As published by The Sandwich Enterprise, December 12, 2006
Economic Class War, Without a Battle Plan
by the Editorial Staff of The Sandwich Enterprise
Given the role young people played in his grassroots campaign for governor, it is fitting that Governor-Elect Deval Patrick has placed improving higher education high on his agenda. During the first of the community meetings organized by his transition team across the state, held December 1 at UMass Amherst, Mr. Patrick told 1,800 students and faculty members gathered in the Campus Center Auditorium that it’s been said higher education has never had a champion in the governor’s office, “Well, you have one now,” he said to a standing ovation. But he lowered expectations by adding, “Not everything we want to do or can do can be done all at once. It’s going to be hard -- the budget is tight.”
Tight budgets for higher education are a perennial problem in Massachusetts, but for the sake of the state’s economy and its long-term civic life, residents of all ages should hope Mr. Patrick can turn things around. During his campaign and since his victory November7, Mr. Patrick has said he hopes to improve public education at all levels, but his initial emphasis on higher education dovetails with the focus at the national and regional levels.
A report released last week by a 12-member bipartisan commission appointed by the National Conference of State Legislatures says that several issues, “such as fewer people finishing college, stem from weak leadership, a low priority on higher education, and the way legislatures have subsidized colleges-funding only in reaction to problems and not to avert them, and cutting back in the lean fiscal years because schools can raise tuition to make up the shortfall.” As K-12 budgets increase and healthcare costs skyrocket, said one member of the commission, a Republican from Texas, state budgets squeeze out other areas.
“Higher education has just been some of the leftovers at times when funding is difficult,” a Democratic member from Connecticut said. “Higher education is a national imperative, there’s no question about that, but it has been and remains a state responsibility.”
Among the commission’s purposely broad proposals are tuition freezes and tying tuition increases to inflation or median family income. In some aspects, the commission mirrors recent recommendations by the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which call for more accountability, improving access to college, and raising graduation rates.
Freezing tuition and fees were among the many suggestions presented to Mr. Patrick by the Public Higher Education Coalition in a 23-page report titled “Advancing Public Higher Education in Massachusetts: A Roadmap for Governor-Elect Patrick.” The report embraces five major goals, with steps to achieve them: fund public education so it can serve the commonwealth; make higher education affordable; make higher education accessible to all; hire more teachers and researchers; and democratize public higher education.
Any proposal for more funding will not be welcomed by those who believe improvements will not come by “throwing more money at education.” But it is disturbing to learn that Massachusetts ranked 47th in the country in 2005 on appropriations’ per capita for public higher education. This is a shameful position for the birthplace of public education in the United States. Tuition and fees are escalating, pushing the cost of a college education beyond the means of more and more families. Thirty-five percent of Massachusetts high school graduates do not go on to college and yet the net job growth in the state is in jobs that require a college degree.
As Mr. Patrick begins to take stock of his financial options on Beacon Hill, he might find some encouragement and shared purpose by reaching out to his fellow New England governors. He will find that the challenges facing higher education cross borders. Vermont ranked 49th in per capita appropriations in 2005, New Hampshire, 50th. (Colorado ranked 48th. The top four spenders were Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii.)
The six governors have a valuable compact in the New England Board of Higher Education, which is leading an initiative with business partners to increase college preparedness and success. One of the barriers is that many students are not prepared for college, either academically or socially. Region-wide, 25 percent of those who enter ninth grade will not graduate from high school. An even more disturbing statistic is how many high school graduates do not go on to college: 38 percent in Connecticut; 49 percent in Maine; 35 percent in Massachusetts; 44 percent in New Hampshire, 47 percent in Rhode Island; and 55 percent in Vermont. Is it any wonder the region is losing its competitive edge?
“New England is failing its urban, rural, low-income, and first-generation students,” Evan Dobelle, the New England Board of Higher Education president and CEO, said in a recent statement. “All the best intentions about making these underserved students ‘college-ready’ and closing the ‘education gap’ are empty as long as tax-poor cities are dependent on local property taxes to finance their schools.”
Mr. Dobelle doesn’t mince his words. “We are in economic class war without a battle plan,” he says. “College readiness and affordability present a quagmire for too many New England students.”
As one solution, UMass Chairman Stephen Tocco recently proposed making community colleges tuition-free. This idea has been endorsed by the coalition providing a “roadmap” for Mr. Patrick. Mr. Dobelle also lauds it as a regional solution. In addition, Mr. Dobelle urges easing the transfer of credits from the region’s 43 community colleges to all of its more than 200 public and private foul’-year colleges and universities, “regardless of whether they are focused on workforce training or liberal arts.”
Among Mr. Dobelle’s other suggestions is to adopt the service obligations used by military academies. To address the teaching and nursing shortages, he sees the creation of a region-wide corps of students, who would have tuition waived in exchange for a guarantee they will practice their professions in New England for four years after graduation.
There are ideas aplenty, but few funding proposals. Building on the fact that almost 85 percent of public higher education students stay in Massachusetts after graduation, and are thus critical to the state’s economy, Mr. Patrick proposes issuing bonds-including bonds for stem cell research-to invest in expansion and development of public colleges and universities. Perhaps the biggest challenge is finding a way to reduce the number of young people who don’t graduate from high school and increase the number who do go on to college. Mr. Dobelle captures the dilemma this way: “Surely, we can comprehend what this failure rate means to our economy, our civility, and our collective future. Working together, the region’s six governors have a brilliant opportunity to change this and offer these students hope.”
Yes, hope. That was the coin of the realm in the November 7 elections, here and across the country. Hope is what Deval Patrick ran on and what got him elected. Hope is what we all need, no matter our age, economic status, or level of education.
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