Tuition concerns bring expert panel

As the cost of higher education continues to rise, Weber State University brought together a panel of experts to answer student questions about tuition, as well as the accessibility and value of higher education for Deliberative Democracy Day (DDD) Wednesday afternoon in the Shepherd Union Ballrooms.
“I think it’s a hot topic around the country,” said Kathryn Mackay, a WSU history professor and one of the organizers of DDD. “This is a concern everywhere.”
From 1982 to 2007, college costs rose 439 percent, according to a recent report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The trend will continue at WSU next year, according to President Ann Millner, who told students March 1 that tuition could increase by as much as 13 percent for the 2010-11 academic year.
Considering the dramatic changes that have and are expected to occur in the college landscape, panelist Brad King, a former member of the Utah State Legislature, encouraged students to be involved.
“You have to make your future,” King said. “The only way to do that in the current situation we find ourselves in is you have to be politically involved and your parents have to be involved. The world is run by those who show up.”
DDD is under the auspice of the American Democracy Project, which WSU has been associated with since its inception in 2003. Each year, the WSU Student Senate chooses a topic in the fall for students to discuss during DDD.
Michelle Hall, a WSU student senator and facilitator during Wednesday’s breakout sessions, said her perspective about the rising tuition changed during DDD.
“Before, I think I really viewed the rising cost in tuition as just maybe institutions trying to save their own bacon, running more like a business,” Hall said. “After listening to what the experts have to say I feel like it is more student-oriented, and that they’re just trying to provide for the students.”
Even as tuition rates increase at WSU, four-year Utah institution tuition rates are nearly $1,000 less than the national average per semester. Currently the state average is $2,023 per semester, the national average being $2,975.
“It doesn’t help to know that it’s less expensive here than in other parts of the country,” said panelist Phyllis Safman, Utah’s Board of Regents assistant commissioner for Academic Affairs. “When it’s coming out of your own pocket, you really don’t care about the other parts of the country. I think there’s been real effort on the part of your upper administration to hold tuition down to where you’re going to be able to at least get student financial aid and make your payments and not incur terrific debt.”
The Utah Board of Regents allocates state and federal money to Utah institutions. Federal and state money is responsible for an average of 74 percent of the budgets of Utah institutions, according to the Utah Almanac.
“Tuition isn’t the whole picture,” King said. “The taxpayers pick up more than the students pay for.”
King added that if students are interested in knowing how their tuition is spent, university budgets are public information that can often be accessed online. He said if students know where to look, university spending is very transparent.
The university administered a survey to 451 students in January to gauge their perception of issues related to higher education. 57 percent of students who took the survey indicated they felt college costs are rising at a faster rate than other costs. Only 21 percent of students felt that qualified individuals in need of financial aid are able to receive it. Fifty percent of respondents said not all qualified individuals have an opportunity to attend college.
Troy Justesen,   former Undersecretary of Education for the Bush Administration, said if the current trend away from publicly funded higher education continues, the concerns expressed through the student survey could be legitimized.
“The most catastrophic change that I think we see before us if this trend continues is no longer an open admissions into accessing higher education,” Justesen said. “You may very well be the first generation in Utah that will see community colleges or Weber States that don’t have open admissions policies.”
Justesen said open-enrollment policies are in question primarily because developmental courses are highly costly and “not nearly as successful as they need to be.”
The panel discussed a broad range of higher education topics, including the issue of minorities in higher education, maintaining the quality of higher education and the future of higher education. For full audio of Wednesday’s large group discussion, visit wsusignpost.com.