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The Rising Cost of an Education I
t’s the Season of Applications to College, with attendant angst among would-be students about choices and costs. We see news reports about the extremes to which high-school students (aided by their parents) go to gain admission to the college of their choice—that choice seems to be viewed as essential to success in life. College tuition costs are of widespread concern; on USNews.com, a September 15 Letter to the Editor, “Costly Colleges”, expressed the suspicion that increases in college tuition exceed increases in the cost of living. This comment moved me to write about college costs, especially for public colleges and universities, and their relevance to teaching science. A plethora of books and websites deal with college costs. An informative website, http://easnetwork.com/easgrp/Paying/ Is_College.html, describes a USA Group Foundation report released in 2000, College Affordability: Overlooked Long-Term Trends and Recent 50-State Patterns. College costs have indeed increased faster than inflation—by 3-fold from 1980 to 2000, in fact. The increase is offset somewhat by the fact that the earning power of college graduates has also increased faster than the inflation rate. However, this fact does not mollify the bill-paying parents of the students. Why have college costs increased? I offer a few observations, pointing to public colleges and universities in particular. First, the ideal of a state-supported public college or university that is open, at no cost, to all who have suitable qualifications, no longer exists. In reality, the level of government funding for higher education is steadily dwindling. In some states, it has dwindled less than in others, but it has dwindled nonetheless. The origin of this national “defunding” phenomenon is complex, but the significance is that those who benefit from the education must pay for it. The result has been an escalation of tuition costs at public colleges and universities, which must balance the costs of offering a quality education against charging a realistically affordable tuition. Second, public defunding of colleges and universities should be of real concern to science faculty, because science
© 2005 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
is an expensive discipline. Providing modern equipment and staff for teaching laboratories is costly. Offering an environment in which the chemistry undergraduate can engage in research is also expensive, because it requires attracting and retaining creative faculty. This setting also is commonly associated with the presence of a graduate degree program. The cost issue is exacerbated by the fact that science is a dynamic discipline; new knowledge arises rapidly, and course and laboratory content—and equipment—change to some extent every year. All this is to say that maintaining the quality of science offerings to students is more at risk from budget and tuition-cost pressures than is generally the case in nonscience disciplines. Third, science courses require buildings to house them, and laboratory science buildings are close to the top of the cost pyramid. New buildings or renovations become necessary as facilities age and enrollment grows. Furthermore, the infrastructure of a science building has a relatively short life. A 50year-old science building may be structurally intact, but its pipes, valves, and electrical switches are worn out, its hoods less than safe. So, the science portion of a college education is expensive, with continuing costs to keep it modern. That is, teaching modern science is an important part of the picture when it comes to college costs. Teaching up-to-date science to students who are not majoring in science is very important if, as I believe, the idea of a scientifically literate public has merit. But more important, for the student who will become a professional scientist, the future economic value of her or his science education is surely strongly correlated with timeliness of the material taught.
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