Tennessee Students Protest College Tuition Hikes, Recession Right? Well Not Quite….

We at SHOUTAmerica would like to commend and dedicate our support to the Tennessee students who have stood up and made their voices heard on the issue of state budget cuts to higher education.  College students across Tennessee objected to paying even more out of their pocket, which undermines important efforts to increase access and make higher education more affordable in the state.  The video above highlights the first of such demonstrations back in January, but students gathered again last Monday on the day Governor Phil Bredesen delivered his state of the state address. 

SHOUTAmerica has taken a particular interest in this issue not only because it demonstrates young Americans taking control of their future, but also because of its less known connection to the rising cost of healthcare. 

While it is intuitive to link any programmatic cuts to the current economic downturn, the fact is that state funding for higher education has been dwindling long before the bubble burst.  I dug up an article from August of 2006, that highlights this dilemma facing higher education even back when the economy looked strong:

“Tuition has risen 126 percent (after inflation) since 1984, and is eating up an ever-growing chunk of family incomes. In 1984, the tuition and fees at a public, four-year college was just 4.8 percent of the median family income; today it's 9.5 percent.”

As costs have risen for other state programs, such as healthcare, funding to higher education has been cut.  Why?  Well, it is easy for lawmakers to make higher education go to its another source of funding – its students.  Cutting back healthcare expenditures is much more politically difficult given systemwide inefficiencies and the power of the many interest groups involved.  As the rising cost of healthcare is chews up larger and larger proportions of state budgets, students are left to pay more out of their pockets for an education.  

The federal government is also facing financial pressure from rising Medicare costs, which means less money for financial aid to help with rising tuition: 

“In the 1980-1981 school year, grants funded in large part by federal student aid made up 55 percent of the total aid available to students with most of the rest coming from loans.  By the 2004-2005 school year, the ratio had inverted with 54 percent of aid coming from loans while 40 percent came from grants.”

Setting back access and affordability to higher education stands to set back significant progress and hurt the economic status of this state in the long run. We must vigorously remind our leaders that higher education should be an opportunity, not a hardship.  Recognition of the systemic causes of the burden being placed on students, such as the rising cost of healthcare, can attract wider attention to these important and interconnected issues as well as organize support and create lasting solutions. 

Keep up the good the fight.  We are behind you.