8/24/97
STATE-SUBSIDIZED TUITION WEAKENS HIGHER EDUCATION 
By Linda Seebach 
 
     For a prime example of Robin-Hood-in-reverse, look no further than America's public colleges and universities. Running mostly on state and federal money, they take taxes from adults who never went to college and whose children have little expectation of going, and redistribute the benefits of higher education _ including a higher lifetime income _ to the children of the already well educated and well paid. 
     This system is extremely popular with parents who are determined from the moment their infant is conceived that it will one day be heading off to college, but who have other things they'd rather do with their money for the next 19 years than save it for tuition. 
     Of course the below-cost tuition also expands opportunities for the children of less affluent families, as intended. But there are other ways to accomplish that. Most private institutions, especially four-year liberal-arts colleges that get only a trickle of the stream of federal research funding that flows to big universities both public and private, set their tuition high enough to cover the cost of instruction for everyone plus financial aid for students who can't afford the full rate. 
     If the public universities did the same, just as many deserving poor students could go to college. And more students, of whatever income, would be able to chose a college based on its educational program. Now their choices are skewed by the unrealistically low tuition charged by state universities. 
     The results are documented in The Threat to Independent Education, a report prepared for the Cato Institute by Gary Wolfram, a professor of political economy at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Hillsdale is one of the most fiercely independent of independent colleges, source of the widely read monthly journal of opinion Imprimis. 
     From 1959 to 1995, fall enrollment in the nation's private schools increased from 1.5 million to 3.1 million. But in the same period, public colleges and universities grew from 2.2 million to 11.1 million, now claiming nearly 80 percent of undergraduate enrollments. 
     Average in-state tuition and fees for the public institutions was $2,057, compared with $11,128 for the private ones. 
     It might seem that private colleges are holding their own, and somewhat more. But they are also more at risk. From 1970 to 1993, Wolfram notes, 346 colleges closed, and 312 of them were private. The top tier of selective schools mostly does well enough; they may have to dip deeper into their pool of applicants, but they have enough students to fill their classes. It's the less well-known ones that suffer, both financially and academically. 
     But having the state cover most of the costs of instruction does not seem to convey much academic benefit on universities. One reason, in accordance with the economic principle that says you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax, is that they are flooded with subsidized students whose academic preparation is far from adequate. 
     California is the most notorious example. Its master plan for higher education guarantees a no-tuition college education for every California high school graduate. Tuition isn't the only cost, and fees apart from tuition have increased sharply in recent years. Students at the 22 California State University campuses paid fees of $1,891 in 1995-96, almost as much as the average tuition at Colorado's public colleges, currently $2,200. 
     But they aren't paying tuition, and it's clearly no accident that 60 percent of Cal State freshmen have to take remedial courses in mathematics and English, although admission is limited to students in the top third of their high-school graduating classes. If students had to pay the bills for repeating their free high-school courses, more of them would pay attention the first time. 
     No one disputes that students can get a first-rate education at a big public university. But it's easy to get lost in the crowd. When I was a teaching assistant at the University of Minnesota there were more than 50,000 undergraduates and some of them didn't meet a professor until they'd been there for a couple of years. 
     There's more variety among private colleges, too, which can mean success for students who would sink without a trace at a megaversity. And the private colleges contribute disproportionately to many professions. Nationally only about 1 percent of college graduates major in mathematics. High schools can't find qualified math teachers, and foreign students fill the graduate schools. But St. Olaf College in Minnesota, where I once taught, has 15 to 20 percent math majors. 
     Other private colleges have different strengths, and all together they make American higher education stronger. If college education were fairly priced, more students would be able to enjoy the benefits.