Despite a steadily growing population, yearly college enrollment in the United States has decreased for more than a decade. With a job market that increasingly demands educated professionals how is this possible? In short, decades of neglect and poor policy planning.
In her book “Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream,” Suzanne Mettler explains that the educational system in the United States stopped acting as an engine of social mobility and in turn started exacerbating social inequalities as a result of an increased sense of political polarization and plutocracy that began in the 1980s. After World War II the GI bill covered the educational costs of hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning home after the war, thus uplifting an entire generation of working-class non-black men into a new social class. For the first time in American history, the son of a fisherman could become a doctor or lawyer if he chose. Then there was the Higher Education Act of 1965 which, as part of President Johnson’s Great Society plan, set aside national funding for students pursuing postsecondary education. In 1972 the Pell Grant was established to give extra funding for low income people pursuing post-secondary education, but this time it was open to women as well.
The United States was making great strides to increase access to education until the 1980s when national politics began to push the narrative of “hard work” implying that one should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (although to literally pull yourself up by bootstraps is physically impossible) because they can be successful through work, without any assistance from the government or anyone else, among other neo-conservative rhetoric,has become mainstream public opinion. Prioritizing public investment in education became an untenable political position, which ultimately resulted in systematic divestment. Divestment from the federal government in higher education means that states are forced to pick up the tab in order to keep public educational institutions afloat which resulted in astronomical increases in tuition over the past few decades to pay for basic infrastructure maintenance and support for faculty members.
The average cost of public four-year university tuition grew 244 percent from the 1980/1981 academic year to the 2010/2011 academic year, dramatically outpacing nearly stagnant incomes and the rising cost of inflation. Likewise, student aid has also been cut back and has fallen behind the rate of tuition increase. When Pell was created in the 1970s it covered 80% of eligible students’ room, board, tuition, and books, whereas in 2013 Pell only covered 31% of those costs. The trend of college becoming increasingly unaffordable coincides with a major uptick in wealth inequality, which is even more dangerous and harmful when considering that college education has become more and more important in determining one’s career success.
We are in desperate need of policy interventions to correct this systematic wrongdoing, but in order to move forward policy solutions must be social justice oriented and evidence based. The most viable policy solution in this political climate is further investment in higher education on both federal and state levels through necessary infrastructure funding, but most importantly through the expansion of scholarship and opportunity programs. The most effective programs for increasing educational attainment are those that offer holistic support to students by covering the cost of college attendance beyond the cost of tuition, such as CUNY ASAP. CUNY ASAP has successfully doubled the rate of 3-year graduation for students compared to their non-ASAP peers because the program addresses barriers to degree completion such as textbook costs, public transportation costs, priority class scheduling, and personal advisement. This is not a handout but rather extending a helping hand to give people the support that they, and it works.
This issue is especially timely given that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown further light on systemic inequalities in this country, especially pervading disparities in the realm of education. Vulnerable people from low income backgrounds are in an especially precarious situation, facing devastating unemployment or being forced to work dangerous low wage jobs. Without investment, folks will not be able to pursue post-secondary education and will be subject to downward mobility thereby putting a financial strain on the state later through an increase in the cost of public assistance and healthcare costs, plus revenue lost from the income taxes of a wealthier population. In order to effectively create feasible and sustainable pathways for vulnerable populations to succeed in their pursuit of higher education, we must invest in policies that are focused on equity.
Sarah Russo is a senior Sociology and Public Policy student at Hunter College. After graduation, she will be pursuing a masters in Teaching with a focus in Bilingual Education at Universidad de Alcala in Alcala Spain this fall.
