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March 1st, 2011 7:29 pm
Higher Ed Sector Bracing for Cuts in Funding, Eventually Enrollment

A sobering bit of news for college administrators about to go on spring break:

“The current prolonged recession means that we can no longer expect new revenue to pay for increasing attainment in higher education,” said Jane V. Wellman, Executive Director of the Delta Cost Project, which does a study every year on the cost of higher education. “In the next decade, we are going to be lucky to hold onto the resources we have. That means that all institutions – from the Ivies to the community colleges –are going to have to develop investment strategies that support goals for attainment. That will require new habits: looking at spending, and promoting the values of efficiency and cost effectiveness as co-partners to the never-ending search for new revenues.”

At first, one might be tempted to think that higher education needs to take a financial haircut just like the rest of the economy.  While that is undoubtedly true, the consequences will be enormous.

Federal higher education loans like Stafford and Grad Plus (and their state counterparts) are used like entitlements, though you’d never hear a recipient saying so.  Though only 1 in 4 Americans eventually graduate with a college degree, nearly everyone qualifies for the loans to finance one.

Because the cost of attendance continues to grow at several times the rate of inflation, grads and non-grads are piling up huge debt loads; prompting some to call the looming student loan crisis our next financial disaster.

The coming cuts in state and federal budgets for higher education financing will significantly decrease the subsidies available to students.  That means fewer students going to college, leaving enrollments peopled with those able to count on private financing.

Since passage of the 1944 GI Bill an essential part of the American dream has been having the opportunity to go to college by removing cost as a consideration.  The same bill did the same thing to spur home ownership via the VA-backed mortgage.  We all know how slippery that slope turned out to be.

Austerity is coming to America.  Hopefully, we can adjust to reduced expectations.

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