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Healthcare, energy drive up college costs. State university tuition has
leaped 40 percent in the past five years, hitting the three ...
... job outlook, education, the arts, healthcare and recreation. ... It holds energy and
a mentality of enjoying the ... our plan, we hope to drive many Rochestarians into ...
... vowed to increase use of renewable energy, reduce waste ... paying for Wal-Mart
employee’s healthcare costs (“Wal-Mart ... reason it is expected to drive growth so ...
... vowed to increase use of renewable energy, reduce waste ... paying for Wal-Mart
employee’s healthcare costs (“Wal-Mart ... reason it is expected to drive growth so ...
... an active role in the Senate's drive for improved ... Families USA that he supports
universal healthcare in the ... of the revenue obtained on energy development and ...
Submitted by ngandhi on November 29, 2007
Category: Business
Words: 591 | Pages: 3
Views: 69
Popularity Rank: 100,180
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State university tuition has leaped 40 percent in the past five years, hitting the three out of four American college students who attend public universities.
Tuition has risen 126 percent (after inflation) since 1984 and is eating up an ever-growing chunk of family incomes. In 1984, the tuition and fees at a public, four-year college was just 4.8 percent of the median family income; today it's 9.5 percent.
The heart of the problem is that states must juggle the cost of funding their education system alongside two other major funding obligations: state-funded Medicaid and the state criminal justice system.
When states are forced to make cuts in education, they typically spare K-12 education programs because they're politically sensitive, according to Michael Dannenberg, director of Education Policy Program at the non-partisan New America Foundation.
State universities, however, have a mechanism for making up their shortfalls - tuition hikes. So "beginning 2000-2001, governors whacked funding for higher ed," and the tuition went soaring, Dannenberg said.
"The percentage of revenues from the state has plummeted for public universities," said Sandy Baum, Senior Policy Analyst for the College Board. In the past five years state budgets have gotten tight as "Medicaid and the criminal justice systems have taken over" [as funding priorities], Baum explained.
"Unless you stem the tide of Medicaid costs, there's no turnaround in sight," for public university tuition hikes, Baum said.
But healthcare costs don't just pressure state tuition prices by competing for state budget dollars.
Benefit costs for universities, including the cost of employee health insurance, grew 175 percent from 1985 to 2005, while professional salaries grew only about 125 percent in the same period, according to the College Board.
And healthcare costs are not the only surging expense for universities: energy and utility costs, which had...
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