This graphic represents a crisis. For it to be a crisis does not depend on you having any conservative sympathies. For it to be a crisis does not even depend on you having an old fashioned sense that college must be an arena of the battle of ideas, the kind of quaint notion that I grew up with and which was never seen in my academic household as at all contrary to socialist beliefs. No, for this to be a crisis requires only that you recognize that Republicans are one of two major political parties in American life, and that the structural realities of our system, and the cyclical nature of elections, ensures that there will be practical consequences of such a dire decline in popularity. Further, it helps if you recognize that in the present era, Republicans dominate American governance, with control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and crucially for our purposes, a significant majority of the country's statehouses and governor's mansions. They also have built a machine for state-level political elections that ensures that they will likely control many state legislatures for years to come.
As I work my way through all of these older articles, I find myself being convinced to support the idea of funding public education. Previously a fan of charter schools, I am no longer. Regarding defunding the university, in my own state of Oklahoma, which is a state of the very deepest red there is, at the University of Oklahoma, which I am currently attending, tuition/fees have increased from about $2800 per semester (with an annual cost of attendance back then of around $14k-$16k) in 2004-2007 to $6,980 a semester now (annual cost of attendance is now around $31k). A state scholarship back then, coupled with other scholarships you got automatically by getting this one, for scoring in the top percentile of the ACT or SAT was worth about $5900 cash annually, and you could apply the award to any part of your cost of attendance. This was an automatic "full ride" back then. That scholarship has barely increased in funding in 15 years. It's now only about $6600 and while it used to cover your whole tuition/fees with just enough left to buy books (if I am remembering correctly), it now falls about $8-9k short of tuition.
I had to do a policy paper in my government class, which being a grouchy old man compared to the other students (I'm 36) because I've already had a career and retired and come back to fuck around before going through the medical school application process, I decided to write about tuition inflation (which is going up 3.2% here next year for students not locked in at the previous flat rate). Several studies I read showed that for every $1,000 or so that states divest from funding higher education, $475 of that is foisted off onto students in the form of student debt.
Having been out in the private sector and coming back now and seeing how incompetent some of my professors are, how unprofessional (late for class, slow in turning around grades from exams that are graded online instantly when you finish them and taking 2 months to post your grade) and then having now taken enough classes to have met a few amazing professors, I do not feel as much contempt as I used to for academics. I'd always said if I were put in charge of the university system, I'd gut the fucking thing, starting with the administrators (for some reason there's about 33% more administration positions here than there was 17 years ago, despite enrollment having gone up much less than that). Now, however, these articles are swaying me to be more sympathetic to state funding, especially as I see the financial burden thrown onto the shoulders of my younger classmates. However, I do remain skeptical that the return on investment is worthwhile for college students. Two friends of mine, having graduated last semester, have no job prospects at all with their biology degrees. I hope they don't come to regret it, as they watch the interest on their loans balloon over the next several years.
Edit: come to find out, my state is in the bottom 10% for higher education funding, having cut state funding by about 35% from 2008-2019, or about $3500 per student. That explains a lot! Seems that the republicans jumped the gun here in my state on gutting the university.
As I work my way through all of these older articles, I find myself being convinced to support the idea of funding public education. Previously a fan of charter schools, I am no longer. Regarding defunding the university, in my own state of Oklahoma, which is a state of the very deepest red there is, at the University of Oklahoma, which I am currently attending, tuition/fees have increased from about $2800 per semester (with an annual cost of attendance back then of around $14k-$16k) in 2004-2007 to $6,980 a semester now (annual cost of attendance is now around $31k). A state scholarship back then, coupled with other scholarships you got automatically by getting this one, for scoring in the top percentile of the ACT or SAT was worth about $5900 cash annually, and you could apply the award to any part of your cost of attendance. This was an automatic "full ride" back then. That scholarship has barely increased in funding in 15 years. It's now only about $6600 and while it used to cover your whole tuition/fees with just enough left to buy books (if I am remembering correctly), it now falls about $8-9k short of tuition.
I had to do a policy paper in my government class, which being a grouchy old man compared to the other students (I'm 36) because I've already had a career and retired and come back to fuck around before going through the medical school application process, I decided to write about tuition inflation (which is going up 3.2% here next year for students not locked in at the previous flat rate). Several studies I read showed that for every $1,000 or so that states divest from funding higher education, $475 of that is foisted off onto students in the form of student debt.
Having been out in the private sector and coming back now and seeing how incompetent some of my professors are, how unprofessional (late for class, slow in turning around grades from exams that are graded online instantly when you finish them and taking 2 months to post your grade) and then having now taken enough classes to have met a few amazing professors, I do not feel as much contempt as I used to for academics. I'd always said if I were put in charge of the university system, I'd gut the fucking thing, starting with the administrators (for some reason there's about 33% more administration positions here than there was 17 years ago, despite enrollment having gone up much less than that). Now, however, these articles are swaying me to be more sympathetic to state funding, especially as I see the financial burden thrown onto the shoulders of my younger classmates. However, I do remain skeptical that the return on investment is worthwhile for college students. Two friends of mine, having graduated last semester, have no job prospects at all with their biology degrees. I hope they don't come to regret it, as they watch the interest on their loans balloon over the next several years.
Edit: come to find out, my state is in the bottom 10% for higher education funding, having cut state funding by about 35% from 2008-2019, or about $3500 per student. That explains a lot! Seems that the republicans jumped the gun here in my state on gutting the university.