Is the end in sight for college tuition hikes? Tuition and fees at public colleges and universities consistently have risen twice or even three times as fast as comparable increases in the Consumer Price Index in recent years. Since 2000 these costs have even grown 60 percent faster than health care costs. The results have been rapidly rising student debt (now $1.4 trillion nationally), rising delinquencies in debt repayment, and a dysfunctional stratification of public college student bodies on the basis of family incomes. This is a broken, unsustainable model for the majority of public colleges. Why has this occurred? The multiple causes include declining state support, the avaricious behavior of individual institutions, their reluctance to adopt productivity-increasing innovations, their cost-increasing competition for higher U.S. News ratings, and misdirected federal student financial aid policies. The key actors are the 50,000 members of the governing boards of public colleges, who too often forget that their primary responsibility is to citizens, taxpayers, and the 15 million students. Instead, board members are co-opted by clever administrators into approving tuition and fee increases well beyond what is needed to make up for declining state funding. Concerted, informed public pressure on governors, legislators, and board members is necessary to move institutions in more positive directions. Higher education funding and tuition and fee inflation are complicated matters that very few people understand well. The Impoverishment of the American College Student clarifies the central issues and provides plentiful data to support its key points. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that maintaining access to and the affordability of public colleges are vitally important to our society's future.

The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are a crucial element of higher education in the United States. As of 2021, there were more than 100 HBCUs, with a total enrollment of approximately 300,000 students. Many of the most famed figures in African American history attended HBCUs, and the alumni of these institutions have a strong track record of upward mobility and professional attainment. However, the value and contributions of HBCUs are too often overlooked and underappreciated. In Vital and Valuable, two distinguished economists provide a groundbreaking analysis of HBCUs. James V. Koch and Omari H. Swinton give a balanced assessment of the performance of HBCUs, examining metrics such as admissions and enrollment trends, graduation and retention rates, administrative expenses, spending on intercollegiate athletics, and student debt. They emphasize the distinctive features that make HBCUs what they are, considering whom they serve and how, while contextualizing these institutions within the landscape of American higher education. Based on this analysis, Koch and Swinton offer actionable policy recommendations that can help HBCUs build on their successes and address their weaknesses. They stress that empirical data on educational outcomes is essential to effective leadership of individual institutions as well as policy decisions that affect HBCUs. Vital and Valuable is essential reading for policy makers and experts in the field of higher education as well as a broader public interested in understanding the contributions of HBCUs.

What role have governing boards played in tuition and fee escalation at four-year public colleges and universities? In the United States, college costs, especially tuition and fees, have increased much more rapidly than either the overall Consumer Price Index or median household income. This cost inflation has effectively closed the doors of higher education to many qualified students and contributed to a staggering $1.5 trillion in student debt. Additionally, the number of college enrollments in the United States actually declined for eight straight years between 2011 and 2019, as college student bodies became increasingly stratified on the basis of family incomes. Virtually every public college cost increase, however, requires a positive vote from each university's governing board—and the record shows that these votes are nearly always unanimous. In Runaway College Costs, James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula argue that many trustees have forgotten that they should act as fiduciaries who represent the best interests of students, parents, and taxpayers. Instead, Koch and Cebula explain, too often many trustees prize size and more prestigious rankings over access and affordability. These misplaced priorities make them vote in favor of ever more plush facilities, expensive intercollegiate athletic programs, administrative bloat, and outdated models of instruction and research. Koch and Cebula supply groundbreaking empirical evidence on the impact of governing board membership, size, and operations on tuition and fees. They show, for example, that the existence of a powerful statewide governing board exercises significant downward pressure on tuition and fees and that state funding cuts cannot explain more than one-half of the cost increases at the typical four-year public institution. The authors propose an action agenda for governing boards, including changing the incentives placed in front of campus presidents and senior administrators. Finally, they conclude that, although public university governing boards deserve blame for accelerating college cost inflation, they also are ideally situated to improve the situation. Runaway College Costs ends hopefully, suggesting that governing boards and their member trustees actually have the greatest potential to improve the situation. Providing the first rigorous empirical evidence of the impact that various modes of governance have had not only on tuition and fees but also on a half-dozen measures of institutional performance, this book will be of serious interest to governors, legislators, public university board members and their staffs, those interested in supporting the traditional goals of public higher education, and of course students and their parents, as well as taxpayers.

Practical solutions for improving higher education opportunities for disadvantaged students Too many disadvantaged college students in America do not complete their coursework or receive any college credential, while others earn degrees or certificates with little labor market value. Large numbers of these students also struggle to pay for college, and some incur debts that they have difficulty repaying. The authors provide a new review of the causes of these problems and offer promising policy solutions. The circumstances affecting disadvantaged students stem both from issues on the individual side, such as weak academic preparation and financial pressures, and from institutional failures. Low-income students disproportionately attend schools that are underfunded and have weak performance incentives, contributing to unsatisfactory outcomes for many students. Some solutions, including better financial aid or academic supports, target individual students. Other solutions, such as stronger linkages between coursework and the labor market and more structured paths through the curriculum, are aimed at institutional reforms. All students, and particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, also need better and varied pathways both to college and directly to the job market, beginning in high school. We can improve college outcomes, but must also acknowledge that we must make hard choices and face difficult tradeoffs in the process. While no single policy is guaranteed to greatly improve college and career outcomes, implementing a number of evidence-based policies and programs together has the potential to improve these outcomes substantially.

This book explores the fundamental shift that has occurred in America and Britain as elites accumulate unprecedented capital and influence and a meritocracy has emerged to manage national affairs, a change that means opportunity, affluence, and power have migrated away from most of the population. Arguing the following four points: Geography accounts for the accumulating influence of metropolitan regions, at the expense of smaller cities and rural communities of the heartland. Occupational groups, particularly lawyers, physicians, and financiers, have constructed professional cartels to secure rents at the expense of the prosperity of the public. Think tanks and universities have become the necessary pathways to attain leadership in public affairs. The internationalization of commerce has contributed to a parallel network of economic institutions and think tanks sharing ideas and personnel to lobby for policies favorable to their sponsors. Stoesz connects present and past to look at the progressive-era, the history of professions, and questions of welfare state reform, post-neoliberalism, and marketization. His book will be of great interest to students of sociology, political science, public administration, social policy, history, and economics. Scholars in think tanks and universities as well as political consultants will also find it invaluable.

This volume provides a comprehensive and evenhanded overview of the escalating college affordability crisis in the United States. It explains how higher education became so expensive and explores the implications of high college loan debt for students and American society. The 21st Century Turning Point series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our country's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities. This particular volume is devoted to the issue of the rising cost of higher education in the United States. The expense of pursuing a college degree has become so high for so many students, in fact, that the country is experiencing what many educators, economists, parents, and students describe as a college affordability crisis. This work provides an accessible, accurate account of the factors driving this trend, including dramatic reductions in higher education spending by states; for-profit colleges; predatory, unscrupulous, and lightly regulated student loan service companies; and spiraling spending by colleges and universities competing to attract students.