles.
"This is very important, because we've just put the nation on a path of ensuring that more children graduate from high school, and more graduate prepared to go to college. That's what elementary and secondary school reform has been about for more than a decade. What happens if it works?" says Brian Fitzgerald, the advisory panel's staff director.
No one turned away?
Beginning with the G.I. Bill after World War II, the federal government has expanded access to higher education. The Higher Education Act of 1965 set as a goal that no high school senior would be turned away from college "because his family is poor." In 1972, Congress expanded access to college through education opportunity or Pell grants.
But sometime in the 1980s – and without much public debate – the emphasis began shifting from grants to loans, and from financial need to academic merit as the basis for receiving them. In states such as Georgia, need disappeared altogether from state funding formulas.
With high-paying manufacturing jobs disappearing, access to a college education became an even more important key to employability and advancement.
"The returns on a four-year college degree are now very significant.... Yet only about half [the low- income high-school graduates] who are qualified actually go," says Mr. Fitzgerald, who directed the study.
For the past 10 years, the US Department of Education has encouraged programs to get such students ready for college. New mentoring programs aimed to build motivation to go to college in early grades. But even as academic barriers came down, financial barriers were rising, especially for poor families.
"Only the wealthiest families have seen their income keep pace with increases in tuition," concludes another study, "Losing Ground," released in May by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
In response, national groups such as the College Board are beginning to push for refocusing aid on the students who most need it.
"There's general agreement that access is a huge issue, and [the problem is] growing," says Michele Booth Cole, executive director of government relations for the College Board.
The debate will spread to Capitol Hill in the next Congress, when reauthorization of The Higher Education Act comes up.
Hell, the way the military of today is, you can still be a tree-hugging leftist lesbian and no one will screw with you. Just don't get caught smoking that spliff.
Grants (gifts) for college are growing steadily. This welfare for college students needs to be stopped. What ever happened to students WORKING their way thru college?
My sentiments exactly, but in order to DO that, you'll first have to get rid of Min. Wage. Then get rid o f the Dept of Education.
With an opening line like that the author has to either have a great sense of humor or be completely insane.
Education is a marvelous thing. But "education" does not necessarily follow from "college" unless you count screwing around and getting wasted as "education." And anyone with eyes can see that employability certainly doesn't follow necessarily from "college."
Thomas Sowell had a great line in one of his books regarding the generally higher incomes of the college educated. He said something like, "you'll also find that people who spent a lot of time flying in airplanes during their childhood also tend to have higher incomes, but that doesn't mean that we should put children in airplanes and start flying them around."
Before too long, distance learning, lifelong learning, apprenticeship programs and host of other options will become more common -- as people begin to recognize the limited value of the old dumbed down, four-year, left-wing indoctrinated, right out of high school model.
The current College is far too expensive for the actual value it delivers.
An analogy is the symphony orchestra -- an extremely cumbersome and very expensive institution that at one time was the primary vehicle for creative musical expression. But today the symphony orchestra is primarily a museum experience, since almost nothing worthwhile is written for it anymore (outside of Hollywood). And because every great symphonic composition can now be heard by anyone who wants to pay the price of a CD, or rent a video, there is no reason to keep very many functional orchesras -- which generally require heavy state subsidy -- around. But with the death of the symphony orchestra, somehow we live in the most musically rich environment in the history of the planet.
Technology and product redefinition will do for education what they did for music -- make more of it available, at far less cost, with far less need for archaic and prohibitively expensive elitist institutions.
My last high school reunion was a mix of college graduates and trade school graduates - and on the balance, the trade school guys were a lot happier. They had their own businesses, more time for play, plenty of money and were going to be pretty much retired by 50.
My fellow alums who weren't self employed were busy playing office politics and getting screwed over by corps.
Huh? Just not sure what I said to make you post this to me.
I am a mix of 'military', 'trade school', 'college', and my personal favorite: "The school of hard knocks.".
I'm at what should be my most productive mid-career point (I've found that I'm not the 'corporate' type for sure.), and I'm thinking about starting my own business because a lot of what you say I have experienced.
And I certainly didn't mean to imply that without 'college' someone has no future. Some of my friends in various trades that I used to think were making mistakes are now better off financially than I am, so much for conventional wisdom.
Anyway, L8R.
My sentiments exactly. Also, if the price is too high, then it means that there's not enough supply to meet the demand. A perfect opportunity for entrepreneurs to open new colleges.
On that I agree. BUT, it used to be that someone who had a high school diploma could read and write at a certain level. That, sadly, is no longer the case. So employers want college grads to perform jobs that really didn't require bacherlors degrees in the past.
Really? Then why all the remedial classes in college?
Back to the point, anyone who wants to go to college in this country can do so. They just might have to actually work at it. Oh, the humanity!
Tax credits cannot be taken by people whose income is either not high enough or too high. In our house, our son and daughter do not make enough money to qualify. My husband and I make too much money to qualify. The result? One is going to a 'Junior College' for two years and living at home. The second two years will be spent at the University of Wisconsin, where the cost will be steep, but still a good value. Our son will be attending a technical school.
We are helping both children, but they are expected to hold jobs to cover their personal expenses, car insurance, etc.
We could take money from our 401K, but then, most of it has already been taken by corrupt FOB.
In 1965, the Johnson committed us to quite a bit of foolishness.
Four years at at a four-year college is not the only path to a degree. Didn't any of these folks see the movie "Rudy"? Those with the determination will find a way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.