Education and Opportunity
Higher education is a significant door to opportunity. For that reason, and because it is a potent fuel for the State’s economic engine, the taxpayers of the state subsidize about 65% of the cost of tuition for in-state students. This is an extremely chunky investment for the taxpayers of the State, and it is very important that we make sure it is administered wisely.
Utah and the nation as a whole do a good job of making higher education accessible, through low tuition rates (somewhere, even if not at the school down the street from you), through financial assistance by way of loans and grants, and through a range of institution-types (from prestigious research institutions to community colleges and applied technology centers). However, I believe we could make the system more accessible (which it should be, since all taxpayers contribute).
At 15, I told my dad I wanted to be a carpenter (like my grandfather) or a musician (like Eric Clapton, but with chords I’d learned from the Roy Clark Big Note Songbook). I simply didn’t have any interest in college. My parents and big brothers had a lot of interest in me going to college, got me excited about the college I ended up attending, and refocused my priorities. What would I have done, if they hadn’t ganged up on me? Who knows? Maybe something worse, something better, but definitely something different. (I might have just lost my argument, since many will think a carpenter, musician or just about anything else might have more societal benefit than a lawyer and politician).
What about kids who don’t have those resources at their fingertips? Is the system serving families where the parents didn’t go to college and might be pretty intimidated by the whole idea? How about the students who have to hold down time-intensive jobs during high school and might be more focused on the next paycheck than on SATs and ACTs? This seems to be an area where we could do much better. It seems that with a little creativity (and maybe with some private-sector partnering), we could swing open the doors to higher education a little wider. With the excellent help of a Dixie College administrator and student, I’m looking for ideas and would welcome input.
Utah and the nation as a whole do a good job of making higher education accessible, through low tuition rates (somewhere, even if not at the school down the street from you), through financial assistance by way of loans and grants, and through a range of institution-types (from prestigious research institutions to community colleges and applied technology centers). However, I believe we could make the system more accessible (which it should be, since all taxpayers contribute).
At 15, I told my dad I wanted to be a carpenter (like my grandfather) or a musician (like Eric Clapton, but with chords I’d learned from the Roy Clark Big Note Songbook). I simply didn’t have any interest in college. My parents and big brothers had a lot of interest in me going to college, got me excited about the college I ended up attending, and refocused my priorities. What would I have done, if they hadn’t ganged up on me? Who knows? Maybe something worse, something better, but definitely something different. (I might have just lost my argument, since many will think a carpenter, musician or just about anything else might have more societal benefit than a lawyer and politician).
What about kids who don’t have those resources at their fingertips? Is the system serving families where the parents didn’t go to college and might be pretty intimidated by the whole idea? How about the students who have to hold down time-intensive jobs during high school and might be more focused on the next paycheck than on SATs and ACTs? This seems to be an area where we could do much better. It seems that with a little creativity (and maybe with some private-sector partnering), we could swing open the doors to higher education a little wider. With the excellent help of a Dixie College administrator and student, I’m looking for ideas and would welcome input.
posted by steve u. at 6/22/2005
Subscribe
2 Comments:
I understand the importance of education to the state. And I agree that it will only benefit the state. My big problem here is that doesn't government subsidies really just over inflate the cost. See, if the schools know that the government is going to pay X amount, then they can charge student Y amount and claim that X ammount is a discount. I am not wxplaining it very well, but I am afraid that the current system (in regards to higher education) over inflates the actual cost. I think school tuitions would be cheaper if there was more competition on the market.
Travis,
As the United States proves daily and as the failed soviet system proved on a grand scale, competition is very healthy. We do have some competition for higher education. In Utah, we have some private classic-education-type institutions (e.g., BYU and Westminster), increasing numbers of business-type institutions (e.g., University of Phoenix and Stevens-Henager -- though it worries me that the SH website says, "SHC has six state-of-the-art facilities in different cities in Utah -- SLC-downtown, SLC-Murray, Orem, Ogden, Logan and Boise."), and the workforce. It is interesting to watch how college enrollment figures oppose the overall economy. When the economy tanks, enrollment increases. When the economy thrives, enrollment decreases.
You are correct, of course, that our colleges could be more efficient. We need to be better in our utilization of space (lots of expensive buildings sitting empty most of the time), transferability of credits between institutions, and pointing students to more affordable, better-suited institutions (sorry, but a 1.5 gpa high school grad needs to first show he merits the extra $4K/year the taxpayers would spend for him to attend the U -- which I know wouldn't apply to you, since I hear you recently pegged the nerd-o-meter). But this is a part of the budget, I will happily defend. Having served on higher education appropriations for 4 years, I got to know the schools fairly well. And I doubt any state does a better job of providing the cost-to-quality relation that we do at institutions like Dixie, SUU, UVSC, SLCC, and Weber.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't do better, but this is one of the areas where I think we do the best.
<< Home