Raising Incomes and Reducing Inequities via Higher Education

Those of us working in community colleges have long assumed that higher education propels students of modest means into the middle class and reduces income inequality.  In short, affordable, accessible higher education grows the economy and strengthens our democracy.

Now a new report entitled “The Uneducated American” from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce provide the data that back up these understandings.  Demonstrated by the increasing pay gap between high school and college grads, this report shows that our economy suffers because insufficient numbers of US citizens are achieving college degrees.    If we increase the number of college grads, the authors argue, two things will happen: everyone's income (and the US economy) will go up and the income of HS grads will go up faster thus reducing income in-equality.  I encourage you to read the report at the link The Uneducated American .

To demonstrate that higher education is still of great value, even during the Great Recession, look at the chart below that shows unemployment by educational attainment. ( Chart from NY Times, 3/11/11).

CAMPAIGN TO FUND PUBLIC HIGHER ED

Victor Sanchez, president of the University of California Student Association, speaking at the PHENOM conference

This past Sunday, January 31^st, I attended the kickoff at the Student Center at University of Massachusetts/ Amherst for the PHENOM campaign to reverse the decline in funding for public colleges in Massachusetts. The campaign which has the tagline “For a Great State of Mind” will have two phases. Phase one to take place this year is an educational effort to engage individuals who are running foroffice to pledge to make public higher education is Massachusetts “affordable for all”. Phase two will try to secure from the Legislature and Governor a long-term commitment for increased funding and lower student costs. More details are available at the PHENOM website: http://www.phenomonline.org/

How serious is the funding problem in Massachusetts? By far the most important measure is the cost of public higher education to students. Massachusetts public colleges are more expensive than others nationally: our four year colleges cost 33% more than the national average while our community colleges are 49% higher than peers across the country. (For details go to

http://chronicle.com/article/Massachusetts-Almanac-2009/48120/ )

Meanwhile PHENOM argues that Massachusetts simply uses fewer state resources to support its public institutions. A comparison of state efforts entitled “State Higher Education Finance FY 2008” published 2009 by State Higher Education Executive Officers shows Massachusetts near the bottom in the fraction of state expenditures devoted to public colleges. According to this report, 3.9% of Massachusetts revenues go to public higher education (FY 2006); the national average is 6.5% with only 4 states spending a smaller portion than Massachusetts.

PHENOM which stands for Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts is the first grassroots organization to address the needs of public higher education in the state. The organization hopes to unite public college students, faculty, staff, administrators, alums and parents – all of which have a stake in quality public higher education. With 29 institutions throughout the state and over 200 thousand students, united public colleges could be a potent force in the Commonwealth.

Community Colleges as a Path to Social Mobility

This entry is about social mobility, the ability of Americans to climb the social and economic ladder. I have used statistics to illustrate the key points because this topic is about numbers – how much Americans earn and the changes in how much they earn. But the basic point that I want to make is that for individuals, a college is essential for a decent paying job and for most Americans of modest means, community colleges are the entry point for higher education.

From Horatio Alger to Barack Obama the opportunity and expectation of doing better economically than one’s parents is a foundation of our society. However, recent data shows that the ability of the average American to improve his or her lot has lessened over previous generations. The trend in America is less mobility and more income inequality. According to the May 14, 2009 New York Times article by David Leonhardt, the United States no longer has greater income mobility than many European countries. We now have roughly the same mobility as Britain but Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark surpass us. What this means is that in those latter countries families on average climb out of poverty faster than in the United States.

Additionally, income inequality even before the current recession has increased dramatically: for example the US Congressional Budget Office found that the real after-tax income of the wealthiest Americans – those in the top 1 per cent – rose by 176 per cent from 1979 to 2004. Meanwhile those in the poorest 20 percent of the population saw their income go up just 9 per cent in that same 25 year period.

One tried and true way to increase social mobility is through education. And today, that means college as most decent paying jobs require at least some post-secondary education.

In our economy, the value of a high school education has stagnated while that of a college education has grown. The figure that is most often cited is the disparity between a high school diploma and a bachelor’s degree. According to the US census, in 2006 Adults age 18 and older with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $51,554 in 2004, while those with a high school diploma earned $28,645.

The point of entry for most Americans of modest means is public colleges and especially the community colleges. In Massachusetts, for example, last fall 79,000 undergraduates attended the University of Massachusetts and the state colleges and an additional 79,000 at the Commonwealth’s fifteen community colleges. These figures show that in the Commonwealth, community colleges serve half of all undergraduates. But as might be expected those who are first generation in college and ethnic minorities use community colleges as their point of entry: in Massachusetts 62% of all ethnic minority students start at our community colleges.

So, affordable and high quality education is essential for individuals and for our society and public higher education is more important than ever. This is another important reason to celebrate public higher education.