U.S. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., should write a book on higher education funding. That way, rational lawmakers around the country can read it and know what not to do.
If passed in Congress, McKeon’s particularly dimwitted “Affordability in Higher Education Act” would allow the U.S. Department of Education to cut funding for certain university programs aimed at providing greater student access, such as work study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, if the institutions raise tuition too high, too quickly. Ironically, most universities that raise tuition drastically in the fashion that McKeon attacks do so because of state funding shortfalls, making McKeon’s plan even more asinine.
But wait — maybe we’re on to something here. With McKeon’s plan, state legislators can grossly mismanage money — criminally so, it seems — and drastically cut their support to higher education when they realize nothing is left. Then, the government can step in and throw students further down the hole.
Who loses in this equation? Is it the state for setting bad monetary policy? No, they get off the hook on this one; McKeon’s bill fails to hold legislators accountable. Is it the universities who suffer gaping holes in their budgets after the government takes more? No, they would most likely do one of two things: raise tuition even more to offset the penalties for raising tuition or cut classes. Ultimately, the students suffer.
And so McKeon’s idea throws the higher education funding system into a huge sticky mess of circular logic, especially considering that the people McKeon seems to be trying to help — the poor, unwanted college students — are the very people who will feel the brunt of such an absurd law in the long run.
McKeon should realize that tuition hikes — especially in Oregon, where they are drastic — can be attributed to one thing: decreased state funding, whether it is the result of an economic slump or inefficiently handled money at the state level.
Either way, cutting even more from strapped universities is not the answer. The fact that this even needs to be said is a prime example of how the price keeps rising on education but nothing is being done to actually fix it — something legislators — our elected representatives — should be willing to do.
As University Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley said in a Nov. 4 Emerald article: “The reason tuition is going up has nothing to do with costs going up. The problem is not increasing cost in higher education; it’s declining state support for higher education.”
Another recently failed attempt to relieve the stress of skyrocketing tuition was last year’s “The Deal,” which unfortunately also lacked necessary insight into how the state Legislature provides money. Simply, the Deal was aimed at splitting the burden of funding straight down the middle, with students paying 50 percent and the state paying 50 percent. It seemed like a great idea until the state slashed $62.7 million from the Oregon University System budget, rendering the Deal dead in the water and effectively shifting OUS from savings mode to survival mode. But OUS officials made their biggest mistake when they assumed that the state would clean up its act and live up to its end of the bargain; clearly it did not.
The problem of state funding obviously runs deeper than can be described in this small space, but one thing is apparent: Before lawmakers or OUS officials attempt to fix the problem of tuition hikes, they should start at the source of the problem. The Oregon Legislature must overcome its partisan bickering and take a good, hard look at reforming the way it handles taxpayer money. Only then will students start to see some relief.