College Finance/Student Debt
John Oliver's program "Last Week Tonight" recently delved into the issue of student loan debt. The segment featured a VICE/HBO interview with the governor of Louisiana, discussing the dramatic shift in the funding model for public colleges and universities. Over time, the model has transitioned from 70% state-funded and 30% student-funded to what is now claimed to be 20% state-funded and 80% student-funded. This shift marks another step towards the privatization of what has traditionally been a public good, raising concerns over the allocation of tax dollars.
It's essential to distinguish between student loan debt and the cost of attending college when analyzing this issue. The responsibility for funding a public education has increasingly fallen on students, amid criticisms of inflated college salaries, the tenure system, and luxurious amenities. Due to inflation and the competitive need to attract students, operating a higher education institution has become more expensive. Colleges are faced with substantial fixed costs, such as facilities, labs, etc...with student tuition being the primary means of subsidy.
In Virginia, around 2012, local parents began expressing concerns that too many out-of-state students were occupying spots at the University of Virginia.. This situation suggests a deliberate strategy by UVA and other prominent state schools to leverage higher out-of-state tuition fees—nearly triple that of in-state fees—to subsidize the cost for in-state students.
Similar concerns have emerged regarding the University of Tennessee, where it's rumored that in-state students are discouraged from considering "UT Knox" as their safety school. Remarkably, the state's highest-paid employee is UT's Athletic Director, with a salary exceeding 1 million dollars per year. Additionally, the HBCU Tennessee State has been significantly underfunded by over 2 billion dollars for more than 50 years, with those funds allegedly redirected to the University of Tennessee, which has reportedly benefited from this misallocation.
This misallocation results in a higher burden on the administrators and students at the underfunded TSU. Many students at the HBCU are first-generation college students and/or require significant aid. The fact that TSU received even less than the deserved 20% state/government subsidy and that the student population (along with the alumni/boosters) have fewer financial resources results in a greater burden being placed on those lower tuition dollars the school does receive. This burden then leads to institutional stress and peril, in addition to having these students graduate from these institutions with a much higher debt load and thus a much higher likelihood to default.
Concerning personal student debt, while it undeniably represents a significant burden, it's worth noting that many sensationalized stories of student debt, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, likely include graduate programs in law, medicine, and business. Consider the example of a young Harvard MBA graduate who, despite accruing over $200K in debt, quickly became debt-free and financially stable. He also met his wife at Harvard, highlighting another positive aspect of higher education beyond finances and underscoring the value of diversity.
This challenges the narrative that an undergraduate education isn't valuable due to the potential for significant debt, an attitude that diminishes higher education to a mere monetary transaction, overlooking the broader purpose of traditional college education.
The requirement for a college degree in many entry-level jobs today, as opposed to the past, can be attributed to the skills and maturity developed over the four-year college experience, or two years in the case of associate degrees.
The common narrative of self-sufficiency, often promoted by certain talking heads, seems contradictory when considering their stance on higher education and the denial of relief for student debt, a situation exacerbated by funding decisions in states with conservative leadership.
Fox News anchors, particularly the vocal critics like Jesse Watters, who graduated from the private Trinity College in 2001 with a history degree and now boasts a reported salary of 11 million dollars, reveals a significant hypocrisy. Watters began his career at Fox News in 2003 as a production assistant—a role that requires a college degree—before working with Bill O'Reilly and moving up the food chain. It's noteworthy that Tucker Carlson, whom Watters replaced, is also a Trinity graduate.
Jesse Watters' critique of college education, especially his targeting of history majors as holding "worthless degrees," reflects a notable hypocrisy that warrants attention.
