written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor Jennifer; originally posted at Mixed Race America
Let me first say that I am entirely biased. I am a university professor. I have spent A LOT of time in classrooms, as a student and now as a teacher. I obviously believe in education, formal education, as a good and as a goal that everyone should strive for.
Let me also say that I know of many successful people who did not attend college or university–people in my own family who, for a variety of reasons, some chosen and some not, never attended a four-year institution of higher learning. So I’m certainly not saying that I believe everyone must attend college and that a university diploma is the sign of success or intelligence.
But I do believe that higher education should be made available for all people–it should be a possibility that people can feel they can strive for and achieve, whether intellectually or financially.
And it is this last part that has me worried. Especially at my alma mater, the University of California at Santa Barbara. Because like all other UC campuses, its students are now subject to a 32% tuition increase–in real money it means students next year will be paying over $10,000 a year for a public school education. It is one of the largest tuition increases the UC regents have ever made in a single year. Students next year will pay 3x in tuition what students paid a decade ago and 6x what I and my fellow students were paying in the early 1990s.
I grew up in a pretty middle-class family–my parents were typical immigrants in the sense of their frugality and their belief that they should work hard for the betterment of the next generation. While I had dreams of going to a private school, I knew that the reality of our financial situation meant that a UC or Cal State education would be my only real option. And I was really fine with that because I knew that California had one of the best public school systems in the nation, if not the world. And I knew that I could work summers and during breaks to save money for my tuition or at least for incidentals (like food and rent) that my parents may not be able to afford. So I graduated from college debt free, which allowed me to think about pursuing PhD work because I didn’t have the pressure of getting a high paying job straight out of school to pay off my debts and then the worry about incurring more debts in grad school (for the record, I am still paying off my grad student loans).
I mention all of this because I worry especially about kids who resemble my own profile–kids of immigrant parents whose one good option–a UC school–seems to be slipping past them. Or kids who will feel an additional pressure to go into majors that will hopefully provide a pipeline into high paying/lucrative jobs, but these may not be career options or even educational options they want to pursue–they may want to be English majors or Art History majors but are being pressured to go into science and math and technology driven majors in the hopes of securing a high paying job to pay back the many loans they have incurred. Or really bright students may decide that studying abroad or thinking about a PhD just isn’t in their future. Or worst of all, there will be kids who simply won’t be able to go to college because they just can’t afford it.
Which means that the diversity–in terms of race but most especially in terms of class will become diminished in the UC system. It means that the gap between those who have and those who have not will grow. It means that we are saying education–a college education–is reserved for an elite who can afford it.
I don’t have any cheerful words to end this post with. I wish I did. I only know that we have to do something–that this education is both a right and a responsibility–that everyone has the right to pursue a higher ed degree and that we have a responsibility to make that happen for all students. How to make this happen? I don’t know. But we owe it to ourselves and our future to figure this out, NOW.
This is a huge issue, and one that affects the whole country to some degree. There’s some evidence, too, that simply the _perception_ that college is unaffordable negatively impacts academic achievement. On the other hand, children who believe that they can afford college are more likely to believe that they will attend college and are more likely to achieve academically. The consequences of high tuition start long before a child even reaches college age.
One proposed solution is subsidized college savings. There is federal legislation in the works (the ASPIRE Act) that could help in this regard. There is also an effort to make state 529 college savings plans more inclusive of low-to-middle-income families. Anyone who is interested can learn more at http://collegesavingsinitiative.org./
I couldn’t agree more that higher education should be a right and accessible to everyone.
I just wanted to mention that nationally this is a really big problem- California’s tuition increase was big, but compared to a lot of states, $10,000 a year at a 4 year state school is low. And most people don’t get to pick which state they live in.
Our tax dollars at work in California:
Consistent with university policy, Katehi also will receive:
* University-provided housing;
* An annual automobile allowance of $8,916;
* A relocation allowance of $100,000 (25 percent of base salary) to offset various costs associated with her relocation to California, subject to proportional repayment if the position is resigned within the first four years of appointment;
* Payment of packing and moving costs for household effects, library and related equipment;
* Reimbursement of travel expenses for business-related visits to the campus during the transition period; and
* Eligibility for a Mortgage Origination Program loan and payment of relocation costs if she continues in a tenured faculty position after stepping down as chancellor. An annual allocation of campus funding will be established if an active research program is maintained during the appointment as chancellor.
Katehi will receive standard pension, health and welfare, and senior management benefits, including senior management life insurance, executive business travel insurance, executive salary continuation for disability, accrual of sabbatical leave and an administrative fund.
Linda Katehi an immigrant gets the above plus a 400K a year salary while students absorb yet another fee hike. I’m not seeing how immigrants are suffering in the UC system only ALL students, American born or foreign are being forced to absorb the ostentatious salaries and lifestyles of regents and chancellors.
Mod note: Really, Amanda, you are derailing this conversation. If you don’t understand how immigrants are being effected by the UC system, then perhaps you should listen to the experience of immigrants, children and allies of immigrants, who can explain it to you. It is very disengenous to make Linda Katehi a stand-in for all immigrants in the UC system. I know that you know that her story is likely quite different from the average immigrant student’s. And even if her story were the same, that is neither here nor there. Saying that because the chancellor, who is an immigrant, makes $400k a year, then no immigrant students are hurting is like saying that because Hillary Clinton and Condi Rice are/were Secretaries of State, women face no barriers to power. The individual is not necessarily illiustrative of the group as a whole.
We can certainly talk about how we can make sure good educators are taken care of (which is important), while education remains accessible to a diverse group of students. Otherwise…Cut it out.
I totally agree with the article. I am jealous of the citizens of Canada who get free higher education. I don’t see how that would ever happen here, given the fact that we don’t even want to make health care a right.
The inability to afford college (even in state tuition) is increasingly an issue for even “upper middle class” families (not to say that it isn’t MUCH MORE of an issue for low income families). I also think that, in our country, making something a lower or middle class issue makes people less likely to support it. Its very sad but true. In the U.S. most people view themselves as “middle class” regardless of their economic position. Many people who are clearly working class view themselves as solidly middle class and see programs on behalf of “those less fortunate” as handouts. I wish this weren’t the case but I see the whole health care debaucle (sp) as a great example of this attitude. I’m only saying this because I think any viable solution will have to help everyone (including those that might not need as much help). In addition, I kind of think nearly all families need help in affording college b/c it has gotten so out of control. I don’t have a solution either…I wish I did. But it doesn’t seem to be a priority for anyone on the political scene and I doubt that the American people will go for anything that results in higher taxes.
@montclairmommy. It’s not free up here, either – though probably even more heavily subsidised that at state schools. Quoting from the fed. govt. stats dept. : “Canadian full-time undergraduate students are paying an average of $4,524 in tuition fees for the 2007/2008 academic year….” plus almost $700 for other mandatory fees. (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/071018/dq071018b-eng.htm).
I’m not sure how the numbers work out but it seems to me that substantial means-tested grants and scholarships need to be part of the solution. Maybe these need to come from tuition hikes for middle- and upper-class students because tax increases doesn’t sell well in Canada either.
Higher education in Canada is not free. that is a persistent rumour that is simply not true. Additionally, in Canada their college system is set up differently than in America which might explain why it is cheaper in some ways. But a university (our equivalent of a 4 year college) is still about $5,000 a year plus books, etc.
I couldn’t agree more. Education is too important to let it be restricted to any one sector of society.
Do I recall correctly that California has some really weird laws about how taxes are managed and raised (i.e., that it’s almost impossible to raise money?) Keep in mind – education isn’t free in any country; it’s just paid for through taxes. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to send my kid to the elite school I went to; hopefully, as a UK citizen she’ll also have access to good affordable higher education there.
Pricing students out of a university education – especially in the sciences – could well end up putting the economy into a negative feedback cycle. Fewer and fewer students, more and more of the foreign students returning home (especially to China and India) to start businesses and create jobs, fewer job opportunities, even fewer students.
And by pricing so much of the country out of higher education, we’re just making the gap between rich and poor (which I assume correlates to predominately white / predominantly non-white, but that’s an assumption) worse, as well as missing out on a huge economic opportunity.
What’s the solution? More means-tested financial aid, and I think a ramping up / restoration of government student loan programs. Loans that are low interest and that can be deferred for post-graduate work, and hopefully postponed during periods of unemployment. In other words, more like a loan from your folks than from the bank.
But should every student who’s capable of higher-level study in any subject automatically be able to get it? I’m not sure – there’s a bit in the back of my engineer’s brain that says ‘how many Art History PhD’s do we need?’ I suppose, though, if the financing is based on loans and terms aren’t too predatory, that’s not really a problem from the economic side.
@Karen L: you don’t say?! That is a really prevailing myth…I wish I knew that five years ago because I had two Canadian roommates who went on endlessly about their “free” educations (they went to grad school in the U.S.). I guess what they meant was ‘relatively’ free. 5K a year is a dream for many American college students! I paid about four times that–and I had a scholarship!! Still it certainly isn’t free if its 5K a year!
Yeah, I would agree that no one is a fan of tax hikes. I don’t know that tuition increases for middle and upper middle class students would go over well. I feel that here, at least in my experience, even middle class families (and sometimes upper middle class families) are often just a lay off away from financial disaster. Hiking up tuition costs that many middle class families already can’t pay…seems that it would make it so only upper class families could send their kids to college. We flirt with that already.
CSU is just as bad. I was accepted into a great UC (Davis), but had to choose the CSU because it was cheaper. Now I feel lucky that I did, or UC would be even more unaffordable. Now fees are going up, and many students can’t get into any class, or classes are being pulled out from under our feet–this is registration month, I’ve seen classes full of students just get deleted.
Many unaffected by this think we’re just complaining about fees going up, but it’s also the mandatory furloughs and class cuts. How are we supposed to graduate if we can only register for six units a semester, either because nothing is offered or because we can’t afford the full-time price?