Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” According to that definition, my struggle to keep North Carolina’s public university system affordable and accessible is insane. I’ve written more columns, given more speeches, organized more protests, lobbied more legislators and berated more administrators over this issue than most have. Yet despite my work, the same result occurs — tuition rises, debt loads increase and more qualified students shut out of our state’s higher education system.
My insanity has made me tired. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care? Perhaps my argument is the problem. Maybe it doesn’t make sense. Am I missing something? Does no one else see that the health of our nation’s student body is worsening? Because the facts (according to the Project on Student Debt) are astonishing, and I quote:
-In the past five years, tuition and fees at public universities have risen by 57 percent.-Over the past decade, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled from $9,250 to $19,200 — a 108-percent increase. -At public universities, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled from $8,014 to $17,250 over the past decade — a 116-percent increase.-By the time they graduate, nearly two-thirds of students at four-year colleges and universities have student loan debt (66.4 percent in 2004). In 1993, less than one-half of four-year graduates had student loans.- Cost factors prevent 48 percent of college-qualified high school graduates from attending a 4-year institution and 22 percent from attending any college at all. In a single year, this amounts to 400,000 college-qualified students who will be unable to attend a four-year college and nearly 170,000 who will not attend college at all.- More than 20 percent of low-income, college-qualified high school graduates do not enroll in college.
Yet despite these disturbing trends, universities continue to raise tuition with even greater support from state governments. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “public colleges often blame their tuition increases on state lawmakers who, the colleges say, have not given them enough extra money to keep up with rising costs. But this year, many states’ public colleges received sizable infusions of public money and then raised tuition significantly anyway. In nearly half of the states, both state appropriations for higher education and public-college tuitions rose by 5 percent or more, substantially faster than inflation.”
This is certainly the case for the UNC System. It’s gotten so bad that N.C. State’s Tuition Review Advisory Committee, lead by Provost Larry Nielsen and Student Body President Bobby Mills, has already decided tuition should increase without even discussing first the necessity of such an increase.
The absurdity doesn’t stop there. On a national level, college administrators’ pay rose 4 percent for this academic year, outpacing inflation for the tenth consecutive year. Ten straight years!
The facts are the facts, and my insanity continues to grow. To that end, I’m taking a break from Technician. I’m going to let someone else take up the fight, if there is anyone out there. If no one else cares, why should I?
Will you take up Andrew’s fight? Let us know and send an e-mail to viewpoint@technicianonline.com.
