The Cost of Education

Happy New Year, Bill.

I see one potential problem with your plan even though I strongly believe that academe ought to practice the greater transparency you suggest.

Regardless of political persuasion, I haven’t seen “research” (as a generic concept) being looked down upon by much of anyone in educated circles. The problem with going to the legislature is that it would give politicians a green light to publicly ask what research they would be funding (and then possibly to appropriate funds to the politically popular work). And what would happen to research programs if they were suddenly beholden to the need to obtain financial support from a state legislature?

Although I have regularly expressed a disdain for political advocacy as “research” as it often exists in the MLA disciplines and a few other places on campus, I don’t see a state legislature’s budgetary and PR processes having less undesirable results. I doubt that there are many state legislatures that would smile on “emancipatory” or “critical” work (and I would not be sad to see any of it go out the window), but the end does not justify the means. Of course, one might also ask whether humanities scholarship has any value if it largely remains hidden from the public…

You may also be able to tell that I see this issue as less problematic for the sciences. If you know of a way to get around “the power to defund is the power to destroy,” I’d love to read it.

The author proposes limiting increases in tuition to “inflation,” but there is no single thing that is “inflation.” Different products and services change costs at different rates, and the things colleges have to buy (e.g., energy, technology, library materials, salaries) have to buy differ from those that consumers buy (e.g., food, clothing, housing). In fact, the costs incurred by colleges regularly exceed increases in “inflation” as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and officials seeking to limit tuition increases to the CPI are thoughtlessly starving schools of resources. See the differences between the CPI and HEPI (Higher Education Price Index) at http://www.commonfund.org/CommonfundInstitute/HEPI/Pages/HEPIvsCPI.aspx.

I think honest accounting is an oxymoron. Many of us would like more transparency, but need to remember we are dealing with masters of obfuscation. Even with complete access we are still dependent on someone to provide an interpretation of what we are looking at and there’s the rub. Even the most open interpretation will get in trouble with intangibles (e.g., claims of economic impact) and all too often those tasked with the interpretation are saddled with their own biases and (possibly self-serving) reasons for being less than forthcoming. How is one to tell? I think we have already reached the point where we have imposed enough bureaucracy on higher education that for every $5 we spend, $4 is spent on trying to assure the remaining $1 is spent productively. Research is a particularly tricky area, since by its very nature research is an inefficient process, and inefficiency is viewed as waste from a strict accounting standpoint.

@wbgleason:
I have read your piece again twice and see no qualification of the expressions “rising so much faster than inflation” and “more than the rate of inflation.”

When you write “if the educational cost is less than the tuition revenue and the state contribution, then tuition may not be increased more than the rate of inflation,” it appears that the CPI is the cap on increases in revenue, even though the CPI measures the change in price of different things than university’s buy. Yes, consumers also buy energy, but it is a smaller percentage of household expenses than of college expenses, so that increased energy costs have a different effect on college costs than on consumer costs.

An analogy: last year there was concern about the lack of a cost-of-living increase for seniors on Social Security. Published reports noted that, while inflation as measured by CPI was flat, many seniors faced much higher costs of living due to increases in the prices for prescription drugs, a small part of the expenses incurred by most consumers, but a large part of the expenses incurred by seniors.

I was not particularly seeking to make a case re. technology costs, although schools do incur technology costs that consumers don’t (try registering 10,000 students for classes on a single laptop). The largest costs that colleges face are salaries and benefits, costs that families do not pay directly. A thoughtful analysis in the Chronicle (http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Are-Too-Bloated-/47958/) noted that college costs have increased at about the same rate as other sectors that depend on employing educated professionals. (I am here referring to operational expenses that do not include capital projects — buildings — that usually have separate funding streams and are not typically funded by tuition payments.)

For this reason, a better “limiting factor” than the CPI might be earnings growth. This would tend to keep salaries of university faculty and staff in keeping with those of the public. In addition, the concern so often expressed about tuition is affordability — for that, the appropriate measure is not the CPI but growth in family income.

I am not opposed to the proposal that schools separate educational and research expenditures. (Actually, some of this data is available in various forms already, e.g., IPEDS data.) But I work at a public university with a teaching, not a research mission and my school is being badly squeezed to provide core functions, not because resources are being devoured by research, but because state leaders (including those who set tuition) have chosen the wrong yardstick for setting tuition rates.

We face serious issues with regard to educational funding in this country. However, we will not develop adequate means to address these if we choose the wrong benchmarks by which to evaluate progress and fund public higher education. Good answers always require good assumptions and good data.

@wbgleason: How would I explain funding needs to the public?
I would also KISS — explain proposed increases in terms of the 4-5 principal drivers of expenses the school faces: salaries, benefit costs, energy, etc. I would add costs related to increased enrollment, additional services (e.g., mental health services, remedial education), and increased external mandates. I would also report on results of initiatives to reduce costs.
However, when the public already believes that schools cost too much (“rising much more than inflation”), one must attempt to justify not only increases, but the baseline. That much harder to do. One reason is that commentators so often take shots at those “extravagant” recreation centers (never mind that those were funded, not from tuition, but student fee increases that students themselves approved) and residence halls (never mind that students vote with their feet for apartment-style housing).
One way is to fight the impression that cost increases over the past couple of decades has been unreasonable — that’s why the measure of inflation matters. We also can and should document student success with objective measures of student learning, job placement, etc. But (of course) that does not mean that it can’t be done for less and there’s no way to tie a specific expenditure to specific learning (why can’t your students can get by with the microscopes you have?). But the explanation won’t be simple and neither the public nor government officials are interested in the details. There appears to be no conceivable evidence that would contradict their unshakeable belief that schools are full of fat and waste. And the more people hear that the inaccurate assertion that “costs have far outpaced inflation,” the more rigidly they hold that belief.

I’m sorry, drj50. I can see that you are frustrated, but if you read what you have written I don’t think it is going to have the desired effect on the people from whom you need the money. Why do you resist putting a figure on the educational cost and explaining where it comes from?

I don’t know how your specific institution works, but at our place, the public universities and colleges put in a budget request to the state legislature. This includes mandated – if unionized – increases in salaries as well as the other expenses. So far NO ONE has put a limit on what can be asked for as far as tuition increases. But there is great unhappiness if tuition increases – greater than the inflation increase – is asked for. This is a simple, inescapable, fact. And you can argue until the cows come home that this isn’t fair because our costs have actually increased more than inflation and it will have absolutely no effect.

So, and this is the last time I’m going to say it, why not lay out what the actual costs are with projected – and justified – increases in setting budgets? Why not do this and say: If you give us the requested and justified budget for educational expenses, the tuition increase will be x%. If our budget for educational expenses is cut by y%, then we will have to increase the budget by z% in order to cover our costs. Alternatively, we will have to cut enrollment.

And please don’t muddy the water with issues of microscopes and rec centers. I’m sorry, but in trying to get more money from the public – and this is my goal – these kinds of arguments are, I’m afraid, irrelevant. They’ve been tried for years and years at our place and are not working.

Just because you are right, doesn’t mean folks are going to hand over the money. And it is a lot of money. A lot more care is now required at the justification stage. The current appeal for additional funding – at most places – seems to the public to be the old L’Oreal ad: “Because I am worth it.”

We have to do better.

Best. Bill Gleason

The line drawn between “education” and “research” is deeply ignorant of the realities of first class research universities. Right now there are at least 10 undergraduates gaining research experience in my lab. This has been true throughout the 4 decades of my life as a tenured professor. It is also true of the labs of most my faculty colleagues. Had we not had top quality research programs the students would not have had access to these critical educational experiences.

This is not all….Students who are fortunate enough to attend a major research university are taught by active scholars who are at the cutting edge of their fields. Thus, the research enterprise on campus is not parallel, and separate, from the instructional program, which Gleason presumably counts as “education”. The research enterprise is an integral part, indeed the very foundation, of the education we provide our students.

It is perfectly justified for the University to provide 25% of the cost of the research enterprise on campus. We are lucky that we can raise 75% of the cost from extra-mural sources.

@wbgleason:

I am sorry that I gave the impression that I am frustrated. I’m not, although I believe that we need good data in order to make good decisions and I am disappointed when people who should know better (education reporters and people who work in higher education) frame our challenges using inappropriate metrics.

I am puzzled that you think that I “resist putting a figure on the educational cost and explaining where it comes from.” I wrote that “I am not opposed to the proposal that schools separate educational and research expenditures” and noted that some of this sort of information is already available (e.g., IPEDS, Delaware study) — and this is a good thing. When I wrote that we should “explain proposed increases in terms of the 4-5 principal drivers” I thought that I was agreeing that we should “lay out what the actual costs are with projected – and justified – increases in setting budgets.”

I agree that we cannot get by saying “because I’m worth it.” We cannot get away with claiming that what we do is ineffable and unmeasurable (that’s why I suggested one way to justify expenses would be measurable results in student learning, placement, etc.).

My concern was not with your larger point, but the narrower one, of the use of a metric (tuition increases dramatically outpace schools’ real costs) that serves to cement in the mind of the public and public officials schools have been profligate and simply need to reign in the fat and waste. A look at the deferred maintenance (for example) at my campus would suggest that perhaps we have already cut too close to the bone.

mbelvadi-

Please keep in mind the subject of the OP – large public research universities.

At steady state, the building problem – as far as classroom space – is incidental to the big picture. At our place the administration is now bragging about taking buildings off line. (That is adminspeak for tearing them down.)

An example:

At our place they recently tore down a (perfectly usable) science classroom building and replaced it with a building that actually has LESS classroom space. Now a large part of the building is paid for by the State of Minnesota. Hopefully it is more energy efficient than the last one. Net increase in cost to the institution: probably not much.

Having served a sentence on the classoom space utilization committee:

1) Classroom use is very inefficient. When I was a lad there were classes held on Saturday! This doesn’t happen anymore. All classes don’t have to be held on MTW between 10 am and 2 pm…

2) A pitifully small percent of space at a large research university is devoted to classrooms.

If you’ve got 25,000 undergrads – roughly – to factor building cost fluctuations into, I don’t think the hiccups of a new building will have much of an effect.

I realize that this analysis is not appropriate for all types of public higher ed. But that was not the intention of the original OP.

Ed-

We seem to be going around in circles.

When I have a student doing research in my lab – for academic credit, which they sometimes do – that is a legitimate educational expense.

But “25% university expenditure on ‘research’ is a legitimate educational expense” is an entirely different matter.

This refers to unreimbursed expenses not covered by overhead from external research grants. To try to sweep this under the carpet as a legitimate educational expense is wrong and this failure to face reality is what is getting those of us at public research universities in trouble.

We have to explicitly admit these extra research costs and request funding for them from the state legislature.

I’m arguing that we have to put the cards on the table and not engage in subterfuge.

Best.

Bill

Bill, don’t know if you’ve looked at this data yet, but perhaps a step in the right direction? I don’t know and haven’t made the time to dig into the links…

http://www.tamus.edu/offices/budget-acct/reports/transparency/

I don’t know if you saw the press this effort got a few months back because they attempted to publish the “value” of individuals based on their use of research funds. I bring it up as that’s clearly one way you would want to balance out any public investment – if you can make the argument that $X invested in faculty research equals $XX in contributions (federal and/or private).

A Chronicle Innovations blogger, Richard Vedder, had a piece in the Austin Statesman yesterday (http://www.statesman.com/opinion/vedder-transparency-at-a-m-reveals-money-drain-1168484.html) in which he details the findings of one of his research assistants into this A&M data, something that he calls a “money drain.” The big chunk that he misses (and he even acknowledged it in the article) is that he is ignoring whatever external funding these superstars bring in. He went so far as to “examine the vita” of one of these professors, and while he pays close attention to how many journal articles he’s published, he doesn’t look at his research funding AT ALL. Which would probably torpedo his argument, but what do I know…

Well, when it comes to Vedder, you do have to consider the source. In one of his blogs on CHE he revealed that he’s in agreement with Charles Murray in terms of restricting college enrollments.

It’s not just about cost with Vedder – although that is a big piece of the privatization agenda (he has been bankrolled by AEI for a while now). It’s more so about who *deserves* college.

I, too, took (wood) shop in 7th grade.  In the 1950′s the alternative was auto shop, but that’s what the hoods took–no place for a “square” (“nerd” and ”geek” not yet being common junior high parlance).  The girls all took home ec (the A in which provided the margin by which Lauralee Sherwood become valedictorian).  I’ve been pleased to see that in Athens, Ohio these days both girls and boys rotate through shop and whatever it is they call home ec–I prize the game a grandaughter made me when learning how to use a drill press.

But I take some issue with the author’s comment that one’s mind can roam free while one’s hands are painting or cutting a miter.  While painting, maybe, but years of DIY–bumps, bruises, hammered (finger) nails, a severed thumb tendon–have taught me the danger in letting the mind roam too free while using tools, especially power tools.  Indeed, one of the joys of this sort of work is that, done well, it requires focus and concentration, not only in the doing of the task but in the minding of the tools.  My mind is never more concentrated than when I’m working in the main breaker box, or cutting through a wall with a reciprocating saw.  Tasks like painting and sanding may be less dangerous, but inattention quickly leads to errors which must be corrected and can sometimes require that a job be started all over again.

For someone whose job offers few concrete results to contemplate–graduation, perhaps, though even that is marred by memories of those who started but did not finish–the great joy of doing it myself comes from the contemplation of the finished project (no matter the profanity along the way).  But there is pleasure and therapy, too, in the activity which precisely requires that my mind not roam free but concentrate on the doing of the task (quite literally) at hand.  Such concentration cleanses the mind of the impurities of work, the fears and frustrations, the ire and irritation which can otherwise linger long after the workday is over.  And when the task is done, when the door closes smoothly, the light switches on, the paint line is perfect, then the mind can roam free.

Reminds me of a quote I came across the other day:

“There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.” – John Adams

In my day boys took shop, girls took typing. Now I (male) sit in front of a computer all day typing (slowly) with three fingers.

To those of you typing with three fingers and paying handymen–it’s never too late to learn. These things are NOT rocket science. I’m enormously grateful that my (professor) father insisted I learn typing (knowing that I intended to follow his footsteps in academia, he knew it would be cheaper to type my own dissertation), French (which enabled me to test out of the requirement in college), and how to use tools (love my cordless drill). He also made sure my brothers knew how to cook and sew (my oldest brother even mastered a sewing machine).  And, even though none of us were English majors, we all know enough to be appalled by “Me and one other kid…”. I love painting any house and apartment I’ve ever inhabited–it is a pleasure which is not immoral, illegal, fattening or addicive, but is, unlike most of what of what we do in academia, almost instant gratification. 

Well put, man, well put…