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Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class
Last week Rick Santorum called the President “a snob” for wanting everyone to get a college education (in fact, Obama never actually called for universal college education but only for a year or more of training after high school). 
Santorum needn’t worry. America is already making it harder for young people of modest means to attend college. Public higher education is being starved, and the middle class will shrink even more as a result.
Over just the last year 41 states have cut spending for public higher education. That’s on top of deep cuts in 2009 and 2010. Some public universities, such as the University of New Hampshire, have lost over 40 percent of their state funding; the University of Washington, 26 percent; Florida’s public university system, 25 percent.
Rising tuition and fees are making up the shortfall. This year, the average hike is 8.3 percent. New York’s state university system is increasing tuition 14 percent; Arizona, 17 percent; Washington state, 16 percent. Students in California’s public universities and colleges are facing an average increase of 21 percent, the highest in the nation.
The children of middle and lower-income families are hardest hit. Remember: The median wage has been dropping since 2000, adjusted for inflation.
Pell Grants for students from poor families are falling further behind; they now cover only about a third of tuition and fees. (In the 1980s, they covered about half; in the 1970s, more than 70 percent.)
Student debt is skyrocketing – the New York Federal Reserve Bank estimates it at $550 billion. Punitive laws enforce repayment, and it’s almost impossible to shed student loans in bankruptcy. There is no statue of limitations for non-repayment.
And yet, Santorum’s rant notwithstanding, good-paying jobs in America are coming to require a college degree. Globalization and rapid technological change are putting a premium on the ability to identify and solve new problems. A college degree is also a signal to prospective employers that a young person has what it takes to succeed.
That’s why the median annual pay of people with a bachelor’s degree was 70 percent higher than those with a high school diploma in 2009 (the latest Census data available).
But public higher education isn’t just a private investment. It’s a public good. Our young people — their capacities to think, understand, investigate, and innovate — are America’s future.
We used to understand this. During the great expansion of public higher education from the 1950s to the 1970s, tuition at public universities averaged about 4 percent of median family income (compared to around 20 percent at private universities).
Young Americans received college degrees in record numbers – creating a cohort of scientists, engineers, managers, and professionals that propelled the economy forward and dramatically expanded the middle class.
But starting in the 1980s, as in so many other areas of American life, we took a U-turn. Tuition at public universities began climbing. By 2005, it was more than 10 percent of median annual family income. Now it’s approaching 25 percent – still a good deal relative to private universities (where it’s nearly 70 percent), but high enough to discourage many qualified young people from attending.
Public higher education has been the gateway to the middle class but that gate is shutting – just when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they’ve been since the 1920s, and when America needs the brainpower of its young people more than ever.
This is nuts.
What’s the answer? Partly to make public universities more efficient. Every bureaucracy I’ve ever been associated with (and I’ve been in some very big ones) has some fat to be trimmed. Yet universities are necessarily labor-intensive enterprises; research and teaching can’t be outsourced abroad or turned over to computerized machine tools.
Another part of the answer is to raise tuition and fees for students from higher-income families and use the extra money to subsidize medium and lower-income kids. Even now relatively few pay the official sticker price; many receive some discount proportional to family income. But this won’t solve the underlying problem, ether.
A big part of the answer has to be more government support for public education at all levels. This requires more tax revenues – especially from Americans who are best able to pay.
Most Americans still believe in the ideal of equal opportunity. And most harbor the patriotic notion that we have responsibilities to one another as members of the same society.
The two principles lead to an obvious conclusion: America’s richest citizens have a duty to pay more taxes so kids from middle and lower-income families have chance to make it in America.
A pending initiative in California would raise taxes on millionaires and use the proceeds to fund public education at all levels. It’s a good idea, and it comes at the right time. Other states should follow.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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24 Comments so far
Show All"But starting in the 1980s, as in so many other areas of American life, we took a U-turn. Tuition at public universities began climbing. By 2005, it was more than 10 percent of median annual family income. Now it’s approaching 25 percent – still a good deal relative to private universities (where it’s nearly 70 percent), but high enough to discourage many qualified young people from attending."
So tuition at any and all universities (public and private) has climbed dramatically as a percentage of family income since the 1970's. Part of this may be that family income has not risen nearly as fast as it should have, but part of this also indicates excessive increases in education costs at almost all universities. Thus, something is also wrong in higher education that costs have risen so much ...
The reason state universities have become so expensive is simply that states have pretty much stopped funding them. They now rely on corporate and rich individual "charity", and mostly, tuition and fees.
I was able to pay-as-I-went at Virginia Tech in the late 1970s. Full-time tuition, meals and dorm was $2100 per year. Newspaper route and Mcdonalds job money paid the first year, then I earned about $4500 a year working half the year on a co-op student job.
Texas and California State U's were free to state residents.
Indeed, but the private university costs have soared too. My parents put me through a private university in the early 1960's for a total sum of about $12,000. That might pay for one term now, but probably not even that much. Costs have far outstripped inflation. All that money is being wasted somewhere ...
RVingRetiree
It is being wasted. Everybody has learned to steal.
Who decided free public education should end in high school?
Taxpayers and the people they choose to vote for.
"Most Americans still believe in the ideal of equal opportunity. And most harbor the patriotic notion that we have responsibilities to one another as members of the same society."
I disagree with that statement. I would argue that to most Americans, "equal opportunity" means you have the opportunity to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF because nobody else is going to help you. Evidence of this is everywhere from Ron Paul's "let the man without insurance die" to generalized resentment for paying taxes. If the United States was truly a country where members of society really felt responsible for one another, you'd have decent social programs, universal health care, etc. You don't. You have a very "every man for himself" type society where individualism is the norm.
Whenever I ask Americans why they don't support Universal Health Care, the most common response is: "Why should I pay for someone else's illness?"
Now there are exceptions to this. In fact, the lower on the economic scale someone is, the more likely they are to believe in sharing. But from my experience, the "I'm not my brother's keeper" attitude is the majority.
Your points on USAn attitude are well taken, but the old "Why should I pay for someone else's illness?" is be patently idiotic. Where do they think their private medical (or house, or car) insurance premiums are going - to a box with their name on it?
The new president of UVM will be paid $447,000 per year. That sets quite an example for the students - an example of greed. We don't need Gordon Gecco running our schools. This is just one more reason to support self-education.
Also the statement about a degree showing one's ability to succeed. What a prejudiced, classist statement ! Let's see, college provides the venue for 'dress to get laid parties', wild drunken brawls as at Albany St Pat's Day celebrations, Spring break drug orgies....
"Let's see, college provides the venue for 'dress to get laid parties', wild drunken brawls as at Albany St Pat's Day celebrations, Spring break drug orgies...."
Maybe it's time to consider auditing some classes. Where is this college?
rosemarie jackowski
If you think the huge 6-figure salaries paid to public university presidents are outrageous -- and indeed they are -- you should check out the salaries paid to the fucking football coaches.
There is a word for those 7-figure salaries lavished on overpaid coaches who are essentially running farm teams for the NFL: Obscene!
Memo to Robert Reich:
Obama is a "snob" -- you can tell by all the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup alumni who populate his White House. Oh, and we musn't forget Timothy Geithner, who was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, before, during, and subsequent to the 2008 Wall Street crash.
PS -- Obama "summers" on Martha's Vineyard, not the South Side of Chicago.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Success in college DOES indicate an ability to succeed in the workforce. There is absolutely nothing "prejudiced" or "classist" about that. Successful college grads from poor or working class backgrounds bring the same indication of ability with them to job interviews as the upper middle class frat boys you seem to be describing. As for the Pres of UVM and his appalling salary, you're right: it's appalling, but that's an argument for more govt support in ed, not less. If our ed system was not such a desperate insecure place to make a living, universities might not pay so much. College presidents do not often remain in the position long. They do of course, often get free (and very cush) housing a "President's Residence" walking distance from the office as well as very good benes and retirement. And coaches, though often grossly overpaid, frequently last no more than 2 or 3 years especially in high stakes, high ticket sports. I have worked at 2 universities and I know exactly whereof I speak. Most faculty are "adjuncts"; underpaid academic gypsies who are not employees, but are contractors, whose contracts are only good for the current academic year, who teach big loads, who can't afford TA's and whose position is totally at the whim of the dept head and chancellor. Senior admin tends to do better and a lot of them have sinecures with titles like "asst, deputy, vice administrative director, blah, blah, blah", These people really are dead weight and should be demoted or axed but since they are golfing buddies with some rich alum, they cruise in comfort until retirement day, then cruise in comfort with a fat pension and "emeritus" status.
In short, universities in America have become just another venue for the law of the jungle. Despite all that, your kids still have a better shot at a decent future with a college degree and our society should get its collective head out of its collective backside and start doing what just about every other major industrial economy does: provide cheap or free higher education to any student with the grades and the ambition to succeed. We will need educated people, after all, to reform the universities and correct the problems you mention.
ctrl-z... Sorry, the addmissions office has a big back-log. Call again tomorrow. I'll be in line too.
Not only that Robert Reich, stop the privatization of all public and social services and take back those that have been privatized. That was/is just a plain giveaway program for the crony capitalist system in this country or whoever bribed the right person to obtain a public or social service. People who get them are certainly of a psychopathic mind set that is like a kid with a new toy that when it isn't giving that feel good from the toy it just gets chucked aside.
Anyway we look at it that is what will have to happen as privateers haven't a concern in the world for what is good except only for themselves. But when it comes to politics there are no good choices as the either or the other are really the samosamo shit. Of course education needs saving because there is as strong a source of dread for the political elite that people will learn and start to thinking and actually do things the those faux elite just abhor and cannot abide.
Stop starving public education. Our local district is looking at the fifth year of cuts.
If liberals would allow the state to become accountable to the people, then they could gain a lot of support from the people for public funding of everything. But instead of making the state accountable to the people, liberals have made the state accountable only to elites, and interestingly, they've made it most accountable to right-wing imperial evil! Bravo, Demoks! You've made us oh so confident in the state!! Why don't you do it again? Fund another evil war of choice, for another power payoff! Help your Repuk buddies further destroy the elite hand that feeds you both! We need your help with that! Then, when you've wrecked it all, we command you to get OUT of our way, while we the people build the alter-society, the alter-economy, the people's enterprise, the people's agenda. The people don't need universities full of "intellectuals" who fail to live by principle. We know that principles work for us. We see the dots are connected, the good dots connected to good dots, bad ones connected to bad ones, and very few bad/good cross-connects. Here's an example. It's a lie when liberals contend that they can be nice to the biosphere while continuing to support the imperial destroyer. You see, good dots really DON'T connect with bad dots! Duh! So in our vision we see that our ethical choices are SIMPLE. What we produce in The People's Economy serve our better interests. No compromises. Novel idea ehh? See if you can get this idea through to your ivy-league ekonomics academics. But I think they already missed the train. I have no idea what they will do now - but we the people know exactly what we are doing. Exciting times for the people.
anti-intellectualism is the oldest, most American form of nativism and reactionary politics. the same class conflicts, false ideologies, bad ideas and baseless assumptions that afflict the rest of us, also afflict the "intellectuals". In other words, "the intellectuals" are not and have never been the problem, nor have universities or university grads, per se. A high level of education is a net good for society even with all the baggage and contradictions that come along with it. The problem with university education now, is that it is no longer aimed at turning out "intellectuals" or critical thinkers at all. It is aimed turning out good cubicle jockeys and worker bees, who know how to finish tasks per instruction and on time, but don't know or care what any of it means. That is the opposite of "intellectual".
Having said all that, your critique is more or less on target, except that the people you call "liberals" no longer call themselves or view themselves as "liberals". They are "3rd way" Democrats who have deluded themselves into thinking there can be wonkish, apolitical 3rd way solutions to political problems that have no ideological content, i.e., "whatever works" is OK. This is either hare-brained or grossly dishonest. It does, however, provide cover for complete co-optation of education by the corporate elite, which is now in full swing, despite rightwing tooth-gnashing about "liberal professors" brainwashing kids into becoming leftwing "snobs".
Supposing that there will be fewer high end white collar jobs in the future, the powers-that-be are simply skewing the playing field in favor of their own children. Fewer students will mean less competition for these prized jobs.
I find it odd the Prof Reich doesn't mention the obscene salarys paid many public univ presidents, such as Reich's own Univ CA head M Yudoff
I have been thinking of reading The Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire.
I think we are seeing a repeat of history.
I tend to agree with jareilly's long comment above, and hope people will re-read it.
..... The period of expansion of college opportunity in the U.S., which Robert Reich pegs as from the 1950s to the 1980s, happens to coincide with my own charting (as someone incapable of escaping Academia!): August 1957: Sputnik. We had been "outsmarted" by the USSR---they launched a satellite that orbited the planet. Beep beeep, and then they put a dog in space. What followed in the U.S. was a radical mobilization of "higher education." Joined through NASA and JFK's admonition that we would put a Man on the Moon with highly bureaucratized large corporations that would construct the Vessels of Discovery.
..... The glow went out of this thrust with the election of Reagan. The Cold War was over. The USSR had lost. Higher education was no longer such a factor in National Defense. (Besides, nerds had taken over corporations, and a true "digital revolution" was changing all relationships.)
..... Meanwhile, as teacher salaries are plummeting at state universities while tuitions keep going up, "bricks and mortar" investments in state universities are probably not declining, at least not presently. Here is why: In most states, the Legislature or The Board of Regents appoints the Board of Trustees of each State University. A lot of licit bribery goes on here. Most trustees and regents are NOT academics. They are businessmen, because after Sputnik American universities became Big Business. Thus today, while college costs keep going up and subsidies keep going down, the interests of the Regents and Trustees are served in the continuing expansion of "bricks and mortar" massive construction projects that continue to add complex "infrastructure" to universities EVEN IF university enrollment should decline.
..... "We're an Empire now..." [Ron Suskind] We Won. We beat the commies. "Reagan proved that inflation doesn't matter" [Dick Cheney] Who needs a college-propagandized nation now, when computerized machines push "productivity" and people are redundant??? The nation's university system is keeping large bricks-and-mortar contractors viable. This is a travesty. The same contractors and their close cousins in the highway construction biz could be relatively easily redirected to more productive endeavors. [But of course---same for the "Defense Industries"...]
..... Increases in college tuition today are paying for grossly unnecessary "bricks & mortar" on-campus construction. But then, you know, there is the old canard called the "Multiplier Effect." It ultimately depends on a Growth Paradigm, but that is for another time. Higher Education has become "a racket." It once was noble in aspiration.
.... -30-
The lessoning of opportunity for a good education is a a lessoning of opportunity period. It is a major weapon in the class warfare waged by the elite. There is a very provocative painting called "Candy From Babies" on Michael D'Antuono's ArtandResponse site that is an iconic image of this particular issue. It depicts a child wrapped in the American flag, holding a tin cup standing in front of torn headlines detailing massive education cuts.
How many parents of college age kids are still saddled with their own tuition debt? Academia is a racket that has just about drained its own swamp.