State Colleges Facing Predictable -- In Fact, Predicted -- Problem of Unaffordable Tuition
Atlantic City Press
Diane D'Amico (DDamico@pressofac.com)
May 2, 2010
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities' first warning that attending a public college in the state was about to become more competitive and less affordable. Those predictions have come true.
In 2000, NJASCU published two reports showing that enrollment was about to skyrocket and the state needed to develop a cohesive agenda to address the shortage of space in the state's public four-year colleges.
Ten years later, undergraduate enrollment at the state's public colleges has increased 35 percent to almost 60,000 students.
But state aid is being cut yet again, and is now at the same level it was in 1995. The percentage of state funding that supports higher education has dropped from 72 percent of the cost of college in 1989 to 55 percent in 1999, when the cost for tuition and fees averaged $5,000 a year.
Next year's funding would reduce state aid to 40 percent of the cost of attendance. Students and their parents will pay 60 percent of the cost of a public state college. Tuition and fees for 2009-2010 averaged $11,000 and will go up at least 4 percent for next year if a proposed state cap holds.
And that's providing the latest crop of high school graduates can get in.
When the annual state budget hearings come around, state legislators, despite regular updates, seem stunned to discover that New Jersey's public colleges don't have enough room for all the students who would like to attend. This year it was Montclair State University president Susan Cole who brought the news that 36,000 New Jersey high school graduates leave the state to attend college, paying much more than they would at a state college.
"Parents are writing fat checks to out-of-state universities," Cole told the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee last week.
There's nothing wrong with going to college in another state. But there is a public policy question about whether students should feel forced to leave, and pay more, because they can't get in to a state college.
Every governor over the past decade has promised to take more interest in higher education. That interest has rarely translated into more money, and this year, with the state budget in such crisis, the colleges already seem resigned to accepting yet another loss of aid. They are fighting to eliminate the proposed 4 percent cap on tuition and fees.
The colleges didn't just sit around and complain for 10 years. They built their own buildings, paying for them by increasing student fees. Legislators mostly just complained about the tuition and fee hikes, conveniently ignoring their role in causing them.
More students are attending state public colleges during the recession. Many are opting for the even more affordable community colleges.
Nationally, the model has become to make higher education a responsibility of families, not government. The lowest-income students are supported through financial aid, though that is getting harder to maintain. The middle class are advised to open college-savings accounts.
Higher education is an easy budget cut because colleges have another source of income in tuition and fees. As long as parents and students remain willing to pay, the system is not likely to change.
Contact Diane D'Amico: 609-272-7241