Colleges are cutting costs, in big ways (layoffs, hiring freezes) and small (window-washing and free HBO for students).
We asked experts in higher-education finance, college students and recent graduates to suggest ways for colleges to economize.
* Jane Wellman, Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs
* Cindy Hong, recent Princeton graduate
* Hannah Howard, recent Columbia graduate
* Ronald G. Ehrenberg, economist
* Molly Corbett Broad, American Council on Education
* Victoria Boggiano, Dartmouth College senior
* Robert Zemsky, The Learning Alliance
* Edward Mitchell, recent Morehouse College graduate
* Justin Guiffré, George Washington University student
Cut Bureaucratic Bloat and Duplication
Jane Wellman
Jane Wellman is the executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, a nonprofit research organization.
Can colleges cut their costs, without harming quality or reducing access to students?
Some can, absolutely. Particularly among the national elite institutions, the last decade has seen increases in spending from an arms race for prestige, not for advancing student success. While these institutions are not characteristic of most colleges and universities, they set the bar for spending elsewhere in higher education and contribute to a growing public belief that colleges have misplaced priorities for spending.
The majority of public institutions have not been increasing spending in the last decade. For them, tuition has gone up in large part because of eroding public funding. That doesn’t mean they are off the hook from having to cut costs and improve efficiency and effectiveness.
We Can Pay for Our Own Laundry
Cindy Hong
Cindy Hong is a 2009 graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in public and international affairs. She was a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.
In the midst of the recession, universities need to cut down on superfluous student services while maintaining academic needs. During the “bubble” years, super-wealthy universities lured students in with their large endowments. The idea was that these schools offered the best financial aid, the best academic resources and the best campus life. In addition to fantastic libraries, no-loan grants and summer funding for unpaid internships, we also enjoy small perks like free laundry, free food at college sponsored “study breaks” and free concerts.
But in recent months, even universities with endowments the size of small countries are tightening their budgets. Unsurprisingly, the first things to go are often big ticket items: new academic buildings, labs and courses. Princeton, my alma mater, has pleaded poverty as a reason to not extend library hours and to cut the number of courses offered next semester.
I Didn’t See a Lot of Excess
Hannah Howard
Hannah Howard is a 2009 graduate of Columbia College and writes a column, “Served,” for Serious Eats.
I graduated from Columbia College in May. Now, I have an Ivy League degree in creative writing and anthropology, and my parents are about $200,000 poorer.
I loved attending Columbia for the same reasons that made the school my first choice four years ago. New York City is the love of my life. I met smart, remarkable people, a few of whom became great friends. I spent a lot of time in tiny classes arguing about Foucault with freakishly brilliant professors and classmates until my brain hurt.
From my perspective, students are the last spending priority at Columbia. In student housing, where I lived for four years, the water in the showers was either scorching or glacial but rarely tolerable. Infestations might be part of New York’s charm, but our cockroach and mice roommates were amazingly abundant. I sometimes awoke at 4 a.m. to find my roommate chasing mice. He was more successful than our traps at catching the little guys.
Private Schools Have to Set an Example
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University and the director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. He is the author of “Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much” and the editor of “What’s Happening to Public Higher Education.”
The last three decades have seen an increase in the dispersion of spending across academic institutions. Spending per student has grown at private institutions relative to public ones and, within the private sector, at well-endowed institutions relative to less well-endowed ones. Thus, the ability of colleges and universities to cut their expenditures without doing serious damage to their educational missions will vary widely across institutions.
Most public higher education institutions have been cutting costs for years. Their tuition increases have been largely because of efforts to at least partially make up for the failure of their state support per student to keep up with inflation.
Personnel costs make up the lion’s share of their budgets and they most surely need to look closely at their administrative and other non-instructional staffing levels. Forcing them to make substantial cuts on the academic side will invariably mean a substitution of cheaper part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty for full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty. Research suggests that institutions that make such substitutions see a decline in the graduation rates of their students.
Colleges Can’t Do It Alone
Molly Corbett Broad
Molly Corbett Broad is the president of the American Council on Education, the major coordinating body for higher education in the United States. She is former president of the University of North Carolina.
While it is difficult to make broad recommendations about how a college or university should weather this recession, one thing remains clear: bold leadership is required. Each president is guided by the unique mission of their institution, its financial resources and long-term strategic plan.
But while their goals are the same — protecting the academic core and helping students and families weather tough times — colleges are taking different tacks. Arizona State University has fundamentally streamlined its administrative structure. Hundreds of other institutions — as varied as Washington State University, Beloit College, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley — have implemented layoffs, furloughs, wage reductions, program eliminations, and the delay of major construction projects.
Deans and the Dining Hall Can Go
Victoria Boggiano
Victoria Boggiano is a senior at Dartmouth College. She is the day managing editor at the school’s student newspaper, The Dartmouth.
Colleges and universities should not sacrifice the quality of academics when trying to cut costs, nor should money-saving tactics have a negative impact on students’ day-to-day ability to perform well.
Administrators everywhere are in a bind: revenue coming in is decreasing, while costs are staying the same. They tend to look at the situation a certain way — areas that are the first to get minimized frequently include searches for new faculty and maintenance of 24-hour cafeterias. This is a short-sighted tactic. To save money, schools must instead focus their efforts on cutting extraneous measures that have little impact on the learning process or quality of life.
First, schools often spend thousands of dollars on musical performers or artists. Why? Student bodies are replete with talented young adults who would probably jump at the chance to showcase their abilities on stage or in the student union. There is no need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars when that money could go toward hiring two new paleontology professors or buying more computers for the math department.
We Need a Three-Year Degree
Robert Zemsky
Robert Zemsky is the chairman of The Learning Alliance at the University of Pennsylvania.
For 30 years American colleges and universities have pursued the chimera of lower costs through increased efficiencies — pursuing a destination that is ever promised but never reached.
It is not that colleges and universities do not know how to cut costs — they do. As every president and chief financial officer knows, one reduces expenditures by first cutting current expense — events, travel, books, journals, even a sport or two — and then by reducing payroll through delayed hires, postponed salary increases, furloughs, layoffs, even salary roll-backs.
Go Green
Edward Mitchell
Edward Mitchell graduated from Morehouse College in 2009 with a B.A. in political science and will attend Georgetown University Law Center in the fall. He was editor in chief of The Maroon Tiger, the student news organization.
Although schools should not hesitate to do what is needed, they must avoid any budget cuts that will make bad situations worse. Avoid cuts that will negatively affect quality of education or scare off prospective students. Cutting full-time faculty must be a last resort, as should any reduction in scholarship funding.
Short of that, though, our tough times call for tough decisions. Smart budget cuts can reduce costs of attendance and compensate for revenue lost in the recent worldwide economic downturn. Start with simple things — reduce campus energy consumption, limit travel, and lower student organizational expenditures.
Forget the Light Show
Justin Guiffré
Justin Guiffré is the opinions editor of The GW Hatchet at The George Washington University.
A college degree is an unusual purchase. Our perceptions are tied to the current quality of the institution. A 1968 Corvette will gain or lose value regardless of how Chevrolet is performing. The same is not true with colleges. In 2006, the University of Chicago jumped from No. 15 to No. 9 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The value of an old Corvette isn’t tied to the value of a new Corvette, while the value of a 2005 University of Chicago degree has grown in only one year to that of a top ten school.
There’s a growing consensus that these rankings are not perfect. When you purchase a college degree there is an expectation that the institution will strive to at least maintain, if not increase, the value of that degree. This means that a college should avoid cost cutting that affects its reputation, like its research staff, and academic performance, such as class size.
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