Page 18 - index

A RATIONAL OPTIMIST’S

VIEW OF AMERICAN

HIGHER EDUCATION

DR. LANE A. GLENN

IF EVER THERE WAS A “WINTER OF DISCONTENT” FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

IN THE UNITED STATES, THE LAST DECADE OR SO HAS BEEN IT.

Te media and the public at large seem to be increasingly COST
“discontent” with American colleges and universities, and we
have all heard the list of complaints: Costs are soaring, teaching Here is the complaint:
methods are outdated, not enough students are completing
degrees, and the United States is falling behind the rest of the Colleges and universities build Taj Mahal dorms, overcharge
world in producing the educated scientists and engineers who students, and feece the government for fnancial aid.
will keep us competitive in the 21st century. Accumulated student loan debt in America has reached nearly $1
trillion, more than automobile and credit card debt, and second
With a great “Harrumph!” Time recently ran a cover story only to mortgage loan debt. On top of that, students are racking up
asking the decidedly discontented question: Is College a Lousy more than $100,000 in loans pursuing Liberal Arts degrees, only to
Investment? (McArdle, 2012). fnd themselves unemployed or working as a barista at Starbucks.
It is time to pause, take a breath, and look at what is really Sound familiar?
happening–behind the screaming headlines. As the famous
humorist Mark Twain once drily commented afer the New York While there may be a kernel of truth to some of these claims
Herald printed the unfortunate news that he was gravely ill and (just as Mark Twain’s cousin, James Ross Clemens, really was
about to expire in a London hotel room, “Reports of my death are ailing in England), the whole picture is not nearly as dire as the
greatly exaggerated.” doomsayers would have you believe.
And so it goes with American colleges and universities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES), the amount that most public colleges and universities
Problems do exist, and individual institutions and entire are spending per student has remained relatively fat for at least
systems can and should be doing more to rein in expenses, the last seven years, increasing only $321 in infation-adjusted
improve student success, and produce more graduates in dollars, from $28,050 in 2005-2006 to $28,371 in 2011-2012
high-demand fields. But when it comes to the three chief (NCES, 2013).
complaints you are probably hearing the most about–cost,
completion, and competitiveness–higher education in this Te big diference is not that colleges are spending lavishly,
nation is far from expired. or even spending much more than they did before. It is that
the cost of college, among public institutions, is shifing from
In fact, you can cheer up, because when you take a careful and state support to student and family support. As an example,
clear-eyed look at the fgures behind the frenzy, you will fnd according to an analysis by a special Higher Education Finance
there is plenty of reason for a more rational optimism. Commission established by the State Legislature last year,

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