Category Archives: Education (higher ed)

Increase in tuition & Fees for full-time in-state undergraduate students in 2019-20. Source: SCHEV

Thanks to an increase in state support, Virginia’s four-year colleges and universities held tuition mandatory E&G (education and general) fees stable this year for in-state undergraduates. However, according to the latest Tuition & Fees report from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the total cost of attendance including room, board, and fees for auxiliary services will increase 2.2% for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Drivers of the cost increases are a 3.5% increase in the cost of room & board, accounting for about 44% of the total cost of attendance, and a 4.1% increase in mandatory non-E&G fees. It’s hard to see how those increases are justified, given the fact that the Consumer Price Index has increased only 1.6% over the past 12 months.

Did Virginia’s college administrators shift costs — perhaps in the form of administrative charges and overhead — to those line items so they can say they held the line on tuition and mandatory fees? Perhaps SCHEV could look into that question.

There are two broad theories explaining why the cost of higher education has increased at roughly four times the rate of inflation over the past two decades. One is the Baumol cost-disease hypothesis. Economist William J. Baumol used the example of a chamber orchestra to explain why it is so difficult to increase productivity in the service economy. It takes the same number of musicians and same length of time to perform a Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor as it did in 1826. By analogy, the job of transmitting higher-order knowledge from teacher to student is as labor intensive as it was a half century ago. Yet to recruit and retain faculty, colleges must pay their professors far more.

Howard Bowen. His “law” explains about half of all increases in higher-ed tuition and fees.

The other theory, known as “Bowen’s Law,” was articulated by former college president Howard R. Bowen. He laid out five axioms:

1. The dominant goals of institutions are excellent, prestige, and influence.
2. There is virtually no limit to the amount of money that an institution could spend for seemingly fruitful educational ends.
3. Each institution raises all the money it can.
4. The institution spends all it raises.
5. The cumulative effect of the proceeding four laws is toward ever-increasing expenditure.

Together, the two theorems explain about two-thirds of the increasing the cost of college attendance in the United States, says James V. Koch, author of “The Impoverishment of the American College Student.” While he gives credence to both theories, his research suggests that Bowen’s Law has twice the explanatory power as Baumol’s cost disease. Continue reading →

Click for more legible image

An enduring debate in higher education, especially here in Virginia, is the extent to which cuts in state support are responsible for skyrocketing tuition & fees at public universities. In his book, “The Impoverishment of the American College Student,” James V. Koch has tackled that question on a national basis, and in so doing has provided some interesting data on five Virginia universities.

For 20 flagship institutions, 20 urban institutions, and 20 “typical” institutions, Koch performed a series of calculations tracking changes between the 1999/00 school year and the 2014/15 school year:

• The percent change in published tuition and fees (T&F) adjusted for inflation.
• The percentage change in published net T&F — adjusted for inflation and financial aid — per full-time equivalent student.
• The percentage change in state appropriations, adjusted for inflation, per full-time equivalent student.
• The net change in revenue available to the institution resulting from changes in tuition, fees, financial aid, and state support.

Continue reading →

UVa’s new president, Jim Ryan, starts to leave his mark on the institution.

The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors has adopted a new strategic plan, The 2030 Plan — the first under the leadership of President Jim Ryan. If UVa achieves its goals, says Ryan in the introduction, “We will be the leading public university in the country in 2030 and one of the very best in the world, whether public or private.”

The 2030 Plan expresses many high-minded goals — among them, to recruit “talented, diverse and service-oriented” students; recruit and retain excellent faculty and administrative staff; prepare students to be “servant leaders” in a diverse, globally connected world; establish leadership in critical areas of research; and offer one of the best values in higher education.

The plan is devoid of details on how the university will attain these goals, but it appears that the board will be delegating much of its authority to Ryan and his staff. The Daily Progress notes that the board “will approve three-year funding plans at a strategic level” but leave “line-item allocations” up to senior officials. “Previously board members would have approved those expenditures as well.” Moreover, UVa’s administration will have the authority to adjust the funding plan by as much as $15 million without full board approval.

While illuminating institutional goals to boost UVa’s national standing as one of the nation’s great universities, the strategic plan is silent about an issue of vital interest to Virginians — affordability. Rather than emphasizing affordability, the strategic plan emphasizes “value”: Continue reading →

Here’s a rare good news story coming out of Virginia’s educational establishment: The state has enacted reforms to its teacher-education system that should help reverse the teacher shortage created by… the state.

Last month, reports the Washington Post, the Virginia Department of Education approved undergraduate teacher education programs at more than a dozen colleges and universities. Aspiring teachers will be able to earn teaching credentials in undergraduate school without the necessity of completing a teacher-preparation program requiring a fifth year of higher education.

The change is driven by chronic teacher shortage at Virginia public schools — 940 teaching positions went unfilled in the 2017-18 school year. The shortage is especially acute in lower-income schools where new teachers are frequently demoralized by discipline issues, and quit or move to schools in more affluent neighborhoods.

Stephanie D. van Hover, a department chair of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, explained the economics behind the teacher shortage:

Shortening the time it takes for aspiring educators to get into the classroom will make choosing teaching as a career a less cost-prohibitive proposition.

Continue reading →

Would you buy a “free” college degree from this man?

Bernie Sanders, a leading Democratic Party candidate for president, has proposed making college “free” and erasing all $1.6 trillion in student debt. He calls the cost of higher education a “national disgrace,” which it is. But his proffered remedy is so wrong-headed that it’s all I can do to keep steam from shooting out of my ears.

Other commentators have opined on how free tuition would benefit mostly affluent Americans who qualify for college admissions, while debt forgiveness would reward students who recklessly piled on debt they couldn’t repay and penalize those who made sacrifices to make good on their loans. Less frequently noted, taxpayers should not be compelled to subsidize young wastrels who spend years partying or engaged in a search to “find themselves.”

But in this post, I focus on a question Sanders neglects to ask: Why are college costs are so high? His platform ignores administrative bloat. It ignores low faculty productivity. And it only partially addresses the gold-plating of buildings, grounds, and facilities. If we want to make college affordable without devastating taxpayers, we need to strip the costs out of the higher-ed sector.

What if… What if students could contract directly with accredited college professors to take a course rather than contract with a college or university? Continue reading →