Can't Afford to Have It, Can't Afford Not to

A recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education raised some alarm bells among people like me who are sacrificing everything to get a graduate degree. Due to state-level cutbacks in higher education, grad students and Ph.Ds are having to go on food stamps because the jobs are drying up. Adjunct positions are no longer plentiful, and full-time positions are not becoming available, as public universities are forced to cut back to adjust to reductions in funding.

I am, at heart, a libertarian who believes that government should serve a limited set of crucial societal functions: things like the military, roads and bridges, and at the state/local level, public safety... and education. That's right... while I do think the federal government needs to get out of the education business, the states have a responsibility to provide children with a quality K-12 education, and to provide opportunities for higher education should people decide to pursue it. State universities are among some of the greatest research centers in the country, and through low tuition for in-state students, they give lots of low-income students a shot to get a college degree without racking up massive student loan debts.

Unfortunately, a lot of right-wing governors have gotten it in their heads that when it comes to balancing their states' budgets, education is the first thing to go. Now I can understand the feeling that there has been an inverse relationship between increases in education spending and actual results. I understand frustrations with people who see high schoolers who can't find Asia on a map or read at a high school level. I understand the frustrations of my fellow teachers at colleges who wonder how their students don't know basic skills that we think should be mandatory to give someone a high school diploma, let alone get them into college. Believe me, there are times when the idea that throwing money down the proverbial education sinkhole seems like it's not worth it anymore.

Take Philadelphia, for instance. The city school system was taken over by the state over a decade ago and that didn't stop the mismanagement. If anything, it got worse, as the district hired Arlene Ackerman as superintendent, only to watch Ackerman create a PR firestorm that caused the district to have to buy out her contract. And after they did that, leaving taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Ackerman had the audacity to APPLY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT. The last straw came when Harrisburg pretty much said they were done financing such shenanigans, and the Philadelphia School District had to recently announce that it is CEASING TO EXIST. In its current form, anyway. The kids of Philadelphia will still get an education, but there will be more reliance on private entities and charters (who are also going through their own cutbacks).

However, when it comes to college, I cannot think of any good argument for cutting funding. Not one. Now I've heard and read rumblings from some on the Left who think that the cuts are political... that right-wingers are sick of "liberal elitism" coming from our colleges and universities, so they are trying to flush all that out by starving state schools. Despite quotes from Texas education officials in recent years that seem to support this contention, I can't see how this is a good idea. Plenty of right-wing politicians went to state schools; they didn't all get MBAs from Harvard or wherever the hell Mitt Romney went. Rick Santorum went to Penn State... one of a few schools now being targeted for the second year in a row by Gov. Tom Corbett for massive reductions in state funding. The end result is positions getting dropped, because the schools have necessary expenses they have to meet, such as maintenance and public safety and administration. It also results in an increase in tuition for all students, but the in-state students are the hardest hit. The once-affordable state schools start to price themselves out of the reach of lower-income students.

Now the schools, of course, are not without blame. Universities feel the need to be constantly building or renovating, because they feel that they need to stay "competitive" with everyone else who is constantly building and renovating. But this arms race of sorts leads to increased maintenance costs, increased IT staffs to network these buildings, and administration to cover these new departments or whatever gets put in these buildings, all of which leads to higher tuitions. What I have never understood (and would love someone to explain to me) is the endowments. All universities, both public and private, have them. The private schools (especially the Ivy League schools) have the largest, in the tens of billions of dollars, but state schools also have billion-dollar endowments. With these schools sitting on so much money, why the hell do they keep raising tuitions? What is the purpose of the endowments, other than the ability to say "ours is bigger than yours?" Like it's a comparison of manhoods or something. Talk about hoarding cash. These endowments never get touched; instead, tuitions continue to go up, alumni are endlessly tapped for donations, and college becomes more and more expensive.

I agree with the president that we have to make college affordable, and give as many people as possible the opportunity to get a college degree. They don't have to take those opportunities, but they should be available. That leads us to the latest political football, the cut in student loan interest rates that is about to expire. I seriously wonder sometimes why we put "sunset dates" on laws... is it because we otherwise wouldn't revisit these issues? I don't think we really needed to revisit the possibility of interest rates doubling, but here we are, and unless our Congress acts (and based on everything that's happened in the last 18 months, the chances of them acting on this or ANYTHING are slim and none), the massive loan debt crushing our nation's young graduates will become even larger. Now some are calling for student loan debt to be forgiven completely. We cannot do that. I know it's a nice idea, but the economy (our financial sector in particular) really can't handle Sallie Mae following her cousins Fannie and Freddie into collapse.

I think instead we need to at least get a handle on this at the state level... there should be NO cuts to higher education at the state level. NONE. If states can't balance their budgets, they need to find other ways to get it done. If they absolutely have to make cuts in order to make ends meet and maintain critical services and not drive people to other states from excessive taxation, then the states should force their universities to spend more from their endowments to make up for the cuts. I think they should force the universities to spend more regardless, but at least this will solve the budgetary problems. Why would we not want to give people the chance to better themselves? It just seems ludicrous to think that in an age where you need a college degree to get most jobs, we would tell our young adults that they have to doom themselves to debt to get the degree, or worse, discourage them from trying at all. It's really about that more than anything. Sure I'll need a job in a year or so when I finish up in grad school, but if young adults just decide they can't go to college, there won't be any teaching jobs for me anyway due to lessening demand. And then nobody wins.