As College Costs Go Up, Support for Teaching and Research Goes Down New York City

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reported its concern today about the rising costs of tuition and fees and the diminishing support for instruction in our nation’s colleges and universities. The Association observed several troubling facts and emerging trends.

Tuition and fees in the nation’s colleges and universities have risen dramatically in the last five years. In public four-year institutions, the increase was 29 percent above the rate of inflation. Average private-college tuition increased by 20 percent more than inflation, and public two-year colleges saw an increase of 10 percent more than the inflation rate.

This year alone, tuition and fees rose by an average of 14 percent nationwide at public institutions and by 6 percent at private institutions.

A rising number of students are seeking higher education. In just the last five years, there has been a rise of 9 percent in undergraduate enrollments. The rise is projected to continue. By 2012, 23 percent more students are expected than there were in 1998.

State funding for higher education has been slow to keep up with inflation. This year, for the first time in eleven years, state funding for higher education wentdown overall 2.1 percent nationwide. This cut follows a year in which state appropriations for higher education rose by only 1.2 percent.

In twenty three states, state funding for higher education decreased since last year. Funding in most states did not even keep up with inflation, let alone include adjustments for the growing numbers of students.

In New York State, public funding for higher education decreased in 2003–04 by 4.5 percent compared with the previous year.

Both private and public institutions have provided only weak support for faculty salaries. Overall, the average faculty salary increased by only 0.2 percent above the rate of inflation in the past year. In some institutions, average faculty salaries decreased this year. F aculty continuing at the same institution received just a 1.2 percent increase (after inflation), the lowest real increase in seven years.

Colleges and universities are cutting salary costs by hiring more part-time and other non-tenure-track faculty. Part-time faculty are generally compensated on a per-course or hourly basis, out of proportion to the level of expertise they offer and the time they must invest in preparing and delivering their courses. Student learning suffers from the lack of investment in faculty research and support for professional development, which keep professors at the top of their academic fields.

When taken together, these multiple factors indicate an emerging shift away from investment in instruction and basic research, the core missions of higher education. At the national level, institutional spending on instruction in public colleges and universities has declined over the last two decades from 45 to 38 percent of educational expenditures.

The Association’s continuing concern about decreasing investment in higher education builds on the findings discussed in its Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession for 2003–04. The report, titled “Don't Blame Faculty for High Tuition,” was released April 16, and it compares the increase in faculty salaries over the last twenty five years with increases in tuition and the rate of inflation and argues that faculty salaries are not the primary cause for the rise in tuition rates.

Presenters: Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, and Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, Cornell University

Ron Hayduk, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Borough of Manhattan Community College (City University of New York)

Tony Gronowicz, Adjunct Instructor of History and Political Science, Empire State College (State University of New York), and Bronx Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and City College (City University of New York)

John W. Curtis, Director of Research, American Association of University Professors

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