New Jersey College Tuition Caps Hide More Than They Help

 

Trenton Times

February 1, 2010

 

As it will still be a while until the next state budget is put before the legislature, it is a good time to single out an artful Trenton creation that serves primarily a political aim: the tuition cap.

 

Over the past decade or so, ironically coinciding with a period of funding reductions to higher education institutions, Trenton has seen fit to impose, periodically, an arbitrary limit on the rate of state college/university tuition increases. 

 

As state investment declined, citizens had to make up for the difference by paying a significantly higher share of state college costs. Tuition caps gloss over this core problem. On the surface, the caps seem to help students and families. Ultimately, though, they are poor policy because they impinge on the responsibility and accountability of the nonpartisan, volunteer citizen trustees at each individual state college and university to make tuition decisions that strike a reasonable balance among affordability, educational quality and fiscal responsibility and commitments. By law, such decisions are made in public meetings.

 

It is instructive that, for the current year, tuition increases would have been about 3% without the cap set in the budget. The 3% cap simply codified agreements that had already been struck in Trenton with input from state college presidents and trustees who were concerned about college affordability amidst a worrisome economic climate.

 

Moreover, prior tuition caps that were set as part of past state budgets have not affected the overall affordability of college any more than the size of fuel tanks on automobiles has affected gas mileage or the price of petroleum. In both cases, there are larger, longer-term forces at play. With colleges, the factors include student/family resource limitations; enrollment demand; facilities debt accumulated because of lack of state investment in facilities over recent decades; and state-mandated, contractual, salary obligations; among others. Reflecting this principle, some states that have tried to suppress tuition increases have reached the point, often in a recession, at which a jolting increase was critical to fiscal survival. This has been the case with the CUNY (City University of New York) and SUNY (State University of New York) systems in New York. California, with its recent 32 percent tuition hike, is an example of a state that may have kept tuition increases too low in certain years.

 

This is not an argument for even higher tuition. Students in New Jersey are already paying a higher share of college costs than they should. Neither is this a case for less accountability; direct public accountability is important. Rather, it is an effort to clarify the kinds of actions needed to preserve and enhance the affordability of public, four-year institutions. These steps include:

 

n	Reasonable and predictable state investment in college operations and facilities;
n	Relief from state constraints and bureaucratic red tape that have long outlived their purpose or never helped the colleges in the first place;
n	Relief from state mandates not backed by government funding, which then have to be paid for using precious tuition revenues;
n	Rethinking and realignment of some student financial aid programs with the needs of students from low- and middle-income families foremost in mind;
n	Greater freedom for institutions to engage in entrepreneurial ventures and partnerships to help raise new revenues and defray costs; and
n	Holding citizen boards of trustees at state colleges and universities accountable for policy governing these institutions, including the setting of tuition.

 

Based on the results of polls sponsored by New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, many New Jersey residents say that the state should do a lot more to help enhance college opportunity and affordability. State college leaders look forward to working with the new governor and legislature on these matters.

 

"Capping" tuition is a feel-good measure that does not merit support because it creates an illusion that damages public trust and obscures the truly important college affordability issues that can and should be addressed soon.