graph by Emily Prins
The cost of going to college has more than doubled over the past 30 years nationwide, but has the quality of higher education followed suit?
A major reason for this price increase is soaring national tuition rates which, on average, rose 4.8 percent this school year and 8.4 percent the year before, according to the College Board.
This is not just a national problem. College students around the world have protested rising college fees from Montreal, to Chile, to England.
While N.C. State ranked sixth in USA Today and the Princeton Review’s list of best value public colleges in 2013, the University is no exception when it comes to tuition hikes.
In 2012, the UNC Board of Governors approved a 9.8 percent tuition increase for in-state students at N.C. State, and Gov. Pat McCrory suggested a 12.3 percent increase for out-of-state students this past March, which was largely shot down by lawmakers on both aisles.
Rising tuition is especially a concern for out-of-state students like Sara Kerr, a senior in science education from Bedford, Va.
Kerr, who plans to remain in the state as a teacher after graduation, was born in North Carolina but is not a resident of the state. She said N.C. State makes her feel at home.
Despite Kerr’s connection to the state, rising tuition has added stress to her college experience.
“[Increasing tuition costs] made me rush through college so I can get out in a shorter time,” Kerr said. “I haven’t made as good of grades as I had hoped because I was trying to take 19 credit hours, and working to make sure I can pay for everything has also affected how much I can hang out with my friends.”
Tsekai English, a senior in mathematics from Cambridge, Mass. is also being pressured by tuition hikes to graduate quickly.
“Graduating on time is always in the back of my mind because out-of-state tuition is so much more money and because it’s increasing more,” English said. “It really motivates me to finish my degree as fast as I can. I definitely still enjoy N.C. State, but I’m always thinking, ‘Is my financial aid going to be enough? How many loans am I going to have to take out?’”
The University blames a decrease in state aid over the past few years for its rising tuition, and with Gov. McCrory in office, many speculate the situation won’t get any better.
Only two states in the U.S. have granted more funding to higher education in the past five years — Wyoming and North Dakota — and North Carolina has cut average spending per student in the UNC System by $1,710 since 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Despite lower funding, the UNC System has churned out 17 percent more degrees, according to system president, Tom Ross.
The trend in North Carolina is to cut state funding, jack up tuition and force university system chancellors to look for funding elsewhere, usually in corporate partnerships, alumni donations and public grants.
However, some of N.C. State’s efforts to increase tuition and cost of attending the University aren’t due to a lack of aid, but rather, to fund construction projects around campus.
In 2009, the Board of Trustees approved a 6.5 percent tuition hike and student fee increase, and leaders of the board claimed financing the Talley Student Center renovations was a major reason, according to a News14 article.
This justification for more buildings instead of more faculty represents a trend in higher education, which suggests the quality of education isn’t increasing with the rising price tag.
Instead, according to a Forbes article in August 2012, universities across the country are spending this extra tuition money on state-of-the-art gyms and dining facilities, among other similar projects.
N.C. State is following that model, and over the past two years, the University has renovated the Atrium food court and Carmichael gym.
Another problem posed by the rising cost of college is whether or not students with financial aid will be able to afford it.
The Center For College Affordability and Productivity released a study in 2011 saying that, while financial aid has increased over the years, universities tend to artificially inflate tuition when more aid is available, thus “capturing” that aid for other purposes.
The CCAP study broke this concept down into an easily understandable analogy: If a good or service costs $100, and the government gives consumers a $50 subsidy, then the price of the product is cut in half, and people who previously couldn’t afford it now can. However, this idea of making the good more affordable only works if the seller doesn’t increase the price because of the subsidy. If the seller changes the price to $150, the product doesn’t become more affordable. It only equates to more money for the seller.
The study concludes that the affordability of college has been compromised by rising costs, and financial aid hasn’t been able to keep up.
According to Krista Domnick, director of the N.C. State Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, the University actually reserved a quarter of its increased tuition revenue for students who need financial aid.
“N.C. State … has set aside a portion of the campus initiated tuition increases for the purposes of financial aid. For example, 25 percent of the increase for 2013-14 has been set aside to provide need-based financial assistance to students,” Domnick said. “While the additional funding does help to offset the additional need students incur due to higher tuition rates, it does not completely compensate for it.”
As N.C. State follows the national trend of increasing education costs, the state’s university system remains a “good deal.” Only Alaska and Wyoming provide more state-government funding per university student than North Carolina does. But as the cost to attend college increases, the socioeconomic gap widens, too. A study by Harvard University in 1995 suggests that increases in tuition in the 1980s and 1990s “saw the greatest widening of the gaps in enrollment between high- and low-income youth.”
Access to a college education goes hand-in-hand with economic success and social mobility in the U.S. North Carolina politicians attribute the state’s transformation from a textile and agricultural economy into a modern, high-tech economy to the state’s university system.
While state funding for higher education has suffered since the Great Recession, the question of whether to continue austerity persists. According to a Pew Research Center poll in 2011, 57 percent of Americans say the higher education system in the country “fails to provide good value for the money students and their families spend,” and four-in-ten college presidents agree with that statement. The question now is if North Carolinians, educators and policy makers agree as well.