Public Agenda Issue Guide: Higher Education

Citizens

are confronted with serious issues every minute of the day. Grasping the underlying issues from the headlines is a difficult task. Give us ten minutes a day and we will help bring clarity to the chaos of the news, policy and issues.

ON THE AGENDA

Connecticut Court Rules in Favor of Same Sex Marraige

Jenny Choi
Oct 10, 2008

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples have the right to marry under that state's constitution. The eight couples who filed suit in 2004 argued that they had been unfairly denied the benefits of marriage that heterosexual couples are entitled to. Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has said that she would not challenge the court's ruling.

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The Second Presidential Debate: Actually, There's a Lot Going On

Scott Bittle
Oct 9, 2008

Despite the criticism of the town hall format, in many ways the second presidential debate was more substantive than the first session, and dramatically more so than the vice presidential debate last week. (I mean the real one, not the SNL version). Political junkies often say the town hall debate just regurgitates old news, but for many voters who haven't been paying attention and are just starting to think about the candidates, that's useful information.

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ISSUE GUIDE: Higher Education

OVERVIEW

Higher Education

Attending college has become part of the American dream, as much as owning a home or feeling secure in retirement. Getting a college degree, or at least some form of education after high school, is the surest way of entering (and remaining in) the middle class. Two-thirds of Americans attend a postsecondary school. Surveys now find that most Americans say attending college is a necessity to keep pace in the workforce and statistics show that an investment in postsecondary education pays off in higher earning power.

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CONSIDER THE CHOICES

Invest in making sure all students can attend college

Provide opportunity to the needy

Keep tuition down by making colleges more efficient

An education, particularly a college education, is the key to getting ahead in this country. In today's economy, a college degree has overtaken the high-school diploma as the minimum requirement for the workforce. But college is becoming ever more expensive -- in much of the country you can buy a house for what it costs to attend an Ivy League university -- and it's harder and harder for middle-class parents to afford. Schools themselves have to control their costs to avoid pricing the middle class out of the market. Government also needs to make sure that college is available to all students who want an education, by providing tax credits for tuition expenses and expanding all forms of financial aid.
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There's no doubt that higher education represents a ladder out of poverty; the problem is that the poor and minorities have trouble reaching the first rung. Poor and minority families often have trouble raising the money to send their children to college, and even when they do, these students often aren't prepared for the rigors of college because they attended failing high schools. If, as a society, we're serious about giving people a chance to get out of poverty, we need to focus our higher education resources on the people who need it most. We must give them every opportunity to succeed. That means financial aid should be based on need only and colleges should factor socioeconomic status and race into their admissions decisions. Colleges should also provide remedial help to students who need it: You can't shut people out of the American dream because they were unlucky enough to attend a bad high school.
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The reason so many families struggle to send their kids to college is simple: tuition keeps going up, outpacing both inflation and family income. Colleges have to take responsibility for prices that go up so far, so fast, and the best way to solve the problem is for colleges to become more efficient and competitive. Colleges need to make better use of new techniques like distance learning to reach more students at lower cost. For-profit educational institutions are experimenting with new ways of teaching and should be encouraged -- if nothing else, the competition will keep colleges sharp. We also need stronger accountability for public universities and community colleges. Unlike the K-12 education system, there aren't many yardsticks for measuring the quality of a college education and few ways of knowing whether taxpayers and students are getting what they pay for.
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