Larry D. Lauer

US legislators have become aware of just how much is being spent on financial aid to students. Since it is a very big number, and there is a need to find places to cut the budget, they have decided that it is their responsibility to investigate the cost benefit of the expense. This has led to a relentless and potentially damaging assault on the entire industry. The shere number of areas being investigated is staggering. And it is happening all at once.

It begins with the assumption that higher education costs too much everywhere. There is no acknowledgment of the diversity of schools and their varied costs, or just how much it costs when the goal is to deliver an exceptionally high quality education. The buzz word is “affordability,” and the assumption simply is that every school costs too much.

This assumption fuels a desire to measure just what people learn and earn as an indicator of cost effectiveness. But that is difficult to do. For example, there are now investigations  into what people in specific career fields earn at different points after graduation. This can convey the erroneous  assumption that it’s valid to choose a career based mostly on salary data that may or may not relate to what each graduate may actually experience. And it does not take into account an  individual’s inherent talent, motivation, and possible inner desire for a different kind of creative fulfillment? Even so, some researchers are trying to collect and publish what they can find anyway. And they will do it in the name of transparency, even though it will lead many to very unhappy consequences.  

We can agree that for those types of institutions where more efficiency is needed a targeted assessment is fair. This  currently would include the entire for-profit sector. We can also agree that learning outcomes can be better assessed. But the wide diversity of both institutions and program choices must be maintained in the process. Diversity is what makes the American system distinctive, and diversity is what makes financial aid so essential.

But the assaults don’t stop here. There are also assaults on charitable tax deductions, tax deductions for education expenses, on how credit is awarded, on how credits transfer, on how loans are administered, and more. All of this at the same time is too much. It divides rather than unites.  It destroys rather than improves.

What we need is a participatory and positive problem-solving dialogue between legislators and educators. And we do not need this relentless and mindless assault on the best hope we have for world peace and enlightened international understanding.