Writing in the New York Times earlier this week, columnist David Leonhardt expresses his dismay at the decline in state funding for higher education, the resulting surge in tuition, and the slide in economic diversity at the nation’s top public universities. “The declines in state funding are stunning,” he says. “It’s as if our society were deliberately trying to restrict opportunities and worsen income inequality.”
Judging by the data he presents, Virginia is no exception to the rule. A chart showing twenty “top public universities” includes the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. They are second and third from the bottom ranked by the percentage of Pell Grant recipients. (Federal Pell Grants go to students from lower-income families.) Leonardt’s op-ed also displays graphics showing state funding cuts for higher education since 2008. While Virginia isn’t among the worst of the bunch, it’s isn’t one of the better ones either.
“The net result, to put it bluntly, is bad for the country,” says Leonhardt. “Top state universities are displacing impressive low-income students, who have often overcome troubled neighborhoods and high schools. Many of those students then enroll instead in colleges with fewer resources and higher dropout rates. In the process, the higher-education system becomes a bit less meritocratic.”
Bacon’s bottom line. Leonhardt’s op-ed casts the local higher-ed issues that we’ve been examining here in Bacon’s Rebellion in a national light. Misery loves company. I suppose it’s some comfort to know that what we’re experiencing here in Virginia is part of a national trend, not something uniquely perverse to the Old Dominion.
Why would this trend be national in scope? Clearly, the slashing of state aid to higher ed must be viewed in the context of stagnant state budget revenues nationally, caused primarily slow economic growth, and by the crowding out of state General Funds by Medicaid expenditures. State legislatures find it easier to cut higher-ed spending because colleges and universities — unlike, say, public schools, prisons and state police — have the means to make up the difference by raising tution.
Unless President Trump’s economic policies usher in a new era of growth and prosperity (I’ll let you judge the likelihood of that happening), state budgets will remain chronically stressed. As the population ages, Medicaid expenditures will continue to increase. As Baby Boomer teachers, policemen, and state employees retire en mass, many states will meet a fiscal reckoning in the not-too-distant future as the reality of massively under-funded pension liabilities hits home.
In other words, states’ cruel fiscal choices will not get any easier. State legislatures will continue to nibble away, year by year, at the amount of state support they provide public colleges and universities.
“This country should … be investing more of its resources in education,” writes Leonhardt.
Spending more money is always the answer for some people. Given that such people never advocating spending less on anything, that choice leads ineluctably to higher taxes. Great — educate the middle class. Then run it off with higher taxes.
Here in Virginia and across the nation, we need to challenge conventional thinking about how to provide citizens with the knowledge and skills they need to function in a 21st century society. Perhaps we should re-examine the assumption that a four-year college education is the best path of upward social mobility for lower-income people. So many jobs today require technical training, not a college education. Should lower-income students be encouraged to drop out of the labor market for four years, and rack up debt in the process, in order to enter a four-year institution that the odds say are 50/50 they will never complete?
Instead of spending more on higher education — we spend plenty already — perhaps we should be spending money differently.
Hat tip: Steve Haner.
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