In Houston Hall, which bears a sign with the Benjamin Franklin quote “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest,” a dozen prominent figures in public policy and academia came together Friday to discuss the affordability and importance of higher education.
At a town hall meeting on college affordability, the leaders — which included names like Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, Philadelphia Mayor and 1979 Wharton graduate Michael Nutter and former Pennsylvania Gov. and 1965 College graduate Ed Rendell — ran through different ideas to help keep college costs down at Penn and across the nation.
The town hall came just a week after Penn’s Board of Trustees approved a 3.9-percent hike in overall undergraduate cost for the 2012-13 school year.
Kanter — who has been working on educational reform policies under President Barack Obama since 2009 — said different programs under the president’s blueprint for higher education could bring much-needed educational change.
In recent years, according to Kanter, the country’s education system has seen the largest investment in student aid since the G.I. Bill was passed in 1944. The number of college students who receive Pell Grants today is about 3.5 million more than the total in 2008, she added.
“We need Congress to work with the president and the administration and be bold and really understand that the economic value of making those kinds of investments is going to yield a country in which we can all take pride,” she said.
Penn’s Director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling discussed at the town hall how the challenges the University faces in controlling tuition hikes are a result of the changing demographics of the student population.
Schilling said Penn is combatting tuition hikes with corresponding increases in financial aid. For 2012-13, the University’s overall financial-aid budget will increase by 7.7 percent to $181 million.
“We’ve had a very great focus on holding our net price through maintaining strength in our need-based aid program,” he said. “At the same time, we try to constrain the growth of the sticker price.”
However, he said the University has seen a 23-percent increase in the number of students who have demonstrated need in the last four years, and that the resources to fund these needs have been relatively fixed — thus presenting a challenge to the Office of Budget & Management Analysis to identify funding sources.
Penn spent $150 million in institutional funds on undergraduate grants last year, according to Schilling.
Nutter stressed the importance of higher education as a multipurpose solution to different problems in Philadelphia.
“Education is our poverty-reducing strategy, it’s our crime-reduction strategy, it’s our health-improvement strategy and it’s our community-building strategy,” he said. “Education is economic development in this city, in this state and in this country. That’s why we should invest more, not less, in education.”
President and CEO of Citizens Bank Daniel Fitzpatrick provided a different perspective on the importance of college — economic viability.
“We’re competing in a global economy. We have to attract businesses to set up shop in the Philadelphia region,” he said. “The quality of the workforce is of critical importance to the business community.”
Princeton University economics professor Cecilia Rouse addressed growing concerns in the media about the necessity of a college education.
“The empirical evidence really suggests that there is a real benefit to more schooling,” she said. “As a society, we can benefit as well.”
However, she said educational policy reform is necessary to minimize the risk that families take with the investment on education.
Rouse’s suggestions come at a time when politicians and higher education leaders are debating Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2012.
The proposed budget includes major cuts for some of the state’s most prominent public institutions, as well as a $400-million reduction from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.
“I obviously disagree with Gov. Corbett and his budget for higher education … but I agree with him that colleges have the obligation to cut costs,” Rendell said.
Miles Goodloe, a Graduate School of Education student, said the format of Friday’s event made it a success.
“They had a wide variety of people that are involved in education,” he said. “You have theory, policy and practice in the same room and that really brings it full circle because a lot of people will separate education into these different factors and they’re all really united.”
Related
Penn sees 3.9-percent increase in undergraduate tuition
INTERACTIVE: Penn total cost from 2003-present
Board of Trustees convenes to discuss University finances, academic policies
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