College Tuition (from Labor Party Press)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>To: StudentTuitionAllianceOSU at yahoogroups.com
>From: chad montrie <montrie.1 at osu.edu>
>Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 08:54:25 -0500
>Subject: [StudentTuitionAllianceOSU] more numbers
>
>
>These items come from the latest issue of Labor Party Press (March 
>2001).  They are all quotes, except for the one bit I added at the 
>end, in brackets:
>
>"With a fraction of the money Bush wants to dole out in tax cuts, we 
>could provide a free college education to everyone who is currently 
>enrolled in public colleges and universities.  According to data 
>from the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, we could 
>eliminate all tuition and fees for public college and postgraduate 
>education for less than $22 billion.  That's less than one-third of 
>one percent of our nation's total annual output ....
>
>"In the 2000-2001 school year, the average student at a four-year 
>college will pay $11,338 just to stay in school for the year.  Since 
>1980, the average tuition at four-year collges has doubled, 
>adjusting for inflation, while the average parent's salary has done 
>nothing of the kind ....
>
>"The increase in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds hasn't come about 
>because masses of working and poor people are crashing through the 
>ivied gates of academia.  Between 1977 and 1993, about 70 percent of 
>18- and 19-year-olds from families in the top quarter income bracket 
>attended college, and the percentage has only gone up since then. 
>About half the children in the two middle quartiles attended 
>college.  But less than 30 percent of children from the poorest 
>quarter of families attended, and their percentage has been dropping 
>....
>
>"Unfortunately, the nation's college financial aid system has been 
>falling down on the job.  Back in 1972, Congress created the Pell 
>Grant program, which provided outright grants to help low-income 
>students go to college.  Back then, the maximum Pell Grant award for 
>the lowest income students came to $1400, which covered about 72 
>percent of the average total cost of going to a four-year 
>institution.
>
>"In the 1980s, Congress started to cut the value of the Pell grants. 
>By 1996, the maximum Pell Grant covered only about 13 percent of 
>college costs.  Meanwhile, more and more of the emphasis in federal 
>aid shifted from grants to loans.  For low-income people, loans just 
>don't do the trick.
>
>"And yet, ensuring that everyone who wants to go to college can go 
>is one of the smartest investments the nation could make.  
>Postsecondary Education Opportunity has calculated that in 1999, 
>every dollar spent on college education yielded 26 dollars in 
>increased lifetime income for students.  And for the nation, those 
>high-earning college grads yield not only increased output, but more 
>taxes paid.
>
>"There's a famous historical precedent for this finding: The GI Bill 
>of Rights [Serviceman's Readjustment Act] signed by President 
>Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 provided millions of veterans with 
>tuition, fees, and supplies, and even paid some living expenses.  It 
>was an expensive program, and it was also, according to a report by 
>the congressional Joint Economic Committee, one of the best 
>investments the federal government ever made.  For every dollar 
>spent, the government got a return of at least $6.90 ...
>
>[I can also say from personal experience, that the GI Bill was 
>important in bringing working-class students into the field of 
>history who, once acquiring advanced degrees, were very important in 
>moving the field toward study of workers, immigrants, 
>African-Americans, and other marginalized groups in society - so its 
>not all about making a good "investment" money-wise.]
>
>Chad Montrie