Massachusetts Colleges Fail in Affordibility
EDUCATION
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Anika Clark
Boston University Washington News Service
9.20.06
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 – Massachusetts colleges received a flunking grade in affordability earlier this month in an annual rating of institutions of higher learning.
The study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education profiles higher education in each of the 50 states by measuring six criteria: preparation, participation, completion, benefits, learning, and affordability. While Massachusetts received an A in each of the other categories, the commonwealth flunked in affordability due to high fees, low levels of state investment, and increasing reliance on student loans.
Massachusetts joined 42 other states which received similarly dismal marks for affordability from the center, a non-profit, non-partisan organization.
In a conference call last week, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., faulted funding cuts in student assistance as well as a non-competitive loan program that he said primarily benefited banks.
“This administration has turned its back on middle income students and on the neediest students who have academic qualifications and academic achievements,” Kennedy said.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said, “lower income people are definitely priced out, and increasingly that’s happened to middle income people as well.”
According to the report, Massachusetts undergraduates borrowed an average of $4,342 in 2005 to finance their education.
Not surprisingly, costs are significantly higher at private Massachusetts institutions, such as Wellesley College, where tuition costs last year totaled $41,030.
At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, a public school, junior Emmanuel Lyte of Randolph said he feels financially fortunate in comparison to colleagues at schools like MIT and Northeastern.
“A lot of them will tell me I’m lucky,” said Lyte. He said, however, that he has benefited from a grant, scholarship, and a loan.
College expenses for a public 4-year college or university in Massachusetts, minus financial aid, represented an average of 34 percent of a family’s income – as compared with 28 percent in 1992 – according to the center’s report.
“Tuition has stayed the same for many, many years,” said John Hoey, a spokesperson for UMass Dartmouth. “Fees have gone up.”
Hoey explained that this was the result both of the cost of inflation as well as state economic struggles, which resulted in a decrease in state appropriations at the beginning of the decade. “Due to the state’s economic downturn, the university suffered some very severe budget cuts and needed to restore those dollars via fees,” Hoey said.
Eileen O’Connor, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, also discussed the correlation between state funding and fees, saying, “It has generally been the case that as state appropriations have fallen, fees have risen.”
Between the 2000-2001 academic year and the 2003-2004 year, state funding provided to UMass Dartmouth dropped from $49.2 million to $40.5 million, according to school records provided by Hoey.
And according to the center’s report, while Massachusetts matched 62 percent of federal investment in need-based financial aid in 2004, this figure dropped to 51 percent in 2006.
“The state itself has failed in these recent years to give the kind of support and assistance that I think people need,” Kennedy said. “How can we expect the federal government to be putting up the federal funds if the state isn’t showing its commitment?”
Nevertheless, Hoey provided a glimmer of hope, saying that in recent years state support has grown and fees have only increased with the cost of inflation. And, Hoey said, “a large portion of the increase in fees went directly to need-based aid.”
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