The Economics of College Tuition

...During the decade covered by the Times survey, per capita income in this country climbed from SI,259 to $1,935—a gain of $676...

...Moreover, in cash figures, the average tuition of $300 paid by state university students in 1956-57 is certainly substantially less than the $650 which the Times presents as the over-all average...

...Besides hitting him in the pocketbook, all these auxiliary services hinder the professor in his primary function of communicating knowledge and stimulating curiosity...

...In many parts of California, for example, the latter has apparently become an extension of the high-school system...

...In 1900, only 4 per cent of those in the 18-21 bracket were enrolled in colleges and universities...

...A few comparative figures indicate quite clearly that prospective students will definitely not be priced out of the collegiate market in the near future...

...These surely do not reflect the cost of higher education for the mass of American students...

...The importance of this is clear when one considers that the average tuition in the 7 state universities rose only 56 per cent—from $192 to roughly $300—in the decade studied...

...Unquestionably, parents' fears have been heightened by the steadily swelling number of young Americans now seeking admission to colleges...

...By way of rebuttal, officials at a number of the wealthier private universities, including Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell, Princeton and Yale, denied that more than a handful of students would be affected by higher tuition...

...In that period, moreover, the overall cost of living increased only 20 per cent—far less than the rise in income...

...In contrast to European universities, the typical American school provides the student with counseling services, costly athletic facilities, recreation halls, placement aid, dormitories, and numerous other advantages which require expenditures on administrative staff...

...The inescapable conclusion is that American parents can absorb a reasonable increase in college tuition...

...The result of all this, we may hope, will be an improvement in university standards and student quality, development of college curricula with more depth and substance, and financial and other relief at long last for the sorely tried American college professor...

...On several counts, however, these figures are highly deceptive...

...Thus, one study of 85 schools in which enrollment rose 88 per cent from 1938-39 to 1948-49 showed that expenditures on maintenance had increased 84 per cent per student during that period, administration 76 per cent per student, and instruction only 47 per cent...

...For some time now, the college professor has tended to trail at the end of the American success parade...

...In actual numbers, this will mean a 13-year increase from less than 3 million students (the current figure) to 6.5 million...

...Figures for 35 selected institutions of higher learning showed the tuition at each school for 1946-47 and 1956-57, and the amount and date of the last increase...

...The latter group would receive associate degrees instead of bachelor's degrees, and, on their graduation, society would still benefit from an accretion of competent technicians even though not of liberally educated thinkers...

...after increasing less than 50 per cent between 1900 and 1955, it will have spurted 70 per cent in the 15 years up to 1970...

...American colleges tend to spend a disproportionate amount of their funds on administration and physical facilities...

...Their point was that scholarships would be enlarged in proportion to the tuition increases and that more of them would be granted...

...The direction of current thinking is illustrated by the recent action of the New York State Board of Regents in calling together 100 college and university heads to consider embarking on a $100-million two-year program of expanding community colleges...

...An additional advantage of junior colleges, many of which are established in urban areas with a student body that is predominantly within commuting distance, is that they can eliminate the room and board costs which bulk so large in parental outlays on education and require substantial investment in non-educational facilities by the school...

...Indeed, an increase may well be inevitable...

...But during these same years, as we have seen, average tuition at the 28 private schools studied by the Times rose only $260, while that at the 7 public schools rose a mere $108...

...he finds his time increasingly consumed by such activities as filling out multiple forms on students, counseling the students, acting as moderator at their clubs, arranging for campus speakers, and serving on all manner of committees...

...Perhaps the time has come to think about increasing the flunk-out rate and spending less time, money and effort on guidance programs designed to lead students by the hand through their college career...

...Carrying the comparison back even further, the survey showed that the factory worker's real income had increased 160 per cent since 1908, while the average college pedagogue's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged in the same period...

...this, it is argued, will create a sellers' market in education which will permit school administrations to hike tuition almost at will...

...The Reverend Vincent J. Hart, Director of Development at Fordham University, was quoted as declaring that "a college education may be getting 'way out of reach of the pocketbook, and, if the trend continues, talented youngsters may be priced out of the market...

...One solution may be the two-year junior college...

...The 1956 annual report of the Ford Foundation showed a marked rise in real personal income for the nation as a whole during the period 1939-53...

...it stands at about 33 per cent today...

...By 1930, the figure had increased to 10 per cent, and by 1950 to nearly 30 per cent...

...A more accurately weighted survey would have included twice that number, since nearly 40 per cent of all American college students attend publicly supported schools...

...In other words, the annual income of an average family of four increased $2,704...

...Furthermore, everything possible is done—even to the extent of providing remedial reading programs—to insure that every student gets through his curriculum...

...Yet, at 120 state universities surveyed by the Foundation, the average full professor's standard of living in 1953 was only 76 per cent of what it had been 14 years earlier, the associate professor's was 84 per cent, and the instructor's 95 per cent...

...Even more startling is the rise in actual college attendance within this college-age group...

...Demographers do indeed predict that the 18-to-21 -year-old portion of the population, the potential college-going group, will rise from the 1950 level of 8.5 million to 10 million in 1960 and 13 million in 1970...

...This has led to a tremendous waste of trained college faculty members, of whom there has been an increasing shortage since the Depression-bred boom in young college instructors...

...Actually, neither of these groups appeared to grasp what has happened to the American economy in the past decade or two in relation to educational opportunity...

...A decade later, it had risen to about $650, for an increase of 67 per cent...

...The private colleges covered by the survey are also anything but representative, including such high-priced institutions as Brown, Bryn Mawr, Carnegie Tech, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Georgetown, Princeton, Radcliffe, Smith, Stanford, Syracuse, Trinity, Tulane, Vanderbilt, William and Mary, and Yale...

...Other educators pointed out that increasing numbers of students were turning to free or lower-cost state and city institutions—a development they viewed with evident foreboding...

...A recent survey in the New York Times was headlined rather disquietingly: "Big Tuition Rises Worry Colleges...

...The average annual tuition for the 35 schools surveyed by the Times was about $390 in 1946-47...

...During the same period, the average factory worker's real income had risen 43 per cent...

...Left to their own resources, as in European schools, the better students will not only survive but complete a stronger program, and teachers will be able to devote themselves to teaching and research...

...For many years, American colleges and universities have maintained their high standards largely at the expense of one campus element: the faculty...

...Many educators feel today that the first two years of the four-year college curriculum are largely devoted to cramming into the students' heads through survey courses what they should have learned in high school...

...Spokesmen at Rutgers University commented that many students were failing to attend college if unable to obtain financial aid or, in other cases, not applying at all because of financial stringency...

...AH faculty ranks at private institutions were found to be living only 88 per cent as well in 1953 as they had been in 1939...

...It seemed clear that substantial increases had taken place and that more and more students of limited financial means were being denied the opportunity to continue their education beyond high school...

...Despite this, however, cold statistics show that the American people's capacity to give its children a higher education has, if anything, increased in recent years...

...Is it necessarily desirable that half of all Americans between 18 and 21 should go to college...

...If the present trend continues, roughly half of the 18-21 group will be seeking admission to colleges by 1970...

...The better students in these junior colleges could be permitted to continue on to a regular college or university, while the poor students would drop out after completing the two years...

...Only 7 of the 35 schools covered, or 20 per cent, are state universities...