Higher tuition ensures a better higher education

December 16, 2008

This op-ed appeared in The Miami Herald, Tallahassee Democrat and Gainesville Sun.

By: Bernie Machen
Bernie Machen is the president of the University of Florida.

Last week’s headlines about the soaring costs of college may cause some to ask why Florida’s public universities and Gov. Charlie Crist support a plan to allow Florida universities to hike tuition 15 percent a year. Let me explain.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education last Wednesday said that college tuition and fees have increased 439 percent since 1982 while median family income has increased only 147 percent over the same period. The report awarded every state in the country an ”F” for affordability of its public universities, except California, which got a C minus.

There is no question that the rising cost of higher education is a growing concern nationwide. But what the headlines and news articles missed is this: Attending college in Florida is dirt cheap compared with the rest of the nation.

Undergraduate tuition at Florida universities ranges from $3,400 to $4,000 a year. Florida ranked dead last among the 50 states in the latest College Board tuition survey. UF’s tuition of $3,800 is nearly half the national average of over $6,500. And even that $3,800 figure is high, since more than 90 percent of UF freshmen arrive with tuition already paid by the Bright Futures Scholarship Program.

It’s reasonable to ask, what’s so bad about being cheap?

No doubt, Florida’s low tuition makes UF and other state universities a terrific bargain. U.S. News and World Report in August ranked UF 17th in quality among public universities, just two notches below 15th-ranked Penn State (tuition: $11,000). Kiplinger’s Personal Finance routinely selects UF among its top annual ”best values.” But here’s the problem: The longer we charge bargain-basement tuition, the closer we get to handing out worthless diplomas.

Already, thanks in part to our low tuition and fees, UF has larger classes, fewer professors and a leaner selection of classes compared with other public universities of similar size and stature. Without adequate resources, it’s only a matter of time before these deficiencies weaken the educational experience at our universities, reducing the value of Florida degrees in the eyes of employers and graduate schools everywhere.

Yet that’s exactly where we seem to be headed. Not only is our tuition too low, but Florida’s universities have seen their budgets slashed in recent months. UF alone suffered well over $50 million in cuts in the last 12 months alone.

In the short term, hiking tuition 15 percent would help us offset some of these cuts.

Under the proposal the Florida Legislature may consider this spring, all state universities would use the added dollars to try to keep professors now being lured to other states, hire new faculty — and provide more financial aid. Universities could raise tuition as much as 15 percent annually until it reached the national average. Fully 30 percent of the additional funds would go to financial aid for families who need it.

In the longer term, that plan has the potential to help us maintain our quality education and competitive research programs. History shows both are important to prosperity, especially when it comes to pulling the economy out of a downturn.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is right to raise the issue of increasing higher education costs.

Keeping college affordable for families is important. That’s why, three years ago, UF created the Florida Opportunity Scholarship, which this year will not only pay full tuition, but also room and board for about 1,100 UF students whose families make less than $40,000 a year.

But we also have to be realistic about the price of quality.

Let your lawmakers know you support Crist’s proposal. Let’s make sure Florida is known not for a deep-discount college degree, but rather for a great higher education system.