Report urges greater public investment in higher education

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 10, 1997 by Ronald Roach

The Council for Aid to Education's Commission on National Investment in Higher Education (CNIHE) released a two-year study that warns a "growing shortfall in public funding may force the nation's colleges and universities to turn away half the student population by the year 2015."

CNIHE co-chairs Thomas Kean, former Governor of New Jersey and president of Drew University, and Joseph Dionne, chairman and CEO of the McGraw-Hill Companies, presented the study's findings, which recommended broad reforms in post-secondary education last month in Washington, D.C. The CNIHE study, Breaking the Social Contract: The Fiscal Crisis in Higher Education, advocates increased public funding of community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. Reforms that would restructure and streamline higher education institutions - patterning them on models from the business community - are urged by the CNIHE study. In preparing the study, CNIHE, which includes leading academicians and business executives, analyzed trends in enrollment, costs, and public funding from the past twenty years.

"Sweeping changes must be made to halt sharp increases in tuition and increase other sources of revenue. In the twenty-first century, a high school education won't be enough for the next generation of entry-level workers to keep up in this fast-changing world," said co-chair Joseph Dionne.

The five major recommendations of the CNIHE study are:

* America's political leaders should reallocate public resources to reflect the growing importance of higher education to the economic prosperity and social stability of the United States.

* The governance systems of post-secondary institutions should adopt major structural changes in order to improve productivity.

* Post-secondary institutions should pursue greater mission differentiation to streamline services and better respond to the changing needs of their constituencies.

* Colleges and universities should develop sharing arrangements to maximize scarce resources.

* The appropriate level of education for American workers should include - as a minimum - some form of post-secondary education or training.

Kean, while speaking to reporters following the study's presentation, said that community colleges will require the bulk of increased funding support and reform. This is so, according to Kean, because the largest increase in future workforce training and education needs will result at the sub-baccalaureate level where community colleges already specialize.

David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities disputed the main point of the study, saying that the report focused almost entirely on the increase in the published prices of colleges and universities. "Institutionally provided aid, which makes institutions affordable, is mentioned only in a footnote. Any fair analysis of college affordability must focus on net tuition, and not solely on the growth in published tuition levels."

Warren said that "many independent institutions, already starting from a 'lean and mean' posture, have adopted significant cost reduction practices in their operations."

The Council for Aid to Education is an independent subsidiary of RAND, a national, nonprofit organization. For a copy of the study, call the Council for Aid to Education at (212) 661-5800.