According to the May 3, 2011 Chronicle:
“The chairman of the University of Texas system’s Board of Regents has suggested that undergraduate enrollment at the flagship campus in Austin be increased by 10 percent a year for four years and tuition slashed by about half, according to a draft proposal written on April 7 and obtained by The Austin American-Statesman. The chairman, Gene Powell, also wants to add a new ‘high-quality, low-cost degree’ to the system’s offerings and create a timeline for making the Austin campus the nation’s top public university.”
It’s time for all of us to stop and think about what we want and need from our public higher-education systems. We rely on a variety of institutions. Some offer both high-quality undergraduate education to well-prepared undergraduates and a thriving environment for research. Some offer open access to all who can benefit at a relatively low price. There is a whole range in between—and unfortunately some institutions that don’t seem to succeed very well in achieving their missions.
There are both different costs involved in producing this variety of services—and different prices charged to the students who enroll. It is surely possible to produce much of what we now produce at a somewhat lower cost. But it is also true that serious cost-cutting is likely to involve cutting quality, quantity, or both. And someone has to pay the costs. That means taxpayers have to pay, allowing subsidies that hold tuition prices down—or students and families have to pay.
The University of Texas at Austin admits only about half of its applicants, and it is surely true that there are qualified students who could benefit from the experience but are rejected. But there are already over 38,000 undergraduates on campus. Can the facilities and the faculty be expanded very quickly to enroll 56,000? Is the idea that the existing faculty would teach the additional students? Is it advisable for the state to direct so many students to their top research university or should capacity be expanded elsewhere in the system? Where is the money going to come from to do this? The university has a relatively large endowment for a public university—but already only about 1/3 the amount per student as at the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. So how does this plan fit with making the Austin campus “the nation’s top public university”?
We all want high quality education for more students. We all want greater efficiency. We all want lower prices. But who will pay?
We need some hard thinking about the best way to finance public higher education in the United States. We should not be derailed by simplistic calls for more of everything that is good with no sacrifice on anyone’s part.
