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  4. Mar2017 free_tuition

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    We need to focus more on the disadvantages that poor students face much earlier in their lives The proposal to fully subsidize tuition fees in all state universities and colleges (SUCs) is not as straightforward as it seems. On the one hand, proponents in Congress say that this will help improve the plight of “financially disadvantaged but deserving students.” After all, the Constitution states that the State shall provide “accessible” and “quality” education to all (see House Bill 5905 and Senate Bill 1304). On the other hand, critics say that subsidizing college tuitions will be fraught with many problems. Not only will it be inequitable (serving as a subsidy for rich students), but also distortive (inducing some rich students to shift into SUCs) and unsustainable (requiring enormous fiscal resources yearly). In this article we argue that, although well-intentioned, the free tuition policy alone cannot make SUCs significantly more accessible to poor students. Instead, we need to focus more on the disadvantages that poor students face much earlier in their lives. Inequality of access It’s true that poor students today have a harder time gaining access to education in SUCs. Figure 1 shows the distribution of college students across income groups, both in public and private colleges. The gray bars show that – as one would expect – students in private colleges are likelier to come from richer than poorer backgrounds. If public colleges were an “equalizer” of sorts, one would expect to see an opposite trend in SUCs: students there should be likelier to come from poorer backgrounds. But as the orange bars show, this is not the case: SUC students are likelier to come from the richest income group (17.2%) than the poorest income group (12%). The share of the poorest income group is particularly lower in Luzon (7.5%) and in NCR (just 2%). Simply put, the poorest students are underrepresented in our SUCs. Subsidy to the richest students The data above point to the glaring disparity between the rich and poor’s a
    7 years ago by @prophe
     
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      I've warmed up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan to make the state's public colleges and universities tuition-free for families with an income of $125,000 or less, and here's why: Private colleges don't like it. Since the governor announced his plan in January, private colleges have expressed concern. They argue that it would limit students' choices and place private schools at a competitive disadvantage. "Taxpayers should have the opportunity to have choice and to make a decision about what would be best for themselves and their kids," College of Saint Rose President Carolyn Stefanco told The Daily Gazette last month. Please. These schools aren't concerned about student choice. They're concerned about their bottom line. Making tuition free at SUNY and CUNY schools will boost their enrollment, as parents and students carefully evaluate return on investment and opt for the more affordable option. Elite private schools might not see a huge impact, but lower-ranked schools almost certainly would. Private colleges don't want to disrupt a system that serves them reasonably well, but if there's any industry that could benefit from some disruption, it's higher education. For decades, colleges and universities have been jacking up tuition and fees at an unsustainable rate. The cost of tuition at the small private college I graduated from 19 years ago has more than doubled, and there's no justification for it. Private schools have long excused their outrageous cost increases by pointing to the generosity of their financial aid offices, and noting that many students do not pay full price. But fewer people are satisfied by this explanation, largely as a result of soaring student loan debt. In a piece in the New Republic published last August, journalist David Dayen writes that private colleges are the real enemy when it comes to reforming higher education, because they "do incredibly well under the status quo. ... At the public level, states have pulled back funding for higher education, causing some of the [cost] incre
      7 years ago by @prophe
       
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        Several of the region's private colleges say Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal for free state college would have a negative effect on their schools. WBFO's Senior Reporter Eileen Buckley says members of the Medaille College community are being encouraged to write to state lawmakers to consider an increase for the Tuition Assistance Program instead of supporting the tuition-free plan for SUNY. “The lobbying efforts that we have are in full force. We are doing it individually from our desks at our various campuses,” said Dr. Kenneth Macur, president at Medaille College. Macur said he remains skeptical about how much Cuomo's plan would cost the state and taxpayers. The Governor wants students in families earning $125,000 or less to receive tuition free scholarships to all state colleges and universities. Macur is more concerned about how it might effect a student's "right to choose" a college. “More than being worried about what happens to Medaille, I’m worried about students who are forced into huge lecture halls. Forced into schools where the graduation rates aren’t as good, where the care and concern doesn’t exist as it does at Medaille and what’s going to happen to those kids,” Macur remarked. Medaille’s tuition is a little more than $27,000. About 922 of the college's students did received $2.5 million in TAP toward their tuition. “Sticker price goes up on an annual basis two, three percent, but the actual net tuition, on average, has been going down over the last three to four years,” Macur explained. “And so even though we’ve done a great job making college affordable for students in the region, we’d be penalized by the governor’s plan.” When the governor appeared last month at rally Buffalo State College to seek support his idea, he made a remark about the cost of private education. “Average student debt $29,000, $29,000 – you just can’t do it,” said Cuomo. “One of the problems with using the debt statistics in that way, you miss that the fact that private college graduates have lower default rate
        7 years ago by @prophe
         
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          The first class of students who went to community college for free under Tennessee Promise is graduating this spring. Some might go straight into the workforce, some plan to transfer to public universities — but private colleges are starting to make a concerted effort to recruit them, too. One of these efforts comes in the form of a scholarship, a potentially hefty one: Tennessee Promise students transferring to Lipscomb University will receive at least $10,000, making up more than a third of their tuition. The university announced the "Lipscomb Promise" scholarship last week. “A substantial amount of their education will be funded by this university," said university president Randy Lowry. "That, in partnership with state resources ... [and] with their own resources and work, should provide them with the opportunity for this kind of college experience.” This award is not actually new — Lipscomb already offered the $10,000-plus scholarship to transfer students, under a different name, in past years. Lebron Hill, a junior, says the "Lipscomb Pathways" award was an integral part of his deciding to transfer from Motlow State Community College last year. "The money was a main factor in my choice, so I'm glad I was able to get the scholarship," he says. So "Lipscomb Promise" is essentially a rebranding. But changing the wording is not insignificant — after all, the entire Tennessee Promise program showed that marketing makes a difference. The governor has acknowledged that a huge part of its success is the fact that it proactively labels community college as "free," even though it was already free for many students because they qualified for federal financial aid. Mike Krause, who oversees the Tennessee Promise program and the state's higher education commission, says he expects calling the scholarship "Lipscomb Promise" will make a difference. “I think this is a place where the brand matters. You’re able to tell a student who’s really gotten used to the Tennessee Promise message [that college is affordable for
          7 years ago by @prophe
           
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            The Philippines Senate has approved a landmark bill to provide free tuition for students in all state universities and colleges. The Free Higher Education for All Act was passed unanimously on Monday by a vote of 18-0. The bill establishes an initial tuition subsidy fund of PHP15 billion (US$298 million) administered by the Commission on Higher Education or CHED, the country’s higher education governing body. It also provides financial assistance to students in private and vocational institutions. More than 1.6 million students currently enrolled in one of the 112 state institutions will be covered by the fund. “This bill is for the Filipino youth who are struggling to finish their college education as well as their parents who are working hard to pay for the expenses of their schooling,” said Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino, the bill’s author. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, a co-sponsor of the bill, also lauded the move, the final stage in the bill’s passage through parliament. “This is a collective victory for those of us who believe that equitable access to education at all levels is the foundation upon which we may build a just and prosperous future for our country,” he said in a statement. The passage of the bill comes nearly three months after Congress allocated PHP8.3 billion (US$165 million) under the 2017 national budget to provide free tuition for students in state universities and colleges for the upcoming academic year, and means that free tuition becomes law rather than depending on the yearly budget. Gatchalian first tabled free tuition legislation in July 2015 when he was a member of the House of Representatives, or lower house, but the bill did not succeed in its passage through the Philippines parliament. While acknowledging last year’s budgetary increase was “a promising start”, he continued to push for a bill to “make the free tuition policy in state universities and colleges a permanent reality”. ‘Unintended consequences’ The Kabataan Partylist, a youth party in the House of Repr
            7 years ago by @prophe
             
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              Chestertown, Md. — The moment Isaiah Reese set foot on the idyllic campus of Washington College, a private liberal arts school on Maryland’s eastern shore, he knew he didn’t want to go there. At the time, he was a high school senior on a school tour. “I told myself I was not going to this school, no matter what,” Reese, who is now a freshman at the college, said over a slice of pizza and a spinach wrap burrito in Washington College’s polished cafeteria overlooking one of the school’s greens. Though Chestertown, Md., where the college is located, is just 75 miles from Reese’s native Baltimore, the quaint, roughly 5,000 person boating town struck Reese as almost a different universe from the mostly African-American high school he was attending at the time. “They gave us a tour of the school and I’m still saying nope, nope, this town is old, it’s boring,” he said. But then Reese had a conversation with a Washington College staffer that started to make him change his mind. “As soon as he said ‘full ride’ I was like, ‘Uh-huh, okay,’” Reese recalled at his cafeteria table in a hat emblazoned with Washington College’s logo. The 19-year-old is now one of 14 students in the inaugural year of George’s Brigade, a prestigious scholarship program and the brainchild of Sheila Bair, president of Washington College and the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The program, which is named for George Washington — also the college’s namesake — offers promising students from low-income backgrounds a full-ride to the school, including room and board, and caps their student loan borrowing for any other incidentals at $2,500 year. Just tuition at the school for the 2016-2017 academic year was more than $42,000 a year. But George’s Brigade is about more than meeting students’ financial needs. It’s also about ensuring they enjoy and make it through school, according to Bair. She first came up with the idea shortly after arriving at the college and researching some of the challenges low-income and first generat
              7 years ago by @prophe
               
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                For Democrats, the one great policy legacy of 2016 was the party’s embrace of free tuition for public colleges and universities. After Bernie Sanders made it a signature policy proposal and proved its political potency (especially with millennials), Hillary Clinton adapted and adopted it when she won the nomination. Over the course of the campaign, the idea evolved from a progressive pipe dream into a concept with massive momentum. This thing was going to happen! But when Donald Trump won and Republicans took control of Congress, a federal free-tuition program became a pipe dream again. The only chance for free college was to start at the state level—in one of the few remaining blue states—and create a model that could spread nationally. Given the popularity of the idea, it’s not surprising that two ambitious Democratic governors–both presidential prospects for 2020—have taken up the call. Both New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Rhode Island’s Gina Raimondo are vying to be the governor who made free college happen—and both their plans are running into resistance from their own party’s lawmakers. Some of the controversy was to be expected: It’s no surprise that fiscal conservatives think it’s another costly social program with uncertain returns. Other legislators and educators worry about how it will affect enrollment at state schools. But for liberals, the legislative battles have exposed a series of tricky policy trade-offs that cut to the heart of a larger national debate: What kind of “progress” should Democrats be fighting for? Should a new social program benefit everyone equally, like Social Security, or help low-income families the most? And how valuable is tuition relief, really, if the state doesn’t help students with other college expenses, like room and board and books? The surface simplicity of the whole idea is one of its great calling cards: Free college. How complicated could that be? The debates in New York and Rhode Island have sometimes been acrimonious and divisive. But that’s far from a bad thing:
                7 years ago by @prophe
                 
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