“Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
Will Durant
The funny thing about education is that sometimes one doesn’t realize the value of it until the moment is long gone. Oftentimes, it has taken me several years to realize the value of something that I was taught long ago – not because age carries with it wisdom, but because often, it takes encountering something in a different light in order to realize its worth.
But our nation’s educational institutions are in a funny spot – for all the value they provide, they must somehow sustain themselves such that they can continue to provide that value and the learning experiences necessary for future moments of discovery. After serving on the enrollment coordination committee in college, I find myself in something of a unique position to understand this, since often, the gut reaction of the populace is that education should – sometimes must, regardless of who suffers as a result – be free. Often, what these discussions entirely miss out on is that our educational institutions have to have some sort of income to survive, and the amount of income they need is directly related to how much support that institution receives from various sources. Another of my alma maters, the University of Washington, currently contemplates one of the most significant tuition hikes in its history.
As a public institution, I can say that the University of Washington has served me well; it educated me, kept me fed by way of a chain of student assistant positions, and generally provided me with a strong foundation I needed in order to pursue what I wanted to do with my life. It is with a good deal of distress, then, that I find an uproar against that very same institution for trying simply to survive. In an era where state support is constantly being reduced and alumni/ae donations are something that can no longer be counted on as a strong source of revenue, the University is forced to make up for losses by using the only other strong financial tool in its arsenal: tuition. Danny Westneat, writing for the Seattle Times, gives probably one of the best summations of the situation I’ve seen to date:
Today, it’s all about market solutions, not public benefits. Voters demand it. In Congress they’re even talking about privatizing Medicare. We’re apparently no more willing to pay extra for health care for seniors than we are for college educations, so in lieu the answer is to run it all like a business.
OK, done. People this week are asking why their public university jilted them. But it was the other way around.
– “UW gives us what we asked for“, April 5, 2011
It is quite true that colleges must adjust their tuition in times like these in order to survive. By my observations, they are extremely calculating about exactly how many in-state versus out-of-state students can be accepted in order to make up for any revenue shortfalls, either forecast or actual. Often, the balance ends up tipped towards out-of-state students because they simply pay more. That results in the in-state students being handed something of a dilemma: delay entry to four-year collegiate institutions, become an out-of-state student themselves and pay higher tuition elsewhere, or simply don’t go to college at all. Are all combinations of this situation a travesty? No. Is it bad that someone might decide not to go to a four-year college because of increased tuition, attend a community college, get an associates’ degree, and be perfectly happy with the job they land as a result? No. Is it a travesty that the citizenry cannot seem to make the mental leap from lessened public support to increased tuition without crying bloody murder and falsely accusing the institution when they should look in the mirror? Absolutely. They have made their bed – they must now sleep in it.
What perhaps most disturbed me in reading the coverage of the Seattle Times on this issue, though, is the presentation of a poll asking how much the University of Washington should charge and presenting a list of the proposed or actual tuition figures from other public universities across the nation. Basic common sense would tell you that this is an apples and oranges comparison – what the University of Oregon, Eugene or the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign charge for tuition means absolutely nothing to the University of Washington except as a measure of competitiveness for students. To mislead the public by asking them to pick a number from some other public institution and suggest that as tuition for a leading university is dangerous, as it doesn’t take into account any of the factors a university must face: the number of local high school graduates who might feed into the system or local costs for education, including faculty cost of living increases, utilities, supplies, and a whole myriad of other concerns. Why does the media not instead choose to decry the dumbing down (or complete lack of) science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, the fact that many high school graduates couldn’t write their way out of a paper bag, or the pure and simple conclusion that the spectacle is worth far more to them than the plain, factual truth?
I am grateful to my parents, who taught me that perhaps education isn’t all about book learning and immersing yourself in a classroom environment. There is more to the world than sitting in a classroom, and the more I don’t sit in a classroom, the more I realize that the act of doing so is what prepared me to be where I am. The more I think back, the more I realize that Durant was right – being educated means knowing that you know nothing. For that, I am quite glad I spent the tuition that supports our public universities and colleges; even backed up against the wall and forced to act more like a business, they still manage to impart a sense of wonder about the world around them. And that is never an easy task.
~ C. (Gaius) Charles
