Colleges don’t suffer from lack of public funds

The cost of college tuition has exploded. That isn’t news to many parents here in Southern Nevada and around the country who are preparing to send their kids to the halls of higher education. The most common explanation for this explosion — at least from liberal college administrators — is that public funding has seen a precipitous decline.

But when you get a law professor from the University of Colorado, Boulder — which for decades has put the “liberal” in liberal arts — reasonably arguing otherwise in an op-ed for The New York Times, the center of the liberal media universe, it’s clear the conventional wisdom doesn’t hold up. (Full disclosure: I survived, er, graduated from Colorado in 1991.)

Paul F. Campos penned the commentary last month, noting that over the past 35 years, tuition at public universities has nearly quadrupled. Adding some context, Campos writes, “If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.”

At UNLV, in-state tuition and fees for 2014-15 were about $6,600, an increase of 88 percent from 10 years ago, when the cost was about $3,500. Nonresident students haven’t been hit quite as hard as a percentage, but it’s still at a much steeper price. In 2005, nonresident tuition was about $13,000; now it’s cleared $20,000, up 54 percent. It’s a similar story up north at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Are these massive hikes due to massive cuts in funding? Generally speaking, no. In 2003, the operating budget from the state and from tuition and fees for UNLV was $153 million, according to Nevada System of Higher Education figures. By 2015, that had risen to $239 million, a 56 percent increase. UNR state/tuition and fees funding was $123 million in 2003 and $167 million by 2015, a 36 percent jump. (Both universities have other funding sources, including self-supporting funds and grants and contracts, amounting to more than $200 million per year, per school.)

Yes, both universities were dealt state funding cuts in the wake of the Great Recession. UNLV hit a high-water mark of $262 million in 2009, up 71 percent in six years, while UNR’s high of $188 million in 2009 was up 53 percent. If not for the recession, funding almost assuredly would have continued on that trajectory.

But make no mistake, as a general rule here and nationwide, public funding isn’t in decline. “Public investment in higher education in America is vastly larger today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was during the supposed golden age of public funding in the 1960s,” Campos wrote. “Such spending has increased at a much faster rate than government spending in general. For example, the military’s budget is about 1.8 times higher today than it was in 1960, while legislative appropriations to higher education are more than 10 times higher.”

So if not lack of funding, what’s driving tuition increases?

First, the government-backed student loan market, which has caused massive growth in the number of college students — including many who probably shouldn’t be in college, in fields of study that often offer limited career prospects. If the government willingly hands out all that money and guarantees it, universities are more than happy to raise tuition and fees to avail themselves to as much of that money as possible. After all, they’re not assuming the risk if a student defaults — the taxpayers are.

Second, administrative bloat. As Campos wrote, “administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.” And administrators tend to cost a lot of money, with plenty drawing high six-figure and even seven-figure salaries.

How to solve those two issues? A good start would be a thorough review of that bloat and an honest effort to drop some weight and actually cut budgets.

From there, it’s time for colleges and universities to share in the risk of government student loans. When these institutions start losing some of their own money due to loan defaults, they’ll understand the value of accepting students who truly have a legitimate chance at success, in programs that offer a legitimate chance at return on investment.

And maybe they’ll reduce tuition, too.

Patrick Everson is an editorial writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickCEverson.