Feeding the tuition monster

By JAY AMBROSE
Scripps Howard News Service
Thursday, December 06, 2007

While the Republicans have been mum on the issue, the top several Democratic candidates for president have come up with an interesting way to deal with the phenomenon of ever-rising, middle-class-sinking college-tuition costs.

They want to feed this monster, which instead of dulling its appetite could make it more ravenous than ever.

They will no doubt win votes with their plans, which have the look of smiley-faced gifts to struggling families. But the dollars they hope to shower on the citizenry through various means -- mostly through refundable tax credits -- would likely encourage colleges and universities to charge more money, ultimately leaving the parents and students about where they are now, or maybe worse off.

That's how it has worked in the past -- parents looked at a bill they could not afford, someone slipped some bucks in their pocket, they paid the bill, and the people who wrote up the bill in the first place got a bright idea: They would ask for even more the next time out. You don't quell inflation by throwing money at it.

But that's what has been done, helping to keep college inflation way, way higher for the past decade than general inflation, and then there are all the other reasons colleges and universities keep raising tuition. For one thing, it's prestigious -- "Hey, look at me, I cost a lot!" -- and, for another, they don't have to worry much about competition. It's hard for new players to get in this game, one expert notes, and especially the schools with big names get many times the applicants they can ever admit no matter what the tuition.

There are exceptions, I am sure, but these institutions also tend to be grossly inefficient, according to at least some critics.

The nonprofits among them don't have to worry about holding down costs to have a reputable bottom line, it is noted. The schools are said to be throwbacks to Middle Ages governance -- it has been pointed out that they are more or less run by committee, and that faculties are king. Tenure can safeguard incompetence. Many professors don't teach much. In the summer, almost everyone takes off. Administrative costs keep growing beyond any obvious need.

Tuition charges are not all outrageous, and aid often compensates when they are. Community colleges are easily within the means of most if certainly not all families (an average $320 yearly tuition after financial assistance). In-state tuition at public universities can be quite a bit higher even with aid, but generally is not a killer. Private schools often take the full tuition amount from the richest students and return large portions of it to those who are not so rich. Scholarships are available to poor students, who will often also get breaks from the institutions they attend. A wide variety of merit grants is also available.

But community colleges and public universities may not fit the aspirations or particular needs of all students, and total costs -- tuition, room, board, transportation, books, fees and more -- can be a steep trail to hike even when tuition costs sound halfway reasonable ($11,900 total costs each year for in-state students with grants at public universities, $15,500 without grants). According to one published report, half of all students and a third of full-time students receive no grants of any kind (which would bring the average total annual costs at private schools to $34,000).

Experts quoted in one story say you ought to figure on spending $79,000 to get a student all the way through a relatively inexpensive four-year state school. The average federal loan repayment is put at $20,000, and many are much more.

Answers suggested by some analysts are wide-ranging, but one is to do very nearly the opposite of what Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama want -- the refundable tax credits. The word "refundable" means that you would get the promised money even if your income taxes are less than the credit amount, or even zero. That may be fair, but it is also expensive, and the ways of making up for these lost billions look to me like a collection of pipedreams. We'd all of us end up paying one way or another, including those whose children don't go to college. And that is not fair.

John Edwards has a more creative idea about giving everyone who will do some work in return a free year in school, but this also fails to address what some say really needs to be done -- slow down and reverse the excessive spending in schools through decreased, not additional, federal subsidies.

(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)