Washington
In his first formal State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Obama focused on the nation's economic problems but also zeroed in on several issues of concern to higher education, including college costs.
He urged Congress to finish legislation that would restructure federal student lending and proposed a more lenient loan-forgiveness program for graduates with federally subsidized student loans.
"In the 21st century, one of the best antipoverty programs is a world-class education," he said.
And he took colleges to task, chiding them to "get serious about cutting their own costs."
Earlier this week, Mr. Obama proposed a 6-percent increase in federal support for education in his budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which will be released on Monday. Most of the money would go to programs for elementary and secondary schools, but it would mean that the education sector, including higher education, would largely be sheltered from the three-year freeze Mr. Obama proposed for federal spending on discretionary domestic programs.
In contrast with the speech Mr. Obama made about a year ago to a joint session of Congress, in which he set the ambitious goal of the United States' having the world's highest percentage of adults with a college degree by 2020, his address Wednesday night kept higher-education issues mostly out of the spotlight. The president's speech centered more on jobs and the economy, including the steps he believes the country should take to overcome the effects of the recession.
"I do not accept second place for the United States of America," Mr. Obama said. "As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it's time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth."
Appeal for Student-Aid Legislation
He urged Congress to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, HR 3221, which would eliminate the bank-based federal student-loan program and use the billions of dollars in projected savings to expand aid to students and colleges. The House of Representatives passed the legislation in September, but the Senate has not yet begun to debate its version of the measure, which has been delayed by negotiations over health care and potentially complicated by the loss of the Democratic supermajority.
Saying the student-loan bill will "revitalize our community colleges," Mr. Obama urged the Senate to follow the House in approving the measure. "This bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans," he said. "Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants."
As the White House had already announced this week, the president also proposed a more-lenient payback plan for federal loans of college graduates who take low-paying jobs. The plan would augment an income-based-repayment program that Congress created in 2007. Under the existing program, eligible borrowers' payments total no more than 15 percent of their discretionary income, and loan balances are forgiven after 25 years of repayment. Mr. Obama proposes lowering the maximum payment to 10 percent of discretionary income, and lowering the time frame for loan forgiveness to 20 years.
Spreading the Blame
"In the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college," Mr. Obama said. "And by the way, it's time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs—because they too have a responsibility to help solve this problem."
Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, said on Wednesday that the student-loan proposals were evidence of Mr. Obama's support for higher education. Still, she said, she was concerned about the spending freeze.
Limiting increases for discretionary spending for research, she said, would create "disjunctures in the faculty pipeline and serious financial problems on campuses," she said. "That one is near the top of our worry list."
Mr. Obama also touched on a few other issues related to higher education.
He called on Congress to post all earmark requests on a Web site before they come to a vote. In 2008, colleges and universities won at least $2.25-billion in earmarked money from Congress, mostly for research.
He asked for a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," the federal statute that requires the military to discharge members who are openly gay. "Don't ask, don't tell" has clashed with some universities' nondiscrimination policies and led to opposition to ROTC programs on other campuses.
Comments
1. 22221103 - January 28, 2010 at 10:36 am
Higher Education needs to get in step with taxpayers who want their taxes to go to projects that have been fully vetted in Congress and not added to bills as pork and ear marks.
Higher Education needs to answer the fundamental question: are you in the business of teaching students or are you in the business of protecting jobs.
2. spc09lib - January 28, 2010 at 11:19 am
First, I confess that I did not take the time to watch nor listen to the 2010 State of the Union address. However, after having read the remarks above about colleges and university needing to cut costs, I am left with amazement of the disconnect that the people have with how some institutions, not all, struggle to maintain the quality of higher education they offer on the funding that is now available. Community colleges continue to be deluged with higher and higher expectations and they continue to meet the expectations all while getting their funding cut year after year. Yes, the federal government has released funds for some programs but the funds are narrow in focus to be of use to the institution as a whole. As most of the readers will understand, educating students not only requires funding for equipment, buildings, and other infrastructure but also requires people power to get students through a program they wish community colleges to implement. This includes the costs of the staff (not necessarily instructional) that are required to continue to the level of services that are needed by the students they serve. The total amount of the cost is not usually, if ever, recovered by the price students pay in tuition. Yes, if community colleges were per profit institutions, they would be closing left and right. The good news is that community colleges are not businesses and they will continue to do their best to provide the highest quality of education, of this I will assure you.
As for universities, I would pose that the same applies to their situations as well. However, they are met, as I see, with another frustrating opinion held by the public. This opinion is that their only mission is to deliver, produce, or supply graduates that can become employable after completing their baccalaureate. People fail to acknowledge that universities are a necessary part of furthering knowledge by what they deliver, produce, or supply from their research. This too is a costly endeavor. The other part of this, again as I see it, is that there is very little encouragement from the public for students to continue their education by pursuing graduate studies.
I believe that it is time for the public, federal, state, and local governments as well, to recognize that true costs of running educational institutions. And that if they continue to equate colleges with businesses, pretty soon the cost analysis will be done and there will be fewer and fewer educational options for the people they wish to serve.
Long time reader, first time writer.
3. 11132507 - January 28, 2010 at 01:12 pm
spc09lib - Yes, it is expensive to provide an education. But colleges have done little to nothing to explain why they charge what they charge and have not demonstrated what they've done to hold costs down. And this is because for the most part, they have no acceptable, transparent answers to either.
Most colleges do precious little to contain costs. I used to work at a high cost/high aid private research university that decided in 2000 that tuition would go up 5% every year...not based on any cost analysis, not based on any budgeting, but rather that 5% "didn't sound too bad." Not only was no attempt made to contain costs, the President went on an unbelievable spending spree (largely on himself), and when I came up with a new tuition discounting/net revenue model that cut the tuition roughly in half (this was a major part of my job), the powers that be couldn't tell me to shut up and throw it away fast enough.
We hear (as does Congress) stories about luxury dorms with granite kitchen countertops, state of the art gyms that 95% of the students never use, gourmet dining halls, athletic programs that hemorrhage millions...one friend calls our campuses "land locked cruise ships." No, these things don't exist everywhere, but they do exist, and all of higher ed gets a black eye from it. So many genies are out of the bottle by now - what competitive 4-year school dare not have a new rock climbing wall? - that I don't know where or how it'll end other than quite a few bubbles bursting. And as we know from the tech and housing bubbles in recent years, that's not pretty.
4. 22221103 - January 28, 2010 at 01:19 pm
Cap enrollment and tuition and stop redistributing fees to pay for students who cannot afford it. Stop building state of the art buildings that drive up the cost of attendance. Stop subsidizing athletics and put that money toward the classroom. Somehow our institutions of higher learning educated the "greatest generation" who took us to the moon and back without smart boards, wi-fi, internet, etc. Shouldn't each state have at least one 4-year institution that isn't looking to compete nationally or regionally on state-of-the-art student unions, plush housing, subsidized sports complexes, etc.
5. hanzimanolis - January 28, 2010 at 08:06 pm
113.... you say that colleges and universities have not demonstrated what they've done to hold costs down.
Let me tell you: they have staffed their classrooms with part time teachers, so they do not have to pay health benefits, retirement, sick days off, nor provide office space, computers, or research funding. In some states, 80% of the faculty of public higher education institutions are PT, earning less than the janitors and secretaries... Even in the best situation, 40% of the faculty are in this status: little job security, few prospects.
I calculated once that the home office contributions (computers, printers, paper, ink, electricity, heat, etc) of PT faculty in Vermont, a very small system, amounted to a 7 million dollar "contribution" to the Vermont State college system over a ten year period.
For hobby teachers, who have other full time jobs and are moonlighting, this state of affairs might be less problematic, but for career teachers--estimates suggest that over half of the PT cadre are career rather than hobby teachers--this is a grotesque and long-standing "cost-cutting" measure.
In terms of climbing walls, new "gateways", landlocked cruise ship indulgences, you are spot on. Colleges and U's are acting very much like businesses, and to attract a shrinking demographic, race to glitz up the campus, while smashing the faculty. More was spent on Daffodils where I worked in VT than on health care of over 1200 PT faculty.
I disagree with 2222... without economic justice in the wider society (fair and livable wages for all), the cap tuition and flat fees he or she suggests amounts to a reestablishment (or continuation--however you see things now) of an educational and cultural elite.
6. 22221103 - January 29, 2010 at 10:43 am
Our founding fathers established a constitution where everyone was free - not where everything was free. They wanted to establish an environment where people could work hard to acheive their goals without governmental roadblocks. They didn't envision a world where their hard work was redistributed to those whose parents and grandparents didn't work hard to give their children a better life. This includes not learning English and teaching English to their children which put their children behind the 8 ball to begin, and then want government handouts and preferential treatment because they can't speak English.
If you take from everybody according to their abilities and give to those according to their needs, eventually you will take away all incentive to work hard, and like those in New Orleans you'll end up with everybody looking to the government for their needs. Is this the society we want?
This country is based on hard work. If we get away from that, we're doomed.