The Cost of Higher Education

Contrary to conservative lawmakers, writers at Forbes and other like-minded publications, and leaders of massive for-profit industries, the increasing cost of higher education isn’t because of administrators, boards and faculty mismanagement, selfishness and stubbornness. The cost is driven by external forces that make affordable and accessible education impossible for the vast major of students and their families.

For the past month, I’ve focused on explaining why the price of higher education keeps going up, outpacing revenue from tuition, fees and room and board. Now, I’m reiterating the facts and providing a list of articles I’ve written for this column and one I wrote for Washington Monthly. These references seek to combat misinformation and to arm those who believe in higher education with the facts to hold government and industries accountable.

Higher education costs money to operate, but those with resources who benefit from the enterprise act like gluttons—ravaging higher education as a food source and paying no attention to its health, long-term prosperity or the realization that we are all profoundly dependent on higher education to live and thrive. What’s financially eating away at and killing higher education are those who want everything from the sector but don’t want to make any investments in it.

The Legislation That Eats Away at Higher Education’s Financial Footing

“State and federal government legislation isn’t helping higher education. Between unfunded mandates, taxing endowments and shifting (and decreasing) funding, legislation has been making it harder and harder for institutions to stay afloat, serve the public, keep costs down for students and their families, and participate in workforce development. Government should be supporting, not hindering higher education.”

Higher Education Overgrazing: Fixed Costs Are Leaving Nothing Behind

“Like overgrazing livestock denuding a pasture, rising fixed costs stunt institutional growth, severely damage the balance between expenses and revenue, and erode the financial equilibrium important to making education affordable. Rising costs to do business outpace revenue (primarily tuition, fees and room and board). Utilities, insurance, food services, maintenance and construction represent major expenses in the budgets of all residential colleges and universities. These costs are not controlled writ large by the institution.”

Hey Industry, Stop Sponging Off, and Start Contributing to, the Colleges That Train Your Employees

“The healthcare industry has spent years warning of a catastrophic nursing shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the estimated annual openings for registered nurses (RNs) will be 189,100 through the year 2034. The shortage of full-time RNs is expected to be 267,000 nationally by 2028. Yet the hospitals and healthcare systems that desperately need nurses are not paying to produce them. That cost lands on universities and, ultimately, on students, their families and the taxpayers who fund public higher education in the United States. The pipeline to alleviate a scarcity everyone insists is a national emergency is so narrow it can only trickle. Still, the industries downstream (the ones who will hire graduates) are nowhere to be seen at the production source (colleges and universities), where a modest investment would widen the pipeline permanently. This is true in many other fields beside nursing, from cybersecurity to data analytics.”

Foxes in the Higher Ed Henhouse

“Professional athletics and the entertainment industry use higher education as an incubator, snatching graduates away like foxes in a henhouse to sustain themselves. Higher ed is the farmer making the sole investment in the development and care of hens and egg production (students). The institutions feed and prepare these students (at great expense to the institution) to become moneymaking machines for professional athletic teams and the entertainment industry.”

The Ticks and Leeches of Higher Education

“Student loan lenders, investment firms and banks feed off higher education and its students, much like ticks and leeches who feed on the blood of other animals—slowly infecting and weakening the body. These industries act as an extraction pipeline by charging higher and higher interest rates and fees on student loans, overseeing investments and providing debit services at an unsustainable rate. The compounding effect of these industries is deleterious to the health of higher education and its ability to serve students.”

What the public, legislators and industry need to reckon with is that there is no free lunch in higher education. Someone always pays; right now, it is higher education and students instead of shared responsibility across the sectors and the public who benefit. Eliminate or fund unfunded mandates, cap fixed costs and fees for nonprofits, insist on industry contributions surpassing those that solely benefit particular industries, and find a publicly supported solution to pay for students to attend college. Everyone should stop pointing fingers at colleges and universities and start helping to keep them alive. Feed higher education; don’t feed on it.

Kathy Johnson Bowles is the founder and CEO of Gordian Knot Consulting.

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