Bacon's Rebellion

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Bad Move by U. Va.

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Peter Galuszka
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Helen-DragasBy Peter Galuszka

Helen Dragas gets it.

The Board of Visitors member at the University of Virginia tried to hold the line against cutting back on the school’s AccessUVA program, a highly successful endeavor that for 10 years has helped low income get a high level education with generous grants.

Citing cost pressures, U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan convinced the board to stick to lower income kids. Now they have to take out loans for the first $7,000 of their costs. Only then would they be eligible for grants. This automatically sticks them with $28,000 in debt no matter what they do or how poor they are.

This saves the school about $6 million a year by the time it’s fully implemented in 2018. U.Va. is following other schools such as Yale, MIT and Harvard that had easy grant policies for low income students but rolled them back.

One argument is that U.Va. is already a terrific bargain for in-state families (I know since I have been a Hoo parent). One possibility to help low income kids would be to charge high-income families a little more than the $14,000 or so annual costs. Still a great deal when schools like Wesleyan in Connecticut and Harvey Mudd in California run $57,000 for tuition, room and board.

Some other bloggers around here cheer the decision to screw low income students. That is to be expected given that some of them actually want to privatize U.Va. and make it some hoity-doity Southern-fried Harvard. They just don’t want poor kids around. Their families may make well into the six figures but they think U.Va. is too expensive. Get a life!

It’s also odd that U.Va. has come to this decision just before President Barack Obama announces his plan to restructure giving federal aid according to how many low income students a school has, its graduation rates, etc.

The plan may not go anywhere but it is an effort to do something about college costs. Moreover, U.Va. also could cut more administrative costs. And, how much did that South Lawn project cost, anyway?

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28 responses to “Bad Move by U. Va.”

  1. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
    Karl Marx

    What’s wrong with having low-income students have some skin in the game? Presumably, their UVA education will be a gateway to success their parents never had.

  2. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    “Some other bloggers around here cheer the decision to screw low income students … etc.”

    Which bloggers are these, Peter?

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    which bloggers? you know who you are! 😉

    I have two thoughts:

    1. – if the taxpayers of Va are going to put money on Higher Ed – I’d personally rather see it go to low-income students directly – as a voucher for Va schools in exchange for a B average or better.

    2. – I’m not keen on low-income families getting convinced by state or federal incentives to go into debt – they may not fully understand the downstream consequences of in the same way that they have been victims of mortgage and pay day loans.

    what I favor is a paid basic college education to low income students if they maintain a B average … taxpayers will cover it.

    right now we have the worst of all worlds.. monopoly behaviors – and govt guaranteed loans to the gullible…

    it’s as predatory as the for-profit institutions – the only difference is that UVA does provide a quality education but they’re essentially behaving the same way that these predatory for-profit companies are acting.

    this is nothing more than the Universities protecting 300K salaries for hundreds of professors -way more than can be morally justified – in a world where even graduates end up working in burger joints..

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    All students are low income. The only question is whether their parents have money or not.

    All students at UVa have a very good chance of graduating and never being “low income” in their lifetime.

    Why should the wealth of the parents affect the deals that the adult students get when going through the University of Virginia?

    The eighteen year old “first year men and women” arriving at UVa are adults. If you doubt that, consider the fact that one third of the US troops killed in Iraq were aged 18 – 21.

    We can ask 18 year olds to die for their country but we can’t insist that the soon to be economically well off adults who go to UVa borrow the funds?

    The average salary for UVa grads is $50,500 per year. That’s for a 22 year old.

    But their parents are poor so we shouldn’t ask the 22 year olds making $50,000+ per year to pay for their education.

    I’ll bet my parents were a lot poorer than yours. God knows I never saw the inside of a private school. So, please send me a check. After all, it’s only fair to transfer wealth from those with rich parents to those with poor parents.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      DJ – are you seriously saying that at the beginning of a 4 year college there is NO DIFFERENCE in the income of the parents?

      1. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        I am saying that adult children from middle class parents who have to borrow money to attend UVa are no different than children of lower income parents who have to borrow money to attend UVa.

        At the end of the four years both the graduate from the middle class family and the graduate from the low income family will be in a class with an average salary of over $50,000 per year.

        Why should others subsidize the debt free costs of an adult to attend UVa based on his or her parents?

        Nobody denies that the adult children from low income families should get financial aid in order to attend UVa. The only question is whether that aid should be given in the form of gifts or loans. Given that those adult children from low income families will be among a pool of graduates who make over $50,000 per year upon graduation I wonder why they shouldn’t be expected to pay back the financial aid.

        Note: I was one of those middle class kids whose family couldn’t afford to pay the costs of UVa. So, I worked my way through and borrowed my way through. Then, I paid off the loans.

        1. larryg Avatar
          larryg

          do you really think that low income parents can afford the loans the same way that higher income parents can?

          Are you disavowing the entire premise behind financial “aid”?

          I thought that was sort of fundamental to a lot of things -the whole idea of “means-testing”.

          no?

          1. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            The freakin’ students are taking out the loans. Every loan I ever took was to me – not my parents. You take out the loans and have to start paying them back after they graduate. Every dime I paid back (and I paid back all the dimes) came from my salary.

            If the adult children of the middle class students could get their tuition from their parents then we wouldn’t be talking about loans.

      2. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        re: ” The freakin’ students are taking out the loans. Every loan I ever took was to me – not my parents. You take out the loans and have to start paying them back after they graduate. Every dime I paid back (and I paid back all the dimes) came from my salary.

        If the adult children of the middle class students could get their tuition from their parents then we wouldn’t be talking about loans.”

        DJ – you went to UVA entirely on your own with no help from your parents?

        you’re a better man than I!

        re: student loans:

        http://goo.gl/tgU6c

        my impression is that student loans often need a co-sign…these days.

        no?

        1. DJRippert Avatar
          DJRippert

          I don’t know about today. Back in my day (mid Paleozoic) I signed the Virginia Educational Loan Authority (VELA) paperwork myself. I didn’t even tell my parents.

          1. larryg Avatar
            larryg

            how could you qualify for a loan without a job or source of income DJ?

            would you loan money to someone who did not have a job?

            what was VELA going to do if you did not pay the loan back?

            did you truly go to college on your own with no help from parents?

            that’s quite an accomplishment – and we don’t see much of it these days.

            One of my fondest (if not real) memories is John Boy of the Waltons going off to UVA with love and support from his parents and precious little of anything else…

            where are the kids like that these days?

          2. TMT Avatar
            TMT

            Back a couple years earlier than Don’s adventure, I signed the notes for my National Defense Student Loans for my undergraduate degree myself. Neither of my parents were asked to co-sign. And I had less than squat for assets.

          3. larryg Avatar
            larryg

            I can only guess that with both DJR and TMT that those were programs with built-in percentages of expected loss…or
            the signers could still be held liable downstream ….

            yup …good ole Dwight Eisenhower…

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Education_Act

  5. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/Report-UVa-Grads-Average-50K-Starting-Salary-198178671.html

  6. Breckinridge Avatar
    Breckinridge

    I’m not cheering this but I’m not bawling my eyes out, either. This ACCESS UVA program was an internal program that I understand was not really matched at the other state schools, who have their own ways of doling out the financial aid that does not come from the state or the feds or a private scholarship. This was their own program and they can run it as they wish.
    I think this is the money they raise by tacking on additional costs to the paying customers, in effect classic income transfer. So I understand how it is easier to explain that if you include loans in the mix.

    I would note that the $50,000 average salary figure might not provide as much comfort as you’d think — the starting school teachers, nurses, government employees and lots of other graduates are not starting there — and we need more school teachers and nurses. Not everybody is coming out an engineer or economist or going to Wall Street. That might be an average but it might not be the median.

    In the long run this will probably change the mix of incoming students and reduce those coming from the lower-middle class ranks, those who do not get the Pell free ride but whose parents haven’t saved much if any.

    I never saw the inside of a private school but I was also able to graduate from Mr. Jefferson’s actual alma mater at very modest cost to my parents back in the ’70s. Debt was rare. As noted before, some of these universities have completely lost sight of that part of their mission. They are country clubs for the elite, the very rich and the very poor and favored, and the working class stiffs just have to go to Longwood or Madison or ODU (which I can highly recommend.) If they scrape together the tuition, or put it on their own credit card, a whole lot of it pays for things that never benefit them in the classroom.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      I agree with Breckinridge for the most part.

      there was a time, not that long ago when DEBT for college was a last resort when all other options including part time work.. or even full time work were part of the adventure.

      Today -the first option is debt and everything else is “fill in if possible”.

      Nobody in their right mind way back end wanted to finish college and start out from day one in debt.

      back then – debt for your home – was .. “do I really want to do this” question that often ended up as a “yes” – but the question was there – especially at the time when your signature went on the same piece of paper that spelled out in gory detail how much money you owed someone else.

      we blame govt. we blame UVA. we blame. but a lot of this is our own willingness to go into debt – really no different than those awful govt agencies that promise pensions…

    2. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      If the taxpayers want to pay off the student loans of teachers – fine. That makes sense. However, handing out freebies to adults who will soon be making $50,000 per year is BS. Plenty of kids from families of limited means study engineering, commerce, etc.

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        I dunno.. I bet Jim Bacon would not go for that idea …especially for those “bad” teachers….

        but handing our ‘freebies” to people – who SOME OF .. MAY …LATER make 50K … how do you know on the front end of this who will make the 50K – or not and thus “not deserve” the freebie?

  7. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Reed,
    I am thinking about one blogger in particular. I don’t want to name him because it would be too embarrassing, but his initials are “JAB.”

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    When you graduate with debt – it totally limits your career options – even your life options… it’s a burden on the rest of your life.

    used to be.. it was a big frigging deal to get a car loan or a home loan.

    it was a big “hold your breath” moment. It was for me.. I’m looking at that
    part of the contract that says for 30 years,, monthly you will pay and I’m thinking.. “what the hell do I know is going to happen 20 years from now”?

    but it was a leap of faith… I had a job.. it looked like it might last..a while so I took the plunge.

    what kind of situation are students engaged in now days – before they ever start attending classes.. before they even figure out that Calculus or Organic Chemistry is not for them or that hope to become a Doctor is problematic at best?

    I don’t mean to say that people should be quivering weenies.. but hells bells.. going into debt before you even know what you will do in College is presumptuous as all get out…

    I know elementary grade teachers – entry level people who have 30K in debt. they can hardly afford a car and place to live. Whatever possessed them to hock their future? By the time they get married and have kids – they’re bollixed for life. WTF?

  9. Viper Avatar
    Viper

    [When you graduate with debt – it totally limits your career options – even your life options… it’s a burden on the rest of your life.]

    You bet. Our choices have consequences. No one is forced into debt. There is no “right” to go to college. If you can’t afford $50K of debt, then don’t take it on. So you don’t get to go UVa, find another college, one more reasonable in cost. Go to junior college and then transfer in your last two years. Get a job. Scholarships? Work-study programs? Take a couple years off after high school and serve in the military; it will help you focus on what you want (or not), and the G.I. Bill is better than it ever was. Or may just find out you like it and make a career of it. (No, I am not a recruiter.)

    [used to be.. it was a big frigging deal to get a car loan or a home loan] And now add a college education to that. That’s the reality and I can’t see it changing anytime soon. I can’t understand why folks (and I mean a lot of folks) aren’t asking why a college educations is so expensive. Regardless of the country’s economic situation cost rise every year. And we just say little and do nothing but say “thank you Sir. Can I have more.”

    [but it was a leap of faith… I had a job.. it looked like it might last..a while so I took the plunge.] As is much in life. If you can’t afford to go to college, but feel that you need to do so in order to pursue whatever it is and it requires a college degree, then do what you have to do. Go into debt as little as you have to and have a plan to pay it back. If it’s the right sort of profession/work/skill then you should make enough to take care of it in a reasonable amount of time. But if you are going for some lame degree, expecting that because you now have a degree that you are owed a job then I have little sympathy.

    [I know elementary grade teachers – entry level people who have 30K in debt. they can hardly afford a car and place to live. Whatever possessed them to hock their future? By the time they get married and have kids – they’re bollixed for life.] Damn good question. Like college, if you can’t afford to get married then don’t. Children cost money. If you can’t afford a family then don’t. If you do, then man-up, and do what you have to do.

    If it’s a free ride and you have no skin in the game as folks like to say then you’re really going to school on the backs of others. As a matter of self-pride you’d think folks would want to be able to say that they at least did something to put themselves through school.

  10. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    There are tons of ways as Viper says to get a GOOD education – in fields that need people, WITHOUT going into debt or much debt. The few that would be justified would be those fields that require 8-12 years of schooling leading to a profession like a physician…

    People USED to do that. People USED to go “night school” or work as much as it took to pay for college – paying as they went… community college (which Kaine has strongly supported), and the military which does offer much “free” training PLUS GI bill.

    But here’s something that really strikes me beyond the irrational willingness to go into huge debt – and that his what KIND of education people are seeking to do WHAT once they get out of college.

    Let me be MORE specific. HOw many people go to college to learn business and become entrepreneurs as opposed to hoping to find “somewhere” to work for someone.. often the govt… or govt-like institutions?

    Many of the foreign students who come to the US to get a college education are on the entrepreneur track not the ” when I graduate I need to find a safe company/govt job some where” track.

    Going into debt to seek an entrepreneurial career might make some kind of sense but what kind of sense does it make to go 30-40K in debt to become on entry-level 40K teacher?

    People now days believe that going into debt for ANY post-college career is “normal” – no matter what the job prospect and pay are – for a given career.

    Some kids go to college with “marching orders”, i.e. specific goals to accomplish towards equipping themselves with the knowledge that they’ll need to compete for a job – in a field where there are jobs to be had.

    Others are in “wander” mode.. “what do I want to do”? but going into debt is considered part of the game – even when they do not have a clear idea of what they seek.

    this is like buying a car or a house with debt and you really have no clue what you really want in the car or house. People don’t do that with cars and houses but they do it with college – all the time.

  11. Lift Avatar
    Lift

    The fundamental problem is cost. Arguing about how to pay for it siphons energy away from finding a way to provide educational excellence, affordably. This is possible, and necessary. No one should go into substantial debt to grab a bootstrap–it’s no longer a bootstrap, it’s a handicap.

  12. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I can see the debt for a Medical degree or even a number of business and technical degrees in fields that currently need those degrees and pay well for them.

    but the new “normal” is that EVERYONE needs to borrow and go into debt – even if their degree is in basket-weaving – as long as it is a “brand” University.

    We blame the colleges for …essentially meeting demand….

    the college debt issue is very similar to the housing meltdown…IMHO.

    We make a big deal about the county going into debt and mortgaging the future of our kids… then we turn around and encourage the kids to do the same thing directly to themselves

    but we feel “better” if we can find an appropriate “bad” person or entity to blame it on… for some.. it has to be a “liberal” or a “progressive” which is even more amusing coming from folks who say they have “conservative” values…

    I’d like to see a poll of the kids who have loans – with respect to whether or not their parents are liberals or conservatives…

    Only about 1/2 of students have significant debt. you think they’re all
    irresponsible “tax&spend” type liberals?

    😉

  13. wesghent Avatar
    wesghent

    The following by Galuszka was inaccurate and misleading; seems like an effort to sanitize Dragas as champion of low-income people. Not true. Dragas did irreparable harm to UVA, using underhanded methods and elitist ploys; until she owns up to error of her ways, she cannot be trusted.
    Galuszka wrote:
    “Helen Dragas gets it.The Board of Visitors member at the University of Virginia tried to hold the line against cutting back on the school’s AccessUVA program, a highly successful endeavor that for 10 years has helped low income get a high level education with generous grants.
    Citing cost pressures, U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan convinced the board to stick [omission?] to lower income kids. Now they have to take out loans for the first $7,000 of their costs. … ” and so on.
    Dragas does not get it, while U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan DOES. To suggest that Sullivan is for penalizing the lower income kids is untrue and misleading. Bad blogging!

  14. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Bad Bloggin? B-s%^t.
    First, “Dragas gets it” is a joke on another blogger who initially supported Dragas in her efforts to oust Sullivan, whom I steadfastly defensed last year and still do. You really ought to read a little more before you get righteous.
    I do think cutting back on AccessUVA is wrong which is somewhat not the point I think you are trying to make. You are converging Sullivan’s drama last year with this. Wrong.
    Bad commenting!

  15. wesghent Avatar
    wesghent

    Yeah, I’m over my head on this blog. It’s too Mecca-oriented. So long and so on.

  16. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    wesghent,
    I was too harsh. But I have supported Sullivan (except in this).

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