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| Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., unveiled a higher education plan on Monday that calls for canceling student loan debt and eliminating tuition at public colleges. |
Warren's plan doesn't account for quality |
| By David Bahr and Ann Phelan |
| Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposal to — by and large — eliminate existing student debt and, going forward, provide free tuition at two-year and four-year public universities has, putting it lightly, a few challenges. Missing from much of the mainstream analysis, however, is a psychological point that should not be forgotten: the growth of the administrative apparatus and its effect on excellence. |
| When the government provides what is essentially a blank check for higher education, the quality of our students' learning environment will, over time, degrade. It will degrade because administrators, whose ratio to faculty increasingly takes on absurd proportions, will seek, naturally enough, to expand their roles and responsibilities at the schools. |
| Talker: 5 town halls on CNN, yet no clue whether any of the candidates is capable of getting things done |
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| The proliferation of "initiatives" and boards and commissions at colleges is just a natural tendency of university administrators to justify and enlarge their function. So what we tend to see happen are all sorts of task forces designed to look at this or that problem at a school — even when there is no problem. In short, the administrators will have the time of their lives trying to enlarge their roles. |
| A brief look at the data behind higher education provides evidence for this argument. From 1993 to 2007, the number of administrators for every 100 students rose by an astounding 39%. In contrast, the number of professors and researchers per 100 students rose only 18%. |
| In addition, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2014-15 school year, administrative expenses reached a staggering $122.3 billion. Compare that with $148 billion spent on instructional (i.e. teaching) costs. |
| Warren's proposal is largely silent on measuring the quality of students' education. Since we know that more money does not correspond to the hiring of stronger, better teachers — or, crucially, wiser administrative leadership — this is a tremendous defect in her plan. |
| The American education system is, perhaps, the most important, enduring policy area our legislators have never gotten right. There are no quick fixes or finance schemes that will solve the problems we face. We need educational policy plans crafted with wisdom and prudence, cornerstone virtues lacking in Warren's proposal altogether. |
| David Bahr is communications director, and Ann Phelan is communications manager, at the R Street Institute. You can follow him on Twitter: @DWDBahr |
 | | Student debt | | Pat Bagley/The Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune/PoliticalCartoons.com | |
What others are saying |
| Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan, The Philadelphia Inquirer : "What 'loan forgiveness' really means is that the government will either raise taxes or add to the already unfathomable $22 trillion debt. Taxpayers will either pay now, or pay later. But they will pay. ... The only way to make college free is to recruit faculty who are willing to work for free, contractors willing to build for free, utility companies willing to provide power and water for free, and support staff who are willing to labor 40 hours a week for, you guessed it, free. As long as anyone involved in the building, maintaining and staffing of universities wants to eat, college cannot be free." |
| Sam Ropa, The (University of Wisconsin) Badger Herald : "Student loan debt exploded not because students wanted to borrow more, but because they had to cover these rising costs (of tuition and fees). These costs fall disproportionately on students and families of color, especially black and Latinx ones, who are more likely to need loans to pursue higher education. Because wealthier, white Americans have historically been afforded the opportunity to pursue a post-secondary education for lower tuitions and fees, addressing present student loan debt is one way to address the black-white and Latinx-white racial wealth gaps." |
| Washington Examiner, editorial : "Student indebtedness is just one negative side effect of government subsidies. The federal student loan doles out ever greater amounts of easy money at subsidized interest rates, thus pushing college tuition well above anything a free market could ever support. Until market discipline is imposed on free-spending and tuition-hiking college administrators, no amount of loan forgiveness will ever be enough to give students a fair deal for their money." |
What our readers are saying |
| It's clearly obvious that politicians like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have no plans to fix anything. Instead, they present fantasies where money falls from the sky and every debt is forgiven. How about doing something useful like working with Republicans on a real fix of the federal infrastructure system? |
| — Matt Turner |
| Got a better idea, Warren: Let's try to lower college costs. Maybe start with not paying professors and staffers six figures for a single course. |
| — Mark Soucy |
| If the rest of society is paying for everyone else's college, does society have an input into what people can study? If our society needs engineers, doctors and software developers, but all the students want to study comparative literature, do we still pay for them? The days of going to college and just getting any degree and then getting a good job are gone. Organizations want people who can actually do something. |
| — Cletus Van Damm |
| To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY or provide feedback to this newsletter, email jrivera@usatoday.com, comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter. |
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