Research Blog #4 Research Proposal

John Styslinger

Professor Michael Goeller

College! 201

18 October 2016

College Tuition Spikes, The Cause And Effect

            Topic

After the first couple weeks of initial research, I have decided to address the recent rise in college tuition. This topic is interesting, not only because of the causes, but also because of the effects. For example, the spikes in college tuition are further helping to uphold the inequality that exists in our country. Many people that come from low-income areas cannot afford the prices that colleges are demanding and even the ones that do go get caught up in a massive student loan. The causes for rising tuition could be related to the privatization of higher education. With more privatization the states begin to give less money to the schools, which has been happening, and that causes tuition to go up.

            Research Question

            Why have the tuitions of colleges been going up so fast recently and what are the repercussions of this rise? I feel that this topic has enough controversy surrounding it to be seen from several angles. First of all, what are the main factors behind these spikes in tuition and why have they come about? Many people, even those who have already finished college, have such strong opinions on this topic because the majority of people in the country are affected by this. Anyone who wants to further their education by attending college will have to deal with these tuitions and that is why it is such a big deal. The price has never been the deciding factor on whether or not someone attends college or not. Although, recently it is beginning to be weighed very heavily when someone is making the decision and this is in-turn is a factor in the effects of the rise in tuition.

Theoretical Frame

            Throughout reading numerous resources, I have learned of several reasons behind this tuition increase. One of the explanations for this hike in tuition is that the states are cutting their subsidies for public colleges and universities and this in-turn causes those institutions to raise their prices. Another factor that comes into play is the idea that these colleges are spending more money and therefore raising tuition to cover these costs. The additional spending could be in areas such as paying faculty more, hiring more faculty, or even building new classrooms or sports arenas. The effects of these rises cause more serious problems than one would think. It heavily affects people that come from low-income families because they cannot afford these high tuitions and this prevents them from furthering their education and just maintains the current gap between the rich and the poor. Similarly to the articles we read for class, this topic affects the middle class as well because if they do decide to go to college and take out loans, they are in for a long and difficult payoff period.

Case

            One reason for the rise in tuition could be linked to colleges spending more money and therefore raising their price to cover their costs. The reasons for colleges spending more money could be because of raising faculty salaries and hiring more administrative faculty. This is a controversy because many make the case that these people have no direct part in either teaching or research and therefore, their numbers should be kept at a minimum. For example at Louisiana State University, their state funding was cut by a third and because of this they got rid of an administrative position and that position’s job was filled by other administrators. Other states are noting this change made by Louisiana State University and are beginning to realize they may have to make similar changes as well.

Working Bibliography

Davidson, Adam. Is College Tuition Really Too High? (n.d.): n. pag. New York Times, 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 

Engler, Mark. "Why Is College So Damned Expensive?." New Internationalist 475 (2014): 33. Left Index. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Farrell, Elizabeth F. "Public-College Tuition Rise Is Largest in 3 Decades." The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 31 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Isaacs, Julia, Isabel V. Sawhill, and Ron Haskins. Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008. Web.

Marcus, Jon. "The Reason Behind Colleges' Ballooning Bureaucracies." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Matthews, Dylan. "Introducing ‘The Tuition Is Too Damn High’." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

McMurrer, Daniel P., and Isabel V. Sawhill. Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1998. Print.

Mitchell, Michael. "State Higher Ed Cuts Largely Driving Recent Tuition Hikes."Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Wexler, Ellen. "Study: Increased Student Aid, Not Faculty Salaries, Drives Tuition up." Study:

Increased Student Aid, Not Faculty Salaries, Drives Tuition up. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Woodhouse, Kellie. "Report Says Administrative Bloat, Construction Booms Not Largely

Responsible for Tuition Increases." Report Says Administrative Bloat, Construction Booms Not Largely Responsible for Tuition Increases. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

Research Blog #5

Davidson, Adam. Is College Tuition Really Too High? (n.d.): n. pag. New York Times, 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 

Engler, Mark. "Why Is College So Damned Expensive?." New Internationalist 475 (2014): 33. Left Index. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

FARRELL, ELIZABETH F. "Public-College Tuition Rise Is Largest in 3 Decades." The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 31 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

 Isaacs, Julia, Isabel V. Sawhill, and Ron Haskins. Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008. Web.

McMurrer, Daniel P., and Isabel V. Sawhill. Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1998. Print.

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Literature Review Blog #3

1.

2.   McMurrer, Daniel P., and Isabel V. Sawhill. Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1998. Print.

2.      

   3. The authors discuss the idea of social mobility in the United States and some of the factors associated with it. One’s social class, family background, and education are three of the big factors that affect social mobility. They discuss why these factors matter and how they play off of one another.

3

.  4.    Elizabeth Sawhill is an author who has also held positions as vice president and director of economic studies at The Brookings Institution which is a research group found on Think Tank Row in Washington D.C.

4.    

5. Key terms found in my reading include mobility and opportunity.

5.     

6. “Where one ends up in the income distribution reflects, after all, where one began, who one’s parents were, what kind of education one received, race and gender, and a host of other factors – including just plain luck.” (Page 1)

“And lack of education is a critical barrier to upward mobility for those at the bottom end of the labor market. In short, education is more than ever the stratifying variable in American life.” (Page 10)

“Because schooling is financed largely at the local level, the kind of education a child gets in the United States has always depended on where his parents could afford to live. Buying a house in the right neighborhood – and above all, one with good schools – is the quintessential way of providing a better future for one’s children in this country.” (Page 11)

6.    

          7. This resource is definitely a benefit to my research because it points out facts that I had not really thought of prior to reading. I like the third quote I found that talks about how one’s education is rooted back to where one’s parents could afford to live. This could be pushed further and tie into how one does not have a high chance of furthering their education through college if they are from one of these areas with poor public schools. 

Literature Review Blog #2

1. 

		2003-4 tuition(in-state)	1-year increase
1.	U of California at Los Angeles	$5,298	43.1%
2.	U of California at Santa Barbara	$5,639	41.4%
3.	Arizona State U-West	$3,545	39.8%
4.	U of California at San Diego	$5,508	39.4%
5.	Arizona State U main campus	$3,595	39.1%
6.	Northern Arizona U	$3,595	39.0%
7.	U of Arizona	$3,603	38.9%
8.	U of California at Irvine	$5,615	38.4%
9.	California State Polytechnic U at Pomona	$2,505	38.0%
10.	U of California at Berkeley	$5,250	37.1%

2. FARRELL, ELIZABETH F. "Public-College Tuition Rise Is Largest in 3 Decades." The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 31 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

3. The cost of attending college is up 14% from the previous year and it went up at the highest rate in over thirty years. Causes behind the increase in tuition could be linked to states cutting their budgets on higher education. 

4. Elizabeth F. Farrell is a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education which is a big-time news source based out of Washington DC. They have both a newspaper and an online website. They have been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards nine times and one of its columnists even was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005. 

5. There were not many key terms found in the article but the data she provides in the graphs is really interesting because it shows the increase from one year to the next and it was published in 2003 so it should not be too outdated. 

6. "The sticker price of tuition at four-year public colleges surged at its highest rate in three decades in 2003-4, rising 14 percent over the previous year"

"Tuition at public two-year colleges rose by almost 14 percent as well, and the price of attending a private four-year college increased by 6 percent."

"Over the past decade, grant aid has increased by 85 percent in real terms, while education-loan volume has grown by 173 percent. More students are turning to the private sector for additional loans to supplement federal loans."

"This month Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the California Republican in charge of the principal higher-education subcommittee in the House of Representatives, introduced legislation that would punish colleges that raise their prices too much by cutting off their access to some federal student-aid money."

7. This article is valuable to my research because it introduces a couple interesting points such as the 173% increase in education loans. Also, just the fact that practically 10 years ago the cost of college went up 14% in one year is crazy to think about. I wonder if it is possible to compare these numbers to present-day costs. 

Literature Review Blog #1

1. 

2. Engler, Mark. "Why Is College So Damned Expensive?." New Internationalist 475 (2014): 33. Left Index. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

3. This article was interesting to me because it mentioned several of the topics you suggested I looked into. The author suggests different reasons for rising tuitons. He also provides a prediction of what college tuitions will be like in the next decade or two based on its rate. College tuitions have gone up at a rate two times as fast as the cost of medical care. Although he only talks about these facts briefly, it was interesting to see him discussing the same points you mentioned and now I have a good idea of  what to further research. 

4. Mark Engler is the author of the book This Is An Uprising which is about how non-violence action is rising in our country with things such as BlackLivesMatter. He is also a columnist for the New Internationalist which is a UK magazine that discusses topics such as human rights, politics, and social and environmental justice. 

5. I'm not sure if there were any key words in this article.

6. "Between 1980 and 2010, college costs went up three times faster than the Consumer Price Index. They even increased twice as fast as the cost of medical care."

"There are multiple reasons for the increasing costs of US education: expanding campuses, construction of new labs and facilities, and the bloated number of administrators now presiding over the system."

"Ceaseless rounds of state-level budget cuts since the late 1980s have driven up prices at public universities astronomically"

7. Like I said before, this article mentioned some of the same points you mentioned to me in my last blog so now I really have an idea of what to further research. Although, I would've liked if the article was a little longer and had more information.

5. 

Research Blog #3 Initial Academic Research Bib

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=830e622f-502b-46e3-9ae1-235e242d5685%40sessionmgr106&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=0FD7848761020F30&db=edsnba

This source is interesting because it mentions that tuitions may be rising due to the state government cutting their contributions to colleges and because of Congress forcing new programs on the states and making them pay for them.

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/13AE076A040B3B88?p=AWNB

This article discusses possible repercussions of the rising tuitions through a personal account and other statistics such as average student debt in North Carolina.

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=f3918c3d-0cdc-4d01-86a1-d9c861403ff1%40sessionmgr104&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=110953256&db=edb

This source talks about the prices of college prior to World War I and the benefits of college back then. It reveals that college had both a low price and a low cost but the education itself did not really provide much for the student. It is basically the opposite nowadays, College is extremely expensive but it provides the student with a lot of benefits.

Scouting the territory

Through a couple google searches I have found a couple articles pertaining to my topic. So far, key terms such as "discouragement" and "rising college tuition" have been helpful. Although, factors such as family income and ethnicity are repeatedly being brought up in the articles. From these articles I have looked at so far, I am feeling better about my topic. I was not sure if I was going to be able to find a lot of information but it seems like there may be more than I had thought. I have found a study (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/15/study-finds-differential-tuition-can-influence-enrollment-levels) which talks about how higher tuition rates can cause negative influence to certain students. Another article I found (http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2011/11/15-surprising-side-effects-of-rising-college-costs/) talked about 15 side effects of rising college tuitions. The number 1 effect was a rising enrollment of 2-year colleges. The other side to  my topic can be found in this article, (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/nov/03/tuition-fees-poor-students) which talks about how a rising tuition price "won't put off poor students." Their stance is mainly supported by Michael Gove, a British politician, who served as Secretary of State for Education from 2010 to 2014 and Secretary of State for Justice from 2015 to 2016. I am definitely going to have to do more research this week but I think I have found a solid foundation for my paper so far.