An independent report on American higher education flunks all but one state when it comes to affordability an embarrassing verdict that is unlikely to improve as the economy contracts.
The biennial study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which evaluates how well higher education is serving the public, handed out Fs for affordability to 49 states, up from 43 two years ago. Only California received a passing grade in the category, a C, thanks to its relatively inexpensive community colleges.
The report card uses a range of measurements to give states grades, from A to F, on the performance of their public and private colleges. The affordability grade is based on how much of the average family’s income it costs to go to college.
Almost everywhere, that figure is up, according to the survey. Only two states New York and Tennessee have made even minimal improvements since 2000, but they’re still considered to be failing. Everywhere else, families must fork over a greater percentage of their income to pay for college. In Illinois, the average cost attending a public four-year college has jumped from 19 percent of family’s income in 1999-2000 to 35 percent in 2007-2008, and in Pennsylvania, from 29 percent to 41 percent.
Low-income families have been hardest hit. Nationally, enrollment at a local public college costs families in the top fifth of income just 9 percent of their earnings, while families from the bottom fifth pay 55 percent _ up from 39 percent in 1999-2000. And that’s after accounting for financial aid, which is increasingly being used to lure high achieving students who boost a school’s reputation, but who don’t need help to go to college.
States fared modestly better in other categories such as participation, where no state failed and about half the states earned As or Bs _ comparable to the report two years ago. One reason for the uptick is that more students are taking rigorous college-prep courses, the study found. In Texas, for instance, the percentage of high schoolers taking at least one upper-level science course has nearly tripled from 20 percent to 56 percent.
But better preparation for college hasn’t translated into better enrollment or completion, with only two states Arizona and Iowa receiving an A for participation in higher education. And the discrepancy in enrollment between states is still great: Forty-four percent of young Iowans are in college, while just 18 percent of their counterparts in Alaska one of three states to get an F in the category are enrolled.
