A point Obama made in his SOTU speech and again in a speech at the University of Michigan was to put pressure on colleges to keep tuition from rising by threatening to remove federal subsidies. University of Washington President Mike Young said that Obama doesn't understand public university budgets and dismissed Obama's plan as "political theater."
Obama's plan is focused on increasing campus-based aid and will not affect the vast bulk of federal grants and loans. Since there is no central authority for higher education, the federal government has a very limited control over the real costs and significant gridlock in Congress.
University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman said that tuition increases are needed to make up for drops in state funding. Obama wants state governments to be more helpful, which Coleman agrees with.
Young said that the cost of educating students has actually gone down and that the state authorized tuition increases are only to make up for the state cutting their subsidies.
Obama's speech at the University of Michigan was part of a campaign to promote his SOTU agenda in competitive states.
I did not understand what University of Washington President Young meant about university costs. Were his university's state subsidy cuts greater or less than decreases in the cost to educate? And if they were lesser, what was the point of the tuition increase?
This does seem like a pre-campaign season campaign targeted at younger (college age) voters who are a growing demographic among registered voters. And young people were more likely to vote for Obama in 2008.
I am doubtful that any federal plan to keep tuition from rising can make it through the gridlock of Congress, but I have my fingers crossed for an effective plan to be enacted within the next several months. What are your thoughts, AP Gov folk?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
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3 comments:
I believe that the decrease in state subsidies outweigh the slight decrease in net cost to actually educate students. However, this doesn't mean that colleges shouldn't try to lower tuition costs. There are plenty of ways to cut costs, but I think that since schools are competing to attract the best students (as well as students from wealthy backgrounds who can donate in the future), they end up spending money on trivial things such as flat screen tv's in dorm rooms and over the top student centers. While these things are trivial, I hope colleges do not try to cut important aspects of education such as faculty. While these may cut costs, it weakens the college experience and the student's ability to learn. College can be impersonal enough as it is today, so it is vital that students can receive as much attention as possible.
I think that state subsidies are too important for colleges to risk. The threat hopefully will scare the colleges into lowering the tuition. I mean, if rising prices are already beginning to deter students from going to particular colleges simply because they can't afford it. Supply and Demand? Less Students, Lower prices?
It seems to me that the main problem here is that most state's have been hit hard by the bad economy and are therefore being forced to cut back. Unfortunately, funding for state schools is included in those cutbacks . I think that we have all noticed the rising tuition costs of our own UCs and CSUs and the sacrifices they have also been forced to make. I think that Obama has the right idea about trying to make higher education more accessible, but with so much gridlock in Congress, it might be better to go about focusing on the source of the problem (bad economy) rather than its symptoms (hiked tuition).
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