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University of the South
At a time when students and families are fed with up with rising college costs, University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., cut tuition 10 percent last year and is promising to keep costs unchanged for entering freshmen for the next four years.
As an undergraduate at the University of California–Irvine, Christopher Campbell was almost forced to drop out by repeated double-digit increases in tuition — some in the middle of the academic year — to compensate for massive state budget cuts.
Campbell ultimately made it through and is starting law school at UCI this fall. But he watched classmates driven out of college by the unpredictable mid-year price hikes.
Now he’s pushing an amendment to the California constitution that would ban public universities from raising tuition for students after they’ve enrolled.
“Students and families are fed up,” Campbell says. “And that’s only going to get worse. As more and more students have to deal with these problems, it’s just going to keep building until the problem is fixed.”
After three decades of tuition hikes that have outpaced inflation and increases in family income, students, families, legislators and governing boards are demanding a halt.
“Enough is enough,” says Anne Mariucci, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, which for the first time in 20 years has frozen in-state tuition at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University after increases over the last five years of 84 and 96 percent, respectively.
Some private universities, too, have agreed to stop raising their tuition, or even cut it, after being alarmed to discover their enrollments starting to slip.
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“The pushback is beginning,” says John McCardell Jr., president of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., which last year cut tuition 10 percent and this year is promising to keep the cost unchanged for entering freshmen for four years.
Sewanee, as the university is known, was losing students to the University of Tennessee, the University of Georgia and other cheaper public institutions, McCardell says, and the size of the entering class was beginning to slide.
“Price probably has more than nothing to do with that,” he says. Students and their families “are voting with their feet.”
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Or with their votes. The Arizona regents were reportedly being pressed to get a handle on tuition by the governor and legislators. They, in turn, were hearing from increasingly angry constituents. “About time,” read the headline on an editorial in the ASU State Press, the student newspaper, when the tuition freeze was finally proposed. “As prices continue to go up, you have people saying, you can’t keep doing that,” says Rick Myers, chairman of the Arizona Board of Regents.
The 10-campus University of California system also froze undergraduate tuition for this fall after the governor and legislature there made doing so a condition of a $125 million budget increase — though there’s a hitch: Tuition will increase more than 20 percent in the middle of the year if voters fail to approve a tax increase in November to raise $8.5 billion for public education and other services, a quid pro quo that some critics say is blackmail.
Texas legislators have long pushed for a tuition freeze at that state’s public universities. When Gov. Rick Perry added his voice to the chorus this year, his appointees on the board of regents agreed — over university officials’ objections — to forgo a planned 5 percent increase over two years at the flagship University of Texas–Austin, where tuition now will be unchanged. Tuition also will be frozen at the Arlington campus. “It isn’t in the interest of most Texans for universities to be continually raising their tuition rates,” Perry was quoted as saying.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick also announced that he opposed a 5 percent tuition increase at University of Massachusetts campuses, though the system’s board of trustees imposed it anyway.
The only exception is the University of Massachusetts School of Law, which will hold tuition level. So will the law schools at the University of New Hampshire. Last year, the University of Maryland's Francis King Carey School of Law froze its tuition. Not coincidentally, the number of law-school applicants plummeted by more than 15 percent for the academic year that begins this fall — on top of declines of 10 percent in each of the previous two years — according to the Law School Admission Council. The number of students taking the Law School Admission Test this year suggests the trend will continue. Meanwhile, one third of law-school graduates in 2010 did not have jobs nine months later, and starting pay for those who did was down 13 percent. Phoebe Haddon, dean of the University of Maryland’s law school, cited “the impact of the economic downturn on the legal employment market” as one of her reasons for freezing tuition.
Equating price with prestige
Colleges and universities have long been reluctant to lower or cap their prices, McCardell says, because — as with new cars and fine wines — they believe students and their families equate price with prestige. That, he says, is why elite private colleges all magically end up within a few hundred dollars of one another each year.
In his 25 years as a higher-education administrator, “I was reared to believe that what you charge is a reflection of your position in the marketplace,” McCardell says. “And I was reared to believe that no matter what happens, the American people will pay the sticker price. But all that changed fundamentally in 2008,” at the start of the economic downturn.
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Supply and demand have not traditionally affected the price of higher education. That’s because supply largely remained unchanged, while demand was ever-rising. But the number of high-school graduates, which peaked in 2009, is starting to decline. Enrollment fell at more than 40 percent of colleges and universities last year, according to the credit-rating firm Moody’s. At least 375 institutions still had space available for this fall when the admissions period was over, the largest number in a decade, the National Association for College Admission Counseling reports. The percentage of accepted students who actually enroll is also falling. A recent analysis of public and private nonprofit colleges by Bain & Company found that one third were on an “unsustainable financial path.”
Colleges that are especially feeling the squeeze are those with small enrollments and endowments — and those are also the kinds of private colleges and universities that are maintaining their tuition levels to remain competitive.
Private Oklahoma City University, for instance, competes with more than 25 public institutions — most of them cheaper — in a state of fewer than four million. “Access to higher education is broad here,” says Susan Barber, provost at the university, which froze tuition this year. “We had discussions that we hoped this would help retention of students and in our recruitment efforts. It wasn’t completely an altruistic decision.”
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Other schools that have frozen their tuition this fall include Burlington College in Vermont, which has about 200 undergraduates; Ancilla College, a Catholic, two-year liberal-arts college in Indiana with about 530 students; the 730-student Tabor College, a Mennonite school in Kansas; liberal-arts Urbana University in Ohio, which has 1,270 students; Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire, which has 1,300 undergraduates; and Pacific Union College, a Seventh-Day Adventist college in California with an enrollment of 1,530.
“The question is, how much can you charge for your product? And that is a reflection of the laws of supply and demand and your sense of your own position in the marketplace,” McCardell says. “Why are people shopping at Costco and Sam’s Club? That’s a terrible analogy, but I can get a really good box of cherries at Costco for a whole lot less than I can get them at the Piggly Wiggly.”
Slashing prices
This fall, a few private colleges and universities — trying to compete with cheaper public institutions — are offering Costco-style markdowns. In New Jersey, for instance, private Seton Hall is matching the price of public Rutgers University for freshmen with top grades and SAT scores. That comes to about a 60 percent discount. Cabrini College, near Philadelphia, cut its tuition 12.5 percent and promised not to raise it above $30,000 through at least 2015.
Lincoln College, a private two-year college in Illinois, lowered its tuition 24 percent and the University of Charleston in West Virginia 22 percent, both in response to declining enrollments. William Peace University, a women’s college with 700 students in North Carolina, slashed tuition nearly 8 percent to attract men as it becomes co-educational, and to increase its enrollment by 50 percent. And Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, is responding to a big drop in applications to its school of education by giving 50 percent discounts to incoming freshmen.
If students and their families are straying from expensive institutions, a few schools that are freezing or reducing what they charge seem to be winning them back. At Sewanee, applications have risen 17 percent, and the number of entering freshmen is up more than 12 percent. Oklahoma City University has 30 more freshmen enrolled this fall than last, and the number of students dropping out is down.
Back in California, Christopher Campbell is juggling law school and his referendum campaign to keep tuition flat for students who enroll at the state’s public universities.
“Whoever I tell,” he says, “is always, ‘Yeah, hey, let’s put this through.’ ”
This story, "Colleges freeze, reduce tuition as public balks at further price hikes," was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.
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Leave a Comment:
This is good news but there will not be any jobs for graduates until Mr. Obama is out of office.
....yea its all obamas fault?!?!? How narrow minded can you get.
heres the TRUTH.
Problems are never that simple to say its one person's fault and pointing the finger like a child doesnt helps find the real problem.
I was looking into an IT program at a satellite campus and about spat my coffee across the room when I read the tuition amount: $455 per credit hour! It's a 60 hour program, designed for adults who work and are seeking to either finish a bachelors degree or attain a second one. At nearly $30K with books that is a chunk of change to repay (with interest).
While my own version of 'pushing back' is to elect not to attend their school I also realize that by not going I am limiting myself from doing something I would really like to do for a career. It's a tough balance!
Overcrowding in our college education system is the cause of
the price increases. The demand for an education worker means a great deal to
employers now days. If we had a good trade schools system in place and valued a
high school degree instead of passing them out like candy, we would not have
these increases in tuition. In California everything is subsidized, so I agree
that tuition should go up. If you want the education you should pay for it. Also
for the U.S., taking in uneducated people will make education cost rise due to
demand. Amnesty for all and no education for anyone will be the end result.
California is second from the bottom in k-12 education system and we pay out
the nose for it in tax dollars. I think the U.S. needs to get its house in
order before we ruin everything or forefathers worked to pass on to us.
That's a steaming load of BS!
There are more students attending Elementary, Junior High, & High school, than every Vocational, College, & University, combined, yet we continue send our children so they become more educated.
We've more people in our Correction Facilities than every Vocational, College, & University, combined, yet we continued to clothe, feed, & shelter them to protect ourselves.
We've purchased more weapons for our military than there are people in our country, yet we continue to arm our soldiers to defend our country.
Supply & Demand don't apply to education & public safety. We either invest, or we fall! Most crimes are committed out of desperation to feed oneself or family. We wouldn't need to spend as much for convicts if there were less of them from the beginning. The most consistent path out of poverty is education. Why? Education leads to more job marketability, higher salaries, better careers, improved perspective & positive innovative thought that benefits us all as a nation!
Next time put down the Neocon Koolaid, & please exercise Reason when posting.
Start by lower the salaires of high paid administrators. $400,000+ for "top talen" -please. Just cut the salaries of all of them and then all "top talent" is re-priced down to the point where tuition can come down.
Yeah but the population, as it gets dumber (or maybe it's always been dumb as a whole?), can only get riled up by rabble rousing, and think in broad, general issues. I was just accosted by a person who enlightened me in a sort of impromptu political debate that sprung up. In this debate I learned important things like Obama was born in Africa, he is a Muslim, and he comes from Chicago where they are all criminals. I guess detailed, important issues that actually affect people are boring.
These colleges operate like the corporations today. Those at the very top pay themselves well, and those in the middle and bottom keep getting screwed a little more each year. And they operate with impunity. Granted I don't expect the shareholders of a corporation to actually hold their board accountable for keeping the corporate officers' pay anywhere near reasonable.
But your local public college shouldn't be that difficult to hold accountable. I guarantee you that the boards of trustees and administrators at every state college in the country are full of cronyism bull****. Everyone on the board is a friend and/or business partner of someone who gives the governor a lot of money, and the president is someone who will play ball and do what the board tells them based on the wishes of those that put them on the board, and the administrators who survive at the top and keep getting raises are golf buddies and ass kissers of the right people.
The small college my daughter goes to just built new dorms - and paid cash. No debt. New athletic center was built 5 years ago - and paid cash. No debt.
It now demands freshman, sophs, juniors live on campus in dorms because they have the capacity. And no debt. But tuition goes up every year.
I remember years and years ago when a person went to college to follow their dreams, whatever they were. Nowadays you need to go to college to get a job in one of these corporations. From my perspective college has become a training area for certain technologies, you people are just raising corporate slaves and paying through the nose to do it
The "classical" view of university (100 or more years ago) was that it provided wealthy, well-heeled students a chance to learn the liberal arts (Latin, history, philosophy, etc.). College slowly grew into an institution that everyone must attend in order to find a job. Perhaps we're now sliding back toward the traditional model, but programs such as apprenticeships need to be put into place for the hundreds of thousands of kids who will not be going to college.
Got Kids? Want them to get a college degree? Get ready to sell the farm, hock the house, work 3 jobs and drain the bank accounts.. its a shame in order for our children to go to school we have to give up any and all wealth to make it happen.
OR, they can do well in school and get scholarships - or work and pay their own way - or get a degree that allows them to have some of their student loans reduced by community work in the area of their degree. They can start out at a local community college - keep their grades up and look at scholarships at a university. There are ways.
There used to be ways Maga.
I remember when scholarships provided true "full rides". Not anymore. One's lucky if a full ride scholarship covers all classes. We've 2 young children on that Gerber program & honestly at the path our nation's heading, most of our retirement will be used to help them gain their degrees; even with Gerber. Education must be nationalized, otherwise America for our children, their children's children, & so on will be vulnerable to every threat of their time. By then, our military--as great as it is now, won't be effective because our soldiers will be too dumb to fight well.
A foolish warrior, is sooner dead.
Corporations, employers, and the schools are all to blame for their tireless greed. Like many have said and from my life experiences, there is no need for a degree for soo many jobs out there. Our own elitist, merchantile, and greedy ways are finally beginning to show signs of a flash point.
I am almost 30 and have a decent middle income job, but only through digging and digging and proving that a person doesn't need some pointless degree to be deemed "employable" What kind of sorry excuse for a society have we become? The greatest division in jobs are between the owners of all of these institutions and all of the illegals and poor that they hire to fill in all of their "expendable" positions, while everything in the middle is turned into a financial pit fight amongst the middle class who is stuggling to even be represented. I despise the common idea of what job qualifications and skills are, in reality it is all a show of what you can sacrifice out of your bank account.
Let me blow your mind America!
I live in Germany and the people here took to the streets when the university tried raising tuition by a 100 euros. They only pay a few hundred euros per semester.
In America tuition rises every year by a substantial amount, and we pay thousands per semester not to mention boods!!
This is INSANE people!!
INVEST in higher education, we will fall behind if we dont, as a society put our money together to help reduce costs for education.
THERE IS A THING CALLED FACEBOOK, GET ON IT AND COME TOGETHER. I'M SURE THERE ARE ENOUGH PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO ARE WILLING TO BOYCOTT CLASSES UNITL THINGS CHANGE!!!
Stop being so docile and PROTEST!!!!!!!!
I also think that State funded schools should give priority entrance to students who live in that state! Let alone the city/town the school is in. My tax $$ are going to run a university that would not accpet my daughter (a 4.0 sudent!) so they could accept more out of state applicants because they(the students) have to pay more. WTH!? Whats more, we lie in he same city and s would not be paying housing - another reason she was turned down. This is the truth! They told me this to my face.
If public education keeps getting budget cuts there will be fewer students that will be accepted into any university or college. Stupid people cannot pass an entrance exam and the elite will have what they want, an army of drones to work for next to nothing. But, there in lies the rub. If people are so uneducated that they cannot read a blueprint, who will rebuild the infrastructure, or fix a car either mechanically or after a collision? Who will repair the power grid after a storm (by the way, last year in Germany electric power was lost a total of 12 minutes for the entire country--what does that tell you?) and who will repair the public water systems after another water main collapses? It has become a joke, this "American Dream" with this do nothing congress. We need every American to be as well educated as they can be, not just the people that can afford it.
They'll just outsource it to H1B visa holders. It's cheaper.
College is for uppity liberals, and for course for developing countries overtaking us. I don't want any of my hard earned tax dollars going to investing in the country, and the benefits and advantages of an educated populace.
Sean Hannity told me I should hate colleges, professors, and any government employee. So by golly I hate 'em. By all means keep gutting those state college budgets, and then tell the colleges not to make up for it with tuition hikes. Everyone knows state college employees are just fat cats rolling in the big salaries. In fact, since their salaries are public record, at least in most states, you can go online and see just how high on the hog they're living. Hey, I think I see a non-faculty college department manager making 26,000 per year. Bet he'd do it (and do it really well) for 24.
Ya think? You would be wrong. Colleges proffessors can make up wards of $200,000. Teachers get monster boneses of over $50,000. Teachers Union chiefs can make over $500,000.
Now, those liberal teachers are targeting high schools. The last four shootings that made the head lines were students from our liberal colleges.
Hannity never told you to hate anybody, it is your liberal brain-washing that is fomenting your own hate.
Go and research the salaries of professors at your local state college. If you find "upwards of $200,000", and "monster bonuses of over $50,000, let me know. But realistically, an experienced professor with a PhD should do fairly well. If we can expect doctors to be millionaires because of their effort and education, then I say let a professor with a PhD make a salary commensurate with someone smart, talented, and hard-working enough to acquire a PhD. It's usually not as high as 200K, but over 100K is not unreasonable for such a position.
I'm not even going into the other ridiculousness about teachers union chiefs and liberal teachers and shootings. That is lazy, ignorant right wing talk radio drivel and you saying it isn't doesn't make it so.
couldn't even finish this article. had to stop at the part about private colleges reducing tuition because of enrollment slipping off...
proving once again the only thing corporate capitalists care about is money money money money
The burden for investing into our nation future should be shared. Just as Elementary, Junior High, & High school are sponsored by us all, so this must be at the College, Universities, & Vocational level. Nowadays there exist no occupations with livable wages without the prequisite of a degree.
There were once many such schools where students could acquire a no-cost degree; now there are only about 10 or 11 left. We need more institutions like these, especially being we're the wealthiest country on Earth. IMHO, every college, vocational, & university, in the United States of America, bearing a state, city, President, or national hero's name should be free for students to attend. If a school wants to represent America, then it must exist for the greater good of America! Shared responsibility. Period.
All this talk about Arizona board members freezing tuition...the way they countered that was by hiking up out of state tuition. I currently get charged double the price per credit plus as a graduate student my credit cap is 12 while in state students get capped at 7. This means I pay per credit until i reach 12 and anything after that is free, while in state pay half as much per credit and cap out at 7! To top that off Arizona makes it impossible to get residency while studying. So much for getting an education to better my future...all i see in the future is a huge mountain of debt!
There are still a few colleges that don't charge tuition, such as Cooper Union or Webb Institute. I'm sure with a little searching, a few more can be uncovered. The caveat is such institutions require specialization in a specific field, and it is generally some form of engineering. The advantage to such specialization is a tremendous network of industry professionals who can make landing a job after graduation a breeze.
And when it comes down to it, professional welders make a very good living, and a college degree isn't mandatory.
Here is a concept...instead of using books...use computers. You have to buy them anyways. Use a mainframe learning center so when the student logs in during class, he/she will be seeing everything the other classmates are seeing. Books are hundreds of dollars, but paperless can be a mere fraction of the cost. Since education is so integral to American Society, we need a standard way of pricing and teaching it. Costs should be way down, and everyone should be allowed to attend. It makes for a stronger economy doing it that way.
Higher education is the next financial bubble to burst. Its beginning and who knows where it will end. Universities and colleges will have to get their act(s) together. You'll see it at any big school, they are more than willing to throw money away on the silliest of things. They build new buildings when they really don't need to. Professors get paid more and teach fewer classes. When I look at the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, even in the recession there are construction cranes all over the place. Then they cry about needing money. For educators, they sure are stupid. The era of free money is over.
now if we could only make the doctors and hospials and insurance companies come to heel
About time the people have decided to fight back against at least one part of our corrupt economy, now if we could jest kill off the big banks and save our markets.......
Its a ponzi scheme just like housing. Worse, at least housing you can walk away and give them the keys. In this case, your owned by the government. These schools are no different than bankers or doctors. If you have the control over price and the marketing campaign, you can do just about anything to people an dthey will take it.
Colleges and Universities need an enema. What Colleges and Universities across this Country have been doing to young people for the last 25 years is nothing short of a crime. Higher Education should not strap young people with staggering debt. Recently it has become a sham as a higher percentage of graduates can not find employment and are drawn back into the system which says more Education is the answer. This needs to stop !!! The course curriculum and the majors offered must be adequate for these young graduates to have a fighting chance to find employment. It is about damn time that this be remedied for the entire Country. Colleges and Universities should be ashamed of their dismal performance and sorry tactics.
rene591
now if we could only make the doctors and hospials and insurance companies come to heel
Already being done, thnks to the new healthcare law health insurance companies cannot: drop you if you get seriously sick or injured, refuse treatment for pre-existing conditions, and they have to spend 80-85% of the premiums you pay on your health, and if they dont they have to refund the difference to you, this year alone they will be refunding 1.1 billion dollars, so the corrupt for profit model has been killed off all thnks to the new health care law.
Does everyone really need to gop to college?!?!?
The world needs ditchdiggers too you know.
For now. Ditches will be dug by machines in the future.
The world needs ditch diggers, and especially in this country. When the rest of the educated world is responsible for all of the industry, technology jobs, etc., the US will provide the ditch diggers.
lol... So let me get this straight.. As an educated person you truly believe that without a college education you will be a failure?
Educated people really aren't that smart then are they? Or is it that they are smart but simply fools?
Yes, college should be avaiable to every American. If one wants to go it should most definitely be possible.
America used to pride itself on an educated public. If we don't have it, we are no better than Afghanistan.
Everything in this country has become inflated profits...year after year after year we have taught our Institutions and Corporations that to increase is Normal. It isn't. Look at the housing bubble. Look at how much Big Pharma charges for an aspirin in a hospital. Continual Increase in their profits is not working for our Society of People. Besides a debt ceiling we need a cost ceiling. We are not infinite resources for them. Even with good jobs we are not set up to keep up with infinite increase.
I'd hire an ambitious high school graduate faster than I'd hire a well "educated" college graduate.
Why? College kids think they are owed a big starting salary and all the perks. high school grads know that they have to earn it the old fashioned way.
commonsense:
Hmmm. Let's take that logic even further. Would you let an "ambitious high school graduate" do surgery to repair your aneurysm? Would you let an "ambitious high school graduate" design the aircraft you fly in? Would you let an "ambitious high school graduate" draft the plans for your office building?
You're too smart to have gotten the point.
No, your point was ridiculous.