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EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a 720-word column on the topic of college costs from Indiana University President Myles Brand. If you would like a recent photograph of President Brand, we will forward it to you either by mail or electronically. Call DeAnna J. Hines, executive director of communications at 812-855-0850, djhines@indiana.edu
On the long-running game show "The Price Is Right," contestants try to come as close as possible to the price of an item without going over. Here's a question sure to stump the panel: what's the average cost of tuition at a public university?
At Indiana University, we've asked. Most people guess that tuition for a year costs from $7,000 to $10,000.
That's over, way over. This year, a full-time undergraduate at IU Bloomington will pay about $4,000 for tuition and fees. In each of the last two years, we've limited tuition increases to 4 percent. Room and board adds to the overall cost, but food and housing require money whether you are going to college or not.
Recent research at IU mirrors national studies. In one national survey, people overestimated the average price of tuition at public universities by 212 percent!
Why aren't people better informed? Perhaps they have paid too much attention to articles about costly tuition at some East Coast private institutions. Or maybe we in higher education simply have not done a good job of getting the facts out.
Whatever the reason, when Newsweek asked parents of children who were under the age of 4 to list their greatest fears about raising their children, worry over college costs was exceeded only by fear of kidnaping and violent crime.
Parents should be concerned. But overinflated cost estimates and scare stories don't help. Surveys show that people who make the highest estimates of college costs are the least likely to say they are doing anything to plan ahead for those expenses. That's unfortunate. Even a little money, set aside regularly and invested well, can make a difference, if you start early.
That's why the Coalition of America's Colleges and Universities has launched the "College Is Possible" campaign: to inform people about the benefits of a college education, and to give them an accurate idea of the costs and how they might pay them.
Over a lifetime, the payoff from a college degree is huge. There are many intangible benefits from being well-educated, of course, but let's just look at the dollars and cents.
The Census Bureau has released new figures on the earnings gap between people with a high school education and those with bachelor's degrees. It's wide and growing. The bureau said that college graduates made an average of $40,500 last year, while the average high school graduate earned $22,900. People with bachelor's degrees now earn an average of 76 percent more than high school graduates. In 1975, the gap was 57 percent.
That kind of dividend is worth working and saving for. But is it within the reach of lower- and middle-class families? The answer is yes.
At IU Bloomington, 52 percent of our students receive some form of financial aid through grants, loans or work-study programs. (At other IU campuses, the percentage is lower because many students are studying part-time. The university-wide figure is 44 percent.) Financial aid to all IU students totaled more than $356 million last school year.
Congress has shown foresight on college aid, approving the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit and the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and lowering interest rates on student loans in the 1998 Higher Education Act.
Lower rates will help the growing number of students who use loans to help pay for college. The average student now graduates from a public university with a loan debt of $12,000. That's not ideal, but remember, it's still much less than the average salary difference between a high school and college graduate in just one year of their working careers.
Plenty of information is available about student financial aid and college planning. Ask your financial adviser or bank; check out financial magazines and the Internet. Visit the campaign's Web site at www.collegeispossible.org or call the U.S. Department of Education's toll-free number, 1-800-433-3243. You can request information about the Indiana Family College Savings Plan at 1-888-814-6800.
Colleges and universities need to be as efficient as possible and keep tuition costs under control. Students and parents should save whatever they can. Government must continue to offer adequate support for colleges, universities and their students.
We all need to work toward a common goal: to keep college possible.
(DeAnna J. Hines, executive director of communications, 812-855-0850, djhines@indiana.edu)