The State of College Affordability

In his State of the Union address, President Obama elevated the issue of the rising costs of higher education to a new level – a step that, in my view, was long overdue. America can certainly benefit from comprehensive and inclusive discussions of the critical social, economic, and public policy issues surrounding access to, and affordability of, higher education. Students, their families, colleges and universities, the federal and state governments, communities, businesses – all should be involved because everyone has a stake in the outcome. Indeed, one can argue that the President was responding to the growing popular demand, exemplified by elements of the Occupy Movement, for urgent attention to the questions of access and affordability.

The problem has been widely recognized: for well over a decade. The costs of higher education have been steadily rising, and at a rate that exceeds the consumer price index as a measure of inflation. For public colleges and universities, the underlying reason (as I have pointed out previously) is the systematic disinvestment in higher education by state governments. The behavior of state governments in this regard is not fundamentally irrational: in the face of ever increasing costs for such things as mandated entitlements, health care, public safety, corrections, and pensions, funding for higher education was increasingly viewed as discretionary. After all, if colleges and universities needed funds beyond those provided by the state, they could always raise tuition. And they did.

For some time this strategy worked acceptably well because in many states public higher education was inexpensive. But after several years of budget reductions and concomitant tuition increases, this is no longer the case for many students and families. Here at the University of Rhode Island two recent events powerfully highlighted the situation. The first was the testimony presented by students, alumni, and faculty at a hearing on campus by the Special House Commission to Study Public Higher Education Affordability and Accessibility in Rhode Island (see www.uri.edu/news/releases/index.php?id=6102), followed by the Occupy URI forum (see our current home page).

It is encouraging for us in Rhode Island that the multiple issues associated with the cost of public higher education are gaining increased attention. Crafting solutions will not be easy or simple. There are several other, well recognized, problems facing our state that also require urgent attention. However, most of the problems we face, including access and affordability of higher education, could be addressed far more readily if additional resources were available. I believe that the best and most sustainable path to increasing our resources is to grow the economy. This growth must happen sooner than later, it must be substantial, and it must be based on innovation. Discovery, technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and a highly prepared workforce are all essential to building a competitive 21st century economy. These are all things at which URI can excel. Consequently, access to affordable, excellent public higher education is a critical component of constructing solutions to the many challenges facing our state, and our nation.

The Value of Higher Education

As the University of Rhode Island prepares to begin its spring semester, we continue to carefully evaluate the value and costs of education at URI. Nationally, the question of the value of higher education has become more prominent and persistent. It is understandable, given the substantial increases in the costs for both private and public higher education that have occurred over the past several years and the bleak economic conditions that still exist for many students and families across America. For public universities and colleges, the reason for the increase in the cost to students and their families is clear: for the past several years nearly every state in the nation has systematically reduced state support for public higher education. Given the slow pace of the economic recovery and, especially, job creation, questions about the value of higher education have become acute. The current recession is hitting recent college graduates very hard, exacerbating concerns about the value of a college education.

How should we respond? First, we must candidly acknowledge that the old truism “college is not for everyone” is accurate, and further acknowledge that pursuing “any degree at any price” is simply unwise. But we also need to remind people that, even now, college graduates fare much better in the labor markets than those without a degree and that the average income advantage enjoyed by those with a bachelor’s degree, compared to those who graduate from high school, is still very substantial. One recent (August 2011) and specific measure of this for URI graduates was provided by SmartMoney magazine (published by the Wall Street Journal), which ranked the University of Rhode Island 1^st in New England and 13^th nationally for value.

I believe that such statistical comparisons, as favorable as they may be, substantially underestimate the value of higher education in the rapidly changing, global economy. In many respects, our primary educational mission at the University of Rhode Island is to prepare students for careers that are only being invented now, or that do not yet exist. Research universities like URI are uniquely positioned to provide such an education because research, discovery, and experiential learning are intrinsically a part of what we do. The learning that occurs when students are asked to work on problems that have not been solved, or to analyze data or information that has not previously been examined, or to create something that hasn’t been made before, is not only essential but unique. And it is that kind of learning that not only will prepare them to thrive in an environment of innovation and rapid change, but to become innovators themselves.

At the University of Rhode Island, we are working every day to transform undergraduate and graduate education to prepare our students to thrive, and to lead, in the global economy. Judged by the success of its alumni, URI has long been a university that prepares its students to be competitive, to be innovative, and to lead. That is more important than ever. New approaches, innovative methodologies, stronger partnerships, and consistent commitment to excellence in both teaching and research are required. The faculty and staff of the University of Rhode Island are deeply engaged in all of these areas.

It Has Always Been About Jobs - Continued

In the 21st century, how should the University of Rhode Island, and other land-grant universities, prepare their students for “the several pursuits and professions in life”? In many respects, this question is a more difficult one now than at the beginning of the land grant era. For one thing, the majority of our students will no longer make their living, or build their career, in endeavors associated with agriculture. Our economy is far more diversified, far more global, and changing far more rapidly than at any previous time in history. Additionally, the specific knowledge and particular skills our students gain during their undergraduate education have much shorter useful lifetimes. There are also rapidly increasing expectations for people to work in collaborative, diversified teams, and to analyze and integrate information and data from multiple disciplines. Innovation and adaptation are critical to competitiveness. Our graduates have to be ready for such an environment.

At the University of Rhode Island, our Academic Strategic Plan provides the framework for undergraduate and graduate education in this context. In addition, URI is working hard to develop new partnerships with businesses, non-profit organizations, and communities to bring their perspectives into our classrooms and to provide opportunities for our students to gain “hands-on” experience prior to graduation while contributing directly to solving real problems.

Some key elements of these efforts are as follows:

• Emphasizing experiential learning – engaging students in research, scholarship, and creative work. For many of our students, this will mean internships outside of URI where they can be challenged to work on problems that have not been solved, or tasked to create something new. For others it will mean working in research labs or at field sites with faculty, frequently in collaboration with companies or other organizations, to investigate issues and solve “real world” problems. We expect to announce soon a new Office of Experiential Learning and Community Engagement, envisioned and developed by a group of URI faculty and deans last year, which will provide support for students, faculty, and community partners who provide such learning opportunities.
• Developing partnerships and collaborative agreements with companies, organizations, and communities that will benefit our partners and enhance the education of our students. We want to know precisely what our students need to know, and what skills they need to possess, in order pursue their careers. Moreover, an important part of URI’s mission is assist both the private and public sectors to be more successful; doing so will help our graduates to succeed.
• Increasing the participation of business, social service providers, professional organizations, government agencies, and others in URI’s instructional programs.
• Insuring that our students are prepared for the global economy: increasing their language skills, cultural/social competencies, and capabilities to function effectively in an international context.
• Providing multiple opportunities for students to develop their communication, critical reading, analytical reasoning, and quantitative thinking skills. Our graduates need to be smart consumers of information as well as effective communicators of that information and its implications.
• Making the most of modern technology to provide rich 24/7 learning opportunities for students and to continue to substantially increase the number of courses and programs available on-line and in blended formats. The new Office of Online Teaching and Learning has been established to assist faculty in implementing using contemporary technology to effectively engage students.
• Increasing our programs and other opportunities for our students abroad, and significantly increasing the number of international students on our campuses.

All of these initiatives are well underway. I believe that the University of Rhode Island is receiving growing recognition for preparing its students very well for “the several pursuits and professions in life”. To be sure, we have much more to do and, given the rapid pace of change, continued success will require continuous effort. The successful 21st-century land-grant university must itself be adaptable, flexible, and responsive. I am confident that our faculty and students are fully prepared to meet that challenge.

It Has Always Been About Jobs

Another reflection of the difficult economic times we face is the reinvigorated debate about the fundamental purpose of higher education. The debate, which is both internal and external, frequently takes the following line. On one side are those who argue that higher education’s primary goal is to provide students with the knowledge, critical thinking capabilities, and communication skills to empower them to be informed and engaged citizens. The other side advances the claim that, especially in the current economic climate, the primary goal of higher education should be to prepare people to be productive participants in the economy. Simplistically, do colleges and universities exist to prepare students for jobs, or for some other purpose? That’s a fair enough question, one that is certainly on the minds of many students and parents, and a question that clearly can be framed or recast in many complex and nuanced ways.

For land-grant universities like the University of Rhode Island, the answer is, I believe, that our purpose has always been to prepare our students both to be good citizens and productive economic contributors. The Morrill Act of 1862 states: “…each State which may take and claim the benefit of this act, to the endowment, support, and maintenance, of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life (emphasis mine).” I think the intent is clear – universities that were to be designated as “land-grant” institutions were to educate in order to produce citizens, drawn from the working and middle classes, to be productively engaged in the nation’s economy. The emphasis on “agriculture and the mechanic arts” is important to note: these were the sectors of the economy where the majority of Americans worked.

The University of Rhode Island is charged, as are all land-grant institutions, with providing both “liberal and practical education” to our students. This clause is a cogent example of the highly innovative vision for public higher education laid out in the Morrill Act. It is every bit as relevant in the 21st century as it was in 1862. But the importance of providing both liberal and practical education has perhaps never been more evident. More so than at any time in our past, the modern university’s role is to prepare students for jobs and entire careers that do not yet exist. To succeed we must continually rethink and redesign our academic programs to insure that the content and techniques we teach are as up to date as possible. We must also insure that every student is provided multiple opportunities to acquire the essential reasoning, communication, quantitative, language, social/cultural, and learning skills that are indispensable for success in the global economy.

America certainly needs more students to major in disciplines associated with science, engineering, and technology. At the same time we need to remember that many of our graduates build very successful careers based on majors in the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. I am convinced, regardless of their programs of study, that engaging students in research, scholarship, and creative work will simultaneously enhance their undergraduate education and prepare them uniquely well for “the several pursuits and professions in life.” Students need to move outside of standard learning environments, whether it involves physical or virtual classrooms, and into research laboratories, field sites, studios, companies and non-profit organizations, or many other environments where they can be confronted with problems that have not been previously solved, or asked to create something new. In my judgment, the University of Rhode Island and America’s other land-grant research universities should seek to provide such learning opportunities to all of our undergraduates. By doing so we will not only prepare them for jobs, we will prepare them to create new jobs.

We Have Met the Enemy - and It's Not Us

Even casual readers of the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education have likely observed that, accompanying the severe financial constraints faced by many public colleges and universities, serious, and at times acrimonious, debates have arisen over how budgets should be balanced. Often it seems that the most highly charged debates are those internal to a campus.

Discussion and debate about the priorities and direction of an institution has long been characteristic of academic culture. It is a desirable and necessary characteristic, a consequence of academic freedom and shared governance, and one of the important attributes of university leadership. Deliberation, consultation, and participation generally have been, and should continue to be, hallmarks of decision-making in higher education. Colleges and universities can still be accurately characterized as “conservative” in the sense that they respect tradition, believe that much can be learned from history, and are cautious about change. But it must also be acknowledged that the pace and magnitude of the changes currently facing higher education will require many of our institutions, especially public ones, to be more adaptable, flexible, and responsive. In short, to change more rapidly than our current practices and systems of shared governance can easily accommodate. And that can be discomforting, unsettling, and alarming.

Given the very difficult financial climate, the growing pressures related to affordability and access, and the pace of – and demands for – change, perhaps we should not be too surprised that internal discussions and debates occasionally degenerate into affixing blame and identifying enemies. Frequently, the divide that is created separates faculty and administration. The rhetoric used is familiar. “Administrators are only interested in adding lines to their resumes, expanding their domains, and pandering to influential external constituencies.” "Faculty are calcified, reflexively resistant to new ideas, and non-productive.” Admittedly, there may be some truth to both caricatures, but less than many think. The substantial risk associated with indulging debate along such lines is that it distracts everyone involved, and higher education’s many stakeholders, from the real issue.

The real issue is cogently presented in a “Discussion Paper” on the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) website entitled: University Tuition, Consumer Choice, and College Affordability. Although slightly dated (2008) its principal findings are probably still sound. This APLU paper examined the financial climate of public colleges and universities and assessed the principal factors driving tuition increases for public institutions. The two main points I want to emphasize are the following (taken directly from the paper, but reversed in order).

“Public university tuition has increased because real per student appropriations have declined. This finding appears again and again in serious examinations of the causes of public university tuition inflation…Overall cost per student has been constant. Tuition increases have been just sufficient to offset reduced state subsidies, but not to increase public university budgets.”

“One of the most robust findings in the research literature is that the real cost per student in public higher education is not increasing….Cost per student has remained constant because revenue per student was constant; funds were not available to increase expenditures further. Public university managers have been highly effective at controlling costs; indeed they were compelled to be, given the resources available.”

These are obviously general statements, but accurate (at least in 2008) for public higher education as a whole. At the University of Rhode Island our increased revenues from tuition and fees have offset steadily declining state funding over the past decade and permitted us to make increased investments in financial aid as we endeavored to maintain affordability. There have been few, if any, significant increases in revenues to do just about anything else. If my many conversations over the last two years with other university presidents are representative, then this has been the case quite broadly. At many institutions, revenues have not kept pace with enrollment growth. At URI, and all but the most well endowed public colleges and universities, reallocation is the dominant mechanism to provide funding for growth or new initiatives. Continuous reallocation can be healthy, but also can be stressful.

So, what are we to do? The first step is to recognize that neither non-productive, ossified faculty, nor overly ambitious, self-promoting administrators, nor any other part of the academic enterprise is fundamentally responsible for our current difficulties. The “enemy”, as it were, is tangible but diffuse: the lack of understanding among Americans of the critical importance of investing in public higher education. China understands this, as do many other countries that are aggressively seeking to increase higher education opportunities and university-based research. Nearly everything associated with higher education, from state appropriations to Pell grants to federal research support, appears to be increasingly at risk for disinvestment in the U.S. This is not just the “enemy” of higher education, but also the “enemy” of economic recovery, of opportunity, of innovation, of growing the middle class, and of building a more just and equitable democracy. Combating this “enemy” is where all of us who care about and understand the value of higher education should focus our collective efforts.

Leadership and Academic Freedom

Because leadership is a central mission of the University of Rhode Island, and research universities more generally, we need to examine the question of how to best provide the leadership that is needed. The work of a university’s governing boards or senior officials is frequently seen as an influential mechanism by which universities can influence public policy, governmental priorities, and resource allocation. So, too, the analyses and recommendations of associations of higher education organizations such as the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Association of American Universities, and the American Council on Education. But these are not the central, nor the most important, ways in which the leadership of our universities is expressed.

University leadership is primarily derived from the work of faculty and students engaged in scholarship and learning. It flows from the generation and dissemination of knowledge, from the critical analysis and dissection of the politics and culture of societies, from conveying the lessons of history, from opening minds to culture, perspectives, and languages other than their own, and from the interpretation of life through the arts. This is how universities principally provide leadership.

The breadth of the work of the faculty and students at a university cannot be completely captured in any finite list, and it changes continuously. Accordingly, at its best, the work of the university provides a persistent source of discoveries and new ideas that can sustain, invigorate, and renew the societies that foster that work.

In order for the university to carry out such work, faculty must have the “complete and unlimited freedom to pursue inquiry and publish its results” in the words of the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure. This is a remarkable document with a living force as important today as when it was written.

Two superb books, For the Common Good (by M. W. Finkin and R. C. Frost) and The Constitution Goes to College (by R. A. Smolla) cogently present this case for academic freedom. They correctly note that academic freedom is not grounded on an argument that university faculty constitute a special class deserving freedoms or rights not guaranteed to other Americans. Rather, it is grounded on the fact that the work of faculty serves an essential public purpose. Put simply, academic freedom provides for the common good. Consequently, I believe that academic freedom fundamentally enables universities to provide the leadership that is so essential in the 21st century.

It is difficult for anyone who cares about higher education not to notice that, in many ways, the concept and value of academic freedom is being challenged with increasing intensity. There are undoubtedly multiple reasons for this, but one, I think, is that we in universities have not adequately shown the connection between academic freedom and the enormous public good universities produce. Instead, we frequently allow academic freedom to be seen as something designed to protect the prerogatives of faculty. In my view, we in higher education need to refute that perception by focusing more sharply on how leadership by universities is crucial to building a brighter future for our nation and the entire world. We must also show that university leadership depends on the protections of academic freedom. Only then can the work of our faculty and students achieve its fullest potential, and only then can the full potential for common good be attained.

Leadership as a Mission

As faculty and staff at the University of Rhode Island prepare in earnest for the new academic year (and clean up at bit from Hurricane Irene), I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of URI and public higher education, and more broadly, our collective future. Recent events have reinforced the conviction that our communities, America, and the world face substantial and undiminished challenges, perhaps even more severe than we believed just a few months ago.

Worries and fears are beginning to grow across many sectors of our nation. And just as our concerns about the future increase, it appears that our confidence in our government’s ability to address those concerns is waning. To me, that is particularly disturbing. Why? Because, for a long time, America has been widely considered the world’s best, most influential, most successful, and most optimistic representative democracy. We are the government. Therefore, doubting our government might be a symptom of a more serious problem – that we doubt our neighbors and even ourselves. By “doubting”, I do not mean exercising responsible skepticism or demanding evidence for others’ assertions or positions (as well as our own). I am concerned by the toxic refusal to even consider views that differ from our own and insistently questioning the motives, ethics, values, and morals of those with whom we differ. Doubting ourselves – unreasonably questioning our abilities and capabilities to adequately respond to the challenges and difficulties we face – is obviously different, but may be partially related. Living and working in an environment dominated by attack and denigration is hardly conducive to building or maintaining the self confidence required to solve difficult problems.

At a meeting this past summer (prior to the near meltdown of governance over the debt ceiling), I heard a presentation by two very experienced and highly-regarded political writers. They indicated that the then current partisanship and polarization of government was substantially more pronounced than what they had previously observed. But in their view this situation arose, at least in part, from the fact that divisions in Congress were driven by powerful forces in society, that in some respects threatened to overwhelm Congress. Another factor was the increasing difficulty to reach agreement on basic facts; highly ideological and partisan media and “think tanks” were all too willing to supply “facts” to suit any preferred position. I came away thinking that critical analysis, serious discussion, negotiation, and finding common ground are no longer seen as essential to the health of our nation – not only by those in Washington but by many factions of our society. Events since then have only reinforced that conclusion.

I believe that in such circumstances public research universities, like the University of Rhode Island, need to accentuate their leadership role. From my perspective, public leadership has long been an implicit mission of the land-grant university. It is time to explicitly acknowledge and embrace that part of our historic mission.

There are multiple, important areas where the leadership of the nation’s public universities could become a critical factor in surmounting the challenges and difficulties that currently confront us. We need to articulate and consistently demonstrate the importance of constructive engagement with ideas and positions that differ from one’s own. We should insist on the appropriate use of scientific findings, quantitative analysis, data analysis, and rational discourse in shaping public policy. We need to defend the importance of education, research, objective analysis, and expertise in shaping the search for solutions. We should show in our words and actions that it is not only possible, but desirable, to find common ground and develop shared solutions in the midst of very diverse assumptions, worldviews, and sociopolitical allegiances. I strongly believe that it is critical for public universities to forcefully remind our political leadership, and our people, that finding solutions to the extensive, global-scale challenges that we face in the 21^st century in fact requires us to work constructively with others who do not share our views, presuppositions, religious beliefs, or all of our values.

I think the University of Rhode Island is prepared to expand its leadership role. I believe that it is essential to the future of our state and nation that we do so.