The Atlantic: The 38 States That Have Slashed Higher Education Spending

Jordan Weissmann is an associate editor at The Atlantic. He has written for a number of publications, including The Washington Post and The National Law Journal.

The last few years haven't exactly been gentle to our public colleges and universities, or the students who attend them. Cash-poor state legislatures have gone to town on their higher education budgets, and as they've hacked away, tuition has risen along with the sums undergraduates have had to borrow. In total, 38 states cut post-secondary funding since the recession, many by more than a fifth.
So in that light, it sadly can be considered welcome news that just 16 states are planning to slash their spending any further in FY 2013, according to the Grapevine project at Illinois State University, which released its annual roundup of state-by-state higher-ed funding on Tuesday. The worst cuts this year are pending in Florida (8 percent), Alabama (6 percent) and New Jersey (5.5 percent). Another 16 legislatures increased their budgets by less than 2 percent, which will likely amount to a cut once inflation takes its bite. On the other hand, that means higher-ed will get a budget boost in 18 states. So let's say the glass is 1/3 full.
Even with these small improvements, though, the post-recession funding picture is still pretty grisly. First, the states that cut.

And now, the states that spent. (Don't be too impressed by Illinois -- these funding hikes are largely meant to cover unfunded pension liabilities).

Collectively, states are spending 10.8 percent less than they were five years ago, when the recession began. That's a deep wound that will take time to heal -- if it ever fully does.

FAPSC Press Release: State Association Selects Career Education and Workforce Veteran To Lead as New Executive Director

Curtis C. Austin will direct Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Dec. 12, 2012 – Dean Bartness, President of the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools, announced today that Curtis C. Austin has been selected by the board of directors as the organization’s new Executive Director.

Mr. Austin brings to the association more than 20 years’ experience in higher education, workforce policy and public advocacy in Tallahassee.

FAPSC, founded more than 55 years ago, is a statewide organization representing more than 200 private, career-oriented colleges and schools.

"Curtis Austin has an impressive record of excellence and executive level management in career and professional higher education,” said FAPSC President Dean Bartness. "He is uniquely qualified for this important job to serve association member schools by promoting access, advocacy and accountability.”

Mr. Austin most recently served as Director of State and Government Relations with Keiser University, where in the last five years he also has served in associate vice chancellor positions in government relations and business development. Before joining Keiser, Mr. Austin spent seven years as President and CEO of Workforce Florida, the statewide, business-led workforce policy board. Prior to that, Mr. Austin served nine years with The Florida Senate, including time as Staff Director for the Commerce and Economic Opportunity Committee and Staff Director of the Executive Business, Ethics and Elections Committee. He began his career as an assistant professor of communications and director of forensics at Florida State University.

Mr. Austin has a solid understanding of the role of private career schools and colleges in the state of Florida. His knowledge of the state higher education system, boards, workforce needs and legislative process positions him to be a strong advocate and voice for FAPSC and its member schools, FAPSC President Bartness said.

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About FAPSC 
The Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges (FAPSC) works on behalf of all Florida’s degree granting and non-degree granting career schools and colleges. Licensed by the state, these schools educate and prepare more than 379,000 students each year for employment in more than 200 occupational fields. For more information, visit www.FAPSC.org.

Report: Duncan Would Stay for 2nd Term, Focus on College Prices | Inside Higher Ed

Report: Duncan Would Stay for 2nd Term, Focus on College Prices | Inside Higher Ed

Cato@Liberty: You’re Destroying the Whole Tower, Stop Blaming It on the Basement

Posted by Neal McCluskey

Cato@Liberty

Yesterday Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, released his magnum opus on for-profit colleges, the culmination of two years of excoriating, browbeating, shaming, and generally demagoguing that fast-growing but relatively small sector of American higher education. His report is everything you’d expect from a crusade characterized by an almost complete unwillingness to address the central role of the federal government in creating pervasive rot not just in for-profit higher education, but the entire Ivory Tower.

The for-profit college sector is certainly raking in lots of cash and producing very little for it, with big revenues but very low completion rates. It’s probably not as bad as Harkin would have us believe—I’ve chronicled much of the exaggeration and misrepresentation that has punctuated his attack—but there’s little question that lots of students drag heaps of taxpayer dough into for-profit schools and get little of value for it.

The thing is, that happens across higher education, including the profit-taking.

As I’ve cited ad nauseum, completion rates throughout higher education are abominable. Looking at first-time, full-time students—an imperfect sample, yes, but the best we’ve got—the top completion rate is for bachelor’s students at private not-for-profit schools. But that’s only 65.4 percent completing within six years. The worst is at public two-year institutions—community colleges—which see only 20.4 percent finish their programs within 150 percent of normal time. That’s just one-in-five!

Surprisingly, Harkin’s report mentions the atrocious completion rates at community colleges. But only very briefly, and mainly to assert that “the cost of for-profit programs makes those programs more risky for students and Federal taxpayers.” That proviso is technically correct, but as misleading as much of the behavior for which Harkin condemns for-profit schools. Community colleges are cheaper to students in large part because they get direct taxpayer subsidies, and while those don’t come mainly from Washington they do come from taxpayers, just at the state and local level. In the 2009-10 school year, state and local appropriations to community colleges totaled $5,412 per pupil. Meanwhile, public four-year schools—with six-year graduation rates of just 56 percent—received almost $8,000 per student in federal, state, and local appropriations. And, of course, all “not-for-profit” schools get favored tax status, paying no taxes on most of their revenue and benefiting from tax deductible largess of donors.

But don’t think those schools aren’t profiting. Harkin’s report blows off the possibility that putatively not-for-profit schools make profits simply by stating that “by definition” such schools “do not retain any revenue as profit.” But as Vance Fried illustrated in his 2011 policy analysis, most public and not-for-profit private colleges make thousands of dollars per-undergraduate beyond the cost of educating them. They just use the money to reward the people in the school, or to pay for things that often make the school more bloated, instead of distributing the profits to investors.

Putting the for-profit sector in the context of all of higher education, it’s clear the witch hunt has been on. But there’s also been major scapegoating: by enabling students to pay for school with other people’s money, and with almost no regard for their ability to do college work, it is federal student aid that largely causes the rot in higher ed, quashing both school and student incentives to economize, and student incentives to think critically about consuming higher ed. By demonizing institutions that dare admittedly make profits, politicians like Sen. Harkin shift the blame from where it belongs—themselves—to those who do what the politicians want: ”educate” people regardless of their ability. It’s exactly like housing: the politicians demand that everyone be able to buy a home, condemn anyone who might fail to furnish the uncreditworthy with mortgages, then blame the lenders when things go horribly wrong. They seem to want the votes—their profits—but no blame when things go south.

Sen. Harkin, the fault for what ails not just for-profit higher education, but the entire Ivory Tower, sits largely with you and your colleagues. Please quit shifting blame and do what must be done: phase out student aid and make all schools earn their money.

Neal McCluskey • July 31, 2012 @ 4:57 pm
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy; General
Tags: for-profit colleges, Neal McCluskey, student aid, Tom Harkin