On Tuition Flexibility

This Wednesday the Wisconsin Special Task Force on UW Restructuring and Operational Flexibilities will hear from the chancellors of Madison and Milwaukee on several issues, including flexibility for tuition-setting.

I'm on the record as having numerous concerns about the unintended consequences of giving institutional administrators more say over tuition, since they operate under intense local and political pressures to generate more resources which lead them to raise tuition even when it comes at the expense of access commitments. The latter are far more difficult to uphold, since even when people feel strongly about supporting college opportunities for disadvantaged families, the fact is that those families are quite distant from the lives of decision-makers, and thus easy to neglect.

A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Columbia economist Judith Scott-Clayton offers important reminders for this task force and the chancellors.  The access commitment is easy to make in theory, and much harder to fulfill in practice.  Sure, we like to believe that we can simply meet it by redistributing tuition revenue from middle and upper-class families to poorer families via financial aid (discounting).  But this relies on a set of assumptions, including that (a) poorer families will know the discount is coming and ignore the sticker price, (b) they will know and believe this information early enough to ensure their kids are prepared for college (as researchers put it, “potential college students cannot respond to a price subsidy if they do not know it exists"), (c) that this redistribution strategy will survive significant political push-back from the middle and upper-class families, (d) that the unintended divisiveness of the policy won't cause many consequences to campus climate and educational opportunities for the poorer students, and (e) that the access commitment will last even as campus administrations change.

I'm skeptical that these assumptions will be met by the kinds of tuition flexibility proposals we've seen in this country.  Short of a flat-out widely advertised and legislated promise to all Wisconsin residents under $80,000 (or some other income cutoff) that the full costs of attending college will be FREE, I don't think (a) and/or (b) will actually happen.  I don't think anyone knows about (c) or (d) and as for (e), get real-- no one puts this stuff in writing like they ought to.

Back to the NBER paper by Scott- Clayton-- here are key takeaways:

1. The chances are good that the market failure known as incomplete information has become more consequential in recent years as pricing of college has become much more individualized.  Despite decades of informational interventions, misinformation remains widespread-- as Scott-Clayton puts it,  "while many students appear well aware of the benefits of postsecondary education—in some cases even overestimating expected earnings gains—they persistently overestimate costs and are uninformed about sources of potential aid."

2. Creating a more complex system in which costs are higher and more variable, and more discounting is utilized, is unlikely to be offset by purely informational amendments.  In other words, an awareness campaign like that proposed by Biddy Martin last year likely won't even partially solve the problem creating by more tuition complexity.

3.  Informational contraints "can potentially undermine the effectiveness of even very large investments in financial aid."  In other words, we could spend a lot of money without creating much access--and we have to keep that in mind. It's a subject deserving of widespread and thorough public debate.

The lesson from this National Bureau of Economic Research paper for Wisconsin is this:  it's imperative that whatever tuition policy we move towards, it should not exacerbate students’ confusion about cost.   In my estimation, tuition "flexibility" at the institutional rather than System level will create more harm than good from those already left out and left behind by Wisconsin and its universities.

Postscript:  I want to clarify that the hearing on Wednesday will include discussion of two different tuition issues. First, whether the legislature should have granted the Regents flexibility to set tuition and then capped tuition.  I concur with Chancellor Ward that this is inappropriate-- the Legislature has much on its plate, and should allow the UW System Board of Regents the opportunity to convene a full discussion of tuition issues and make its own policies.  There are many ways for various constituencies to make their case to the Regents for keeping tuition very reasonable for Wisconsin residents, and the outcome will have more political legitimacy if done this way. Second, I understand that some chancellors want to have the flexibility to set tuition devolved to their own campus-- rather than have the Regents set it. This is not something Chancellor Ward is arguing for-- in contrast to his predecessor, and to the chancellors of Milwaukee and Stevens Point, he concurs that tuition-setting is an important function of university systems.  Finally, one last point-- anyone who claims that an access agenda is antithetical to an educational quality agenda is caught in the old Iron Triangle rhetoric, and needs to get up to speed.  Access (including diversity) is a key element of quality, and providing quality without access is no way to secure our children's future.

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The Cupcake Incident

                                                                                                  

On Friday my son turned five.  And so it was that on Thursday night I found myself elbow deep in dark chocolate cake batter and made-from-scratch coconut frosting, carefully following a recipe from the very chic Boston bakey Flour.  After asking Conor to name all of the children in his kindergarten class (twice) to be sure I would make enough cupcakes, I filled 18 spaces in my two non-stick pans and stuck them in the oven. Then I collapsed—while I love to cook, I hate baking, since it requires precise measurement and careful attention to detail, for which I have little energy left in the evenings given that such effort is required at work all day long.  Normally I would have taken a shortcut and used a mix to make life easier, but I wanted Conor’s cupcakes to be exactly as he’d asked for them—very chocolate, and very coconut.

Well, what those cupcakes really were—I learned 25 minutes later—was stuck. Glued to the pan, going absolutely nowhere. So much for “non-stick;” those suckers weren’t moving.  No, I didn’t use cupcake liners; I was trying to be “green.”   All of that Penzey's dutch-processed cocoa, organic butter and eggs, for nothing.  

I went to bed distressed.  Now what?  We needed 18 cupcakes by 930 am, and they had to be great.  Yeah, I knew they were for a bunch of 4 and 5-year-olds, but still-- they really just had to be great.  I searched West Madison online for bakeries, pondering the one with the $3 organic cupcakes (really??), the good ol'stanby Costco (not open til 10), and a new place a Facebook friend recommended.  As my eyes closed, I berated myself for obsessing this way. How could I have forgotten the cardinal rules of academic motherhood, and even attempted to bake cupcakes?  My own UW colleague, Simone Schweber, once wrote a brilliant column for the Chronicle about this-- and I had neglected the wisdom of her words, also written after attempting to make perfect cupcakes:  "I was always afraid that I wouldn't be a good mother, much less a perfect one, and indeed, it's much easier to make perfect, if ridiculous, cupcakes than to be a good mother." 

The next morning, I dropped Conor off at school and set myself on a path for the grocery store.  A $5 or $10 box of cupcakes from the bakery department would be just fine for these little palates, I told myself.  I drove towards Sentry.  And then, to my astonishment, I turned left-- and instead made a beeline for Cupcakes-A-Go-Go.  It was a bit of an out-of-body experience; I got out of the car, went in and purchased 18 cupcakes, handing over my Amex and charging $54 -- all the while screaming (silently) at myself "STOP IT, this is CRAZY!" 

What in the heck had happened to me?  I knew the money was better spent elsewhere, that the kids wouldn't taste the difference, and that no one but me was demanding that I do this.  I knew that only children would be present at the celebration, no other parents, and that my kid's school (a Waldorf program) does its best to discourage conspicuous consumption. As a sociologist, I further knew that my behaviors were class-linked, and that I ought to actively resist them. I knew this, I knew that, and I simply couldn't stop.

So I brought the cupcakes back to kindergarten, and my husband and I served them. Conor smiled and enjoyed a chocolate one, and the other kids (including my 2-year-old daughter) licked their fingers happily. The eating lasted all of 10 minutes, and then it was done. $54 worth of sugar, consumed.  

What happened Friday morning is going to stay with me for a long time. Mainly because I still can't understand it.  Was I simply over-compensating for the guilt of being a working mom? I don't think so, since I really don't feel my family is anything but proud of my career.  Was I embarrassed by my baking mishap? Not really-- I know it happens. Was I competing with other moms, whom the teacher mentioned sometimes shop at another organic bakery?  Maybe a little.  But at the end of the day, for all of my intellectual abilities to classify and analyze my own actions, I can't find an explanation that resonates.  Most of all, I can't account for my intense guilt (almost disgust) over that $54. 

What I can tell you is this: I won't be found in a cupcakery again.  Just can't do it. 

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Are you there Kevin? It's me, neoliberalism

In a recent blog Kevin Carey took on Claire Potter’s critique of Obama’s higher education proposal by chastising her for using the term neoliberalism, and calling her a college professor so out of touch with the real world that she isn’t invited to the policymaking tables where he hangs out.

Dear Kevin, as you know I like you very much—so pardon me if I take offense here.  As a fellow college professor who spends quite a bit of time in DC policy circles (including with you), I think your critique of Potter is off-base. It’s also incredibly unproductive, as you set up an “education reformer versus college professor” dichotomy that's decidedly unhelpful. You accuse Potter of thinking she’s better than the DC crew, but she said nothing of the sort—instead it’s really you who calls her the idiot, seemingly for using big words. 

At the heart of the problem with your critique, Kevin, is that you’ve really missed the meaning of neoliberalism.  Yes, I’m going to keep using the polysyllabic term, since like “stratification,” it has real meaning and is useful for describing a complex concept. 

No, neoliberalism isn’t like facism—as you point out—and no one I know ever claimed it was.  It’s not widely abhorred, primarily because the term itself challenges an ideology so dominant that people have a hard time recognizing its existence.   You reduce neoliberalism to just one of its pieces: an effort to remove market regulation in the pursuit of greater liberty. Since Obama seeks, in some regards, to regulate the action of markets, markets which you rightly note already operate in education, then his policies can’t be neoliberal.  Right?

Wrong.  Neoliberalism is staring you in the face, and in today's education policies it isn’t marked solely or even primarily by a lack of market regulation, but by the promotion of privatization, erosion of worker protections,  heavy reliance on standardized testing, and the rollback of broad community input on school decisions.  More informally, neoliberalism posits that solutions to problems such as opportunity gaps lie in competition among individuals rather than long-term planning and cooperation.  It serves the few who are “racing to the top,” rather than the many who could and should work together for a just and equal society.  Frankly, neoliberal policies take the easy way out and call it “efficient”, rather than doing what’s hard but ultimately long-lasting and ethical.

Unbelievably, without a shred of evidence that positive outcomes have been achieved with the first, President Obama has proposed yet another Race to the Top, one that will undoubtedly reward institutions for policies that promote slippery-slope private partnerships (e.g. between community colleges and business), high-stakes accountability, and top-down reforms of professorial work, all in the name of enhanced productivity.  I'm on the record as for for productivity improvements in higher education, but I would never want them to be agenda #1—first we have a long way to go toward establishing a much deeper commitment public education, we must agree on goals and metrics for both educational equity and quality, we have to develop an appropriate and socially-just financing structure, and then we can work on efficiency.  Working backwards is a surefire way to cut costs and lose what’s most valuable: talent. And it’s definitely the way to create and perpetuate a 1% in education that leaves most of us behind.

Kevin, we share a deep commitment to doing whatever it takes to improve students' education experiences.  But we disagree on what we think the path to that goal must entail.  In my view, the road must include the continuation and indeed the growth of public investments in public education—not routes around it.  It must also include enhanced respect and support for educators.  There is no evidence of such support in this proposal—the importance of adequately supporting the work of professors in order to help student is not mentioned, and yet the fingers of blame are pointed in their direction (most recently by Joe Biden) for rising costs of college attendance.   The winners of this race will likely be the private institutions, who depend far less on state support, and thus will look like winners.  The students and families equipped to benefit from choice—those with more access to information and who are accustomed to “shopping,” will reap the rewards. They're the voters, and they'll love it most of all. Others who love the idea of choosing, and believe the false hopes that discussions of choice perpetuate, will similarly fall in line. That’s the neoliberal model at work—purporting to convene a fair competition, exciting the individualistic imagination of the American Dream, without placing any particular value on the principles of collective public goods or fair labor practices.  It may get people revved up in an election year, but make no mistake about it--it isn’t a progressive vision in the least.

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