New Demos Report Shows State Disinvestment in Public Higher Education is Driving Tuition Increases
Decreased State Funding is Responsible for Nearly 80 Percent of the Rise in Public Education Tuition
Recently, there has been much debate about the real cause of tuition increases, which have risen by nearly $3,000 at public four-year universities in the last decade alone. To meet these costs, U.S. students must take on crushing levels of debt just to access education that was readily affordable for previous generations.
Public university students today pay $3,000 more in annual tuition than their counterparts a decade ago.
Why that is depends on whom you ask. Some pundits like to blame administrative bloat or the construction boom. Within higher education, many cite the decline in state support.
“[P]ublic higher education in this country no longer exists,” writes Hiltonsmith. “Because more than half of core educational expenses at ‘public’ 4-year universities are now funded through tuition, a private source of capital, they have effectively become subsidized private institutions.”
While higher education spending used to fluctuate with the economy and tanked during the recession, it has not rebounded as the economy regains strength.
So far, advocates have yet to coalesce around a detailed policy for debt-free college. The congressional resolutions are general statements of principle rather than detailed legislation.
The lack of retirement security for middle-class and low-wage workers is a growing crisis that Washington has refused to address, even though it demands immediate attention.
A group of congressional Democrats introduced a resolution on Tuesday seeking to ensure that students who attend public colleges and universities can graduate without debt.
Several top congressional Democrats will embrace on Tuesday a loose plan to make public colleges a debt-free proposition—and will receive an immediate boost from progressive activists who are hoping to shape the 2016 Democratic agenda.
"You are in a Catch-22," said Emmanuel Caicedo, a senior campaign strategist with Demos, one member of a coalition of 79 labor and civil rights organizations that formed the NYC Coalition to Stop Credit Checks in Employment.
"You can't pay your bills and so your credit is bad. And then you can't get a job to pay your bills because of your credit."
Demos and coalition partners have reached an agreement with the City Council and de Blasio administration to send a bill banning the use of employment credit checks to the City Council floor. In response, President Heather McGhee issued the following statement:
“We are pleased to see progress made in the fight for equal opportunity employment in New York City. Employment credit checks are a catch-22, preventing qualified workers from getting a job just when they really need one most. The biggest drivers of credit problems are job loss and medical emergencies.
Middle class income stagnation, and the inequality that it causes, is the principal economic challenge for the nation — and finance is to blame for it.
Late Tuesday, news broke that yet another unarmed American, a black man named Walter Scott, was killed by a white police officer. As with Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Rodney King nearly 25 years ago, the brutality was captured on video for the world to see. The New York Times put the damning evidence at the very top of its homepage and it quickly spread throughout social media networks provoking outrage, disgust, horror, grief. These reactions have come most vocally from black Americans.
In an op-ed in the New York Times over the weekend, University of Colorado law professor Paul F. Campos offered a provocative answer to the frequently asked question: why is college so expensive these days?