The Problem
The Rising Costs of Higher Education
Year after year, the cost of tuition for higher education has been increasing at a rapid rate and continues to outpace the consumer price index (CPI). As a result, more and more students are skipping out on higher education and going straight into the workforce. Furthermore, the cost of a college education is impacting more and more American families in New Jersey. It is causing students and students' families to accumulate a ton of debt, choose schools based on cost, and creating a future workforce that can not keep up with its competition.
Evidence
The graphs above demonstrate how the cost of a public higher education is growing more rapidly than inflation and the cost of private higher education.
Disagreements in the Community
Possible reasons why the cost of higher education is rising:
Additional considerations:
Examples of Higher Education Capital Financing Grant Programs (by institution type)
Public Research Universities Proposed Award
New Jersey Institute of Technology $99,842,923
Rowan University $117, 813,926
Rutgers University $357,231,074
UMDNJ $67,030,705
Senior Public Universities Proposed Award
Kean University $53,812,500
Montclair State University $93,812,912
New Jersey City University $34,585,004
Ramapo College of New Jersey $18,598,000
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey $53,957,950
The College of New Jersey $57,450,035
Thomas Edison State College $16,621,000
William Patterson University $31,983,521
http://www.state.nj.us/highereducation/documents/130430GovernorChristieAnnounces_000.pdf
http://nj1015.com/governor-christie-working-to-control-rising-college-tuition-costs-audio/
- The increase in college tuition is a good indicator that colleges are improving and evolving to provide a better education.
- In the past decade there has been very little investment to higher education in New Jersey, forcing colleges to raise the price of tuition.
- In order to compete with other states, New Jersey has had to raise the cost of tuition to add more "bells and whistles" to college campuses to attract students who would other wise choose a college in another state such as New York or Massachusetts.
Additional considerations:
- Socioecnomic states (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family’s economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation. When analyzing a family’s SES, the household income, earners' education, and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, versus with an individual, when their own attributes are assessed. In New Jersey, socioeconomic status is typically broken into three categories, high SES, middle SES, and low SES. As a result, not all families in New Jersey believe the rising costs of higher education are a problem. The rising costs of higher education seem to be impacting the middle SES and the low SES the hardest.
- Governor Christie, over the past two year, has been more open to discussing the rising costs of higher education in New Jersey. Publicly, he has stated he plans to increase aid to higher education in order to bring some of the tuition costs down. However, some residents of New Jersey do not want to seen an increase in their taxes in order to provide more funding for higher education.
- In August 2012, Governor Christie signed legislation placing a $750 million general obligation construction bond question on the ballot. The voters approved the bond authorization in November and Secretary Hendricks proposed regulations in December.
- On April 29, 2013 Governor Christie announced $1.3 billion for higher education construction. It will include 176 projects and the first state-led capital construction project in 25 years.
Examples of Higher Education Capital Financing Grant Programs (by institution type)
Public Research Universities Proposed Award
New Jersey Institute of Technology $99,842,923
Rowan University $117, 813,926
Rutgers University $357,231,074
UMDNJ $67,030,705
Senior Public Universities Proposed Award
Kean University $53,812,500
Montclair State University $93,812,912
New Jersey City University $34,585,004
Ramapo College of New Jersey $18,598,000
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey $53,957,950
The College of New Jersey $57,450,035
Thomas Edison State College $16,621,000
William Patterson University $31,983,521
http://www.state.nj.us/highereducation/documents/130430GovernorChristieAnnounces_000.pdf
http://nj1015.com/governor-christie-working-to-control-rising-college-tuition-costs-audio/