Really they should not (they would kill me if they read this - if that is your knee-jerk reaction please bear with me). In an eloquent letter to our community the Provost and Executive Vice President explained the tuition increase, discussing it in a near-360 manner (I will share what I mean by that in a moment). The letter talked about the political climate, the economic climate, the decrease in state funding, and the monies raised for scholarships to help students attend. The most salient part of the letter for me was the concept that the revenue gleaned from a tuition increase can be linked to helping students graduate faster.
If that is true (and I can't know if it is standing here in this moment), then I can understand it fully. If the increase is, for instance $150 per term, and a student has one more year, then the most they will pay extra would be $600. This is WAY below the cost of another year - IF the money from the tuition is used to increase course offerings, hiring more instructors, improving infrastructure, and the myriad of other factors that can lead to a student graduating more quickly. Students graduating faster? Hey, if we can pull that off, I am OK with the increase.
Some of the students in my office did not really see this logic. For them spending more money now = BAD, and the idea of spending less over time did not cross their minds. Of course, my office serves the approximate 10% of our campus population who are experiencing poverty, hunger, homelessness, food insecurity...and several of my staff members are right there in the boat with the students we serve. When we talked about it further I reminded them that there were a great number of students on our campus who would not bat an eye at the increase in tuition, or for whom this would be an annoyance, but could easily shoulder the cost. The reality is that on all college campuses there are people who can cover these costs - they just end up falling through the cracks in these conversations because they are not the focal point of economic hardship. On some campuses this is a high percentage, on others - public schools, land-grant institutions, community colleges - it is much lower.
My students were initially upset to hear me talk about tuition increases in this way. Why was I not with them!?!?!?! Why was I talking about the students who could afford this injustice?!?! Where was their social justice minded supervisor who championed the cause of the truly poor college student?!?!
Here is where my statement about the Provost's message not being fully 360 comes into play. The thing is, the Provost is right, AND the students are right. The trouble, in my opinion, is that neither is giving it a full look (and, I imagine I have my own blind spot in this as well). What was missing from the equation is that the students who use the services in my office may not benefit from the measures put forward by increasing course offerings, hiring more instructors, and improving infrastructure. That is because these are tactics well in line with mainstream approaches to higher education. The students I serve - mostly first-generation, coming from working or generational poverty, are not as equipped to benefit from the current way of doing business. They are more likely to take longer to graduate BECAUSE the system is not set up for them. Increases in the status quo may not provide them the same outcome as other students.
So what to do? Here is where I drive home the importance of three things:
- Support programs focused on low-income, first generation, and other underrepresented populations. These programs need to grow in direct proportion to the increase in classes, instructors, and infrastructure - and if that means an increase that is higher in proportion to the number of students who need these services...all the better. Take the additional resources and put them toward training your new instructors and staff on ways to serve these students, and infuse an understanding of class, SES, and social capital into the curriculum.
- Increased need-based aid. I don't just mean financial aid. I mean scholarships, grants, subsidies, stipends, free or subsidized housing, and other ways to lower the cost for students who are most affected by tuition increases.
- Safety-net services for students. Either find a way to effectively link your students into services in your community, create a services office on your campus (call me if you want to learn about the one I run), or do some kind of hybrid between the two.
Does this mean that I don't advocate for decreasing the cost of college? No. I am also putting my mind to that complex issue. But, in the meantime, I think that working on these things could continue to create access for students I see every day who are literally starving for knowledge.
