Cost of education: Society must accept responsibility for out-of-control tuition fees.

By The Hawk Eye

---

In the past 15 years, the cost of living has increased 40 percent. In other words, what cost $1 in 1996 costs about $1.40 today, more or less.

Of course, there are exceptions. Personal computers, for example, are less expensive today than they used to be, and they're faster, have more memory and perform more functions.

Fifteen years ago, candy bars that came tumbling from a vending machine cost four bits. Today, they've doubled to $1, if not more.

The cost of a college education, though, has outstripped even candy bars.

Tuition at Southeastern Community College was $48.50 per credit hour in 1996. Last week, trustees OK'd a $9-an-hour increase, making the cost of a standard three-hour course $405.

Had tuition increased at the rate of inflation, one credit hour would cost just more than $68. Instead, it's jumped 180 percent.

Local trustees aren't wholly to blame. Tuition has risen steeply - too steeply - at other community colleges, state universities and private schools in Iowa and across the country.

There are dozens of culprits.

Colleges have been slow to curtail costs. Indeed, there's a perverse disincentive to do so. Tuition traditionally has been a yardstick of a school's quality, and who wants to be inferior to a rival?

Students, parents and taxpayers have done little to measure what constitutes a good education.

Institutions also have been spending more and more chasing fewer and fewer students. That has meant doling out cash for impressive landscaping, slick promotional materials and other fancy gewgaws not especially related to education.

But the No. 1 reason tuition has spiraled out of control has been taxpayers' reluctance to finance higher education.

State aid paid for most of Iowa's community college education until 2002. In that year, tuition and fee revenue exceeded state contributions - and the situation has worsened in the decade since.

Students haven't stopped enrolling. In fact, many schools have record numbers. But students are attending the quintessential American way: They're borrowing.

Last year, student debt exceeded American credit card debt for the first time. This year, collective U.S. student loan debt is expected to exceed $1 trillion. Those loans promise to be a drag on the economy as graduates who enter the workforce and marketplace will have burdensome debt that must be paid before they buy houses, cars and other items.

A college education helped spur the U.S. postwar economy. With help from the G.I. Bill, National Defense loans, Pell grants and other programs, Americans - baby boomers in particular - were able to improve their standards of living.

Those who got a boost from a degree now are turning their back on those who want one, too.

My, how our priorities have shifted.