With tuitions at colleges and universities increasing nationwide
and an election around the corner, many will look to the new
presidential administration to improve the situation for
students.
The two major presidential candidates have various policies
aimed at relieving the pressure on university students and their
families, but educators across the country are unsure how much
effect a federal policy can realistically have on higher
education.
Bush has contributed to higher education by relieving
students’ monetary burden through federal aid programs.
Financial aid funding has risen by over 50 percent and a record
amount of federal money has been given to Pell grants, said Deputy
Policy Director for Education John Bailey.
These policies have allowed millions of lower-income students to
attend universities. The president plans to expand the funds that
are allocated to financial aid and grants if he is re-elected,
Bailey added.
But some of Bush’s opponents say that this is too little
too late and Bush has not put a priority on higher education.
Sen. John Kerry also plans to increase funding for financial aid
and grants, said Tim Lim, the national membership director for
College Democrats of America.
But his plans extend beyond this.
“Kerry’s proposals have to do with (the federal
government) providing incentives to states to maintain a strong
component of state funding for their colleges and
universities,” said Richard Harpel, director of federal
relations at the National Association of State Universities and
Land Grant Colleges.
States will be encouraged to keep tuition rates low in exchange
for the receipt of federal funds, he added.
Harpel described this as “a carrot approach rather than a
stick approach” ““ states would be rewarded rather than
penalized for the way they deal with public colleges and
universities.
The senator also plans to provide a tax credit of up to $4,000
to assist families with the cost of education, Lim said.
It is this last proposal that may be most beneficial to UCLA
students.
“The part of the Kerry domestic package that would be most
likely to affect UCLA would be the tuition tax credit that
he’s proposing,” said Thomas Kane, a professor of
policy studies and economics.
The major difference between the tax credit and the other
proposed programs is that it will aid middle as well as
lower-income students, Lim said.
But some have pointed to flaws in Kerry’s plan and are
unsure how effective it will actually be.
The federal government only plays a secondary role in terms of
improving the situation for students attending state
universities.
“Generally speaking, for state universities like UCLA, the
state level is the more important level,” said Susanne
Lohmann, a professor of political science at UCLA.
But that is not to say the federal government is entirely
helpless in dealing with higher education.
“The federal role really is to provide access,” said
Chris Simmons, assistant director of government relations at the
American Council on Education.
And many point to increased funding for financial aid and grant
programs as Bush’s greatest contribution to higher education:
10 million students have benefitted from the increased funds to
Pell grants, Bailey said.
But many see the Bush administration’s contributions as
nominal.
“Much of what we know of what this administration has
emphasized for education has been almost exclusively K-12,”
Harpel said. “I worry that higher education takes a back
seat.
“There has not been a more assertive effort to increase
student aid funds within federal budget because so much of it has
been focused on the No Child Left Behind Act,” he added.
Democrats and educators have also expressed concern that the
increase to student aid has not kept up with inflation and fee
hikes.
After initial increases to grant funding during the first year
of the Bush administration, support for these programs has
flatlined, Kane said.
“Considering that there’s been at least a 30 percent
increase in college tuition … that financial aid is a little bit
late in the coming,” Lim said.
Lim called the grant and financial aid funding a “token
concession to middle-class families” and said that “for
college students, John Kerry’s the candidate.”
But Kerry’s detractors say the senator’s educational
proposals are hardly flawless.
Simmons pointed to a concern about Kerry’s plan of
offering funds to states in exchange for steady tuition.
“It seems like the federal government should be helping
out the states that need it the most, not the ones that
don’t,” Simmons said.
He added that it was impossible to tell how effective an
incentive-based plan would be in keeping college costs from
rising.
One area that will be particularly relevant to UCLA, as a top
research university, has to do with research grants and
policies.
“UCLA is at least one of the top grant-getters,”
Lohmann said. “So I would think that UCLA would care very
much what federal research policy is.”
But universities do not exist in a vacuum and various other
domestic, and even international, policies will affect public
higher education.
The state of the economy may have a more significant effect on
public universities than educational policies themselves.
“The biggest blow the University of California, and almost
all other state universities, received during the Bush presidency
was from the weakening of the overall economy,” said Michael
Chwe, an associate professor of political science at UCLA.
So the two candidates’ respective economic policies will
affect higher education, but the big question is what this effect
will be.
Lim pointed to the Bush administration’s tax cuts to the
upper 2 percent of the population as a policy that has been harmful
to higher education and contributed to shutting out less wealthy
students.
But Lohmann pointed to this tax cut as something that might be
beneficial to universities, particularly those that rely heavily on
alumni giving.
There is little hope either candidate will be able to improve
the state of higher education, as neither candidate seems to have
put it as a top priority.
“Higher education is not, obviously, the No. 1 issue on
their plates,” Simmons said.
And now is not a time when the administration will be able to
contribute much to public universities due to the current state of
the U.S. economy.
“The real problem in the federal budget right now is with
the tax cuts and funding for the war. It’s pretty bleak as
you look down the road,” Harpel said.
The bottom line is that the federal government has little
control over public institutions of higher education.
“They will be these marginal effects here and there, on
alumni giving or stem cell research,” Lohmann said.
“But it’s simply not a political system where things
sort of launch to and from based on who gets elected.”