American Colleges 2009: Cut Costs, but Hike Completion Rates
Colleges tackle reduced finances. U.S. colleges this year faced their worst financial challenges in decades. Endowments took their biggest hit ever — down an average 19% this year, says an estimate by the Commonfund Institute, a non-profit research organization.
Disappearing dollars
State support for higher education dwindled. Oregon this month became the latest state to reduce need-based grants for students. And colleges looked for more ways to cut costs. Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., said it planned to cut up to 70 staff positions in February. The University of California system’s plans to raise fees 32% fed student protests.
Federal coffers were squeezed, too. Lawmakers approved a 13% increase in the maximum Pell Grant, signaling a strengthened commitment to ensuring access to college for low-income students. But an unexpected surge in enrollments this fall created an $18 billion shortfall in the Pell program — three times the shortfall last year, the Associated Press reported this month.
College success
Access has long been a hallmark of federal policy, but President Obama also unveiled a number of proposals that put more emphasis on ensuring that students are successful once they get to college, too.
“Obama is essentially saying we want higher ed to be an open door, not a revolving door,” says Terry Hartle, a lobbyist for the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for colleges and universities. Under Obama’s proposals, colleges could be rewarded if they demonstrate improvements in persistence and completion rates.
Two-year colleges
Obama also proposed $12 billion to reform community colleges as a way to prepare the nation’s workforce for a global economy. In beefing up funding for two-year schools, which traditionally receive less attention than four-year institutions, Obama “broke the mold,” says Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.
Student loans
The proposal generating the most controversy this year would replace a large bank-based federal student loan program with a government direct-lending program and use some savings to boost other priorities, including Pell Grants and community colleges. While the House passed a bill based on a number of Obama initiatives with relative ease, a bigger fight is expected in the Senate.
A key critic of the plan isSen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former Education secretary. He argues that the federal government’s plan would “overcharge the student” and “use the profit to pay for the new programs that make the congressmen look good.” And, he says, if the Obama proposals become law, “getting your loan will become about as enjoyable as waiting in line for your driver’s license.”
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