Higher Ed Roundup: Week of December 1 - December 5

Paulson Acts to Prop Up Private Student Loan Providers

Reports Paint Dire Picture of College Affordability

Adjunct Faculty Use High and Widespread

Paulson Acts to Prop Up Private Student Loan Providers

Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave private student loan providers a reason to be thankful. He announced that starting early next year, the federal government would lend as much as $200 billion to investors holding securities backed by private student loans and other forms of consumer credit, such as auto loans and credit card debt. The plan is aimed at reviving the credit markets to help provide capital and liquidity to lenders so that they will continue offering consumer loans, including high-cost private student loans. While the loan industry and allies at groups like the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators hailed the plan, consumer advocates and some Democratic lawmakers expressed serious concerns about it. On Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to Paulson urging him to be cautious about bailing out lenders who have engaged in unethical practices that have harmed students. “Using taxpayer dollars to aid an industry that has been detrimental to so many students is very troubling,” Durbin wrote. “At a minimum, the Treasury should require that any receipt of taxpayer dollars be contingent on the lenders’ agreement to increase consumer protections for private student loan borrowers.”

Reports Paint Dire Picture of College Affordability

Unless steps are taken to curb ever-increasing college prices, higher education will become unaffordable for most Americans, according to a new report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The report, “Measuring Up 2008”, finds that published tuition and fees increased 439 percent between 1982 and 2007 in non-inflation-adjusted dollars while family income rose 147 percent during this period, meaning that the cost of higher education is eating up a growing share of family incomes. The report calculated that the net cost of attendance at a four-year state university amounts to 28 percent of median family income, while the cost of attending a four-year private college amounts to 76 percent of median family income. For the poorest families, the cost of attending a four-year public university amounts to 55 percent of median family income, up from 39 percent eight years ago. At community colleges, the cost of attendance represents 49 percent of these families' median income.

Meanwhile, a second report released this week by the National Association of State Colleges and Land Grant Universities projected that by 2036, tuition and fees at its member institutions would rise from 11 percent of family income to 24 percent of family income. While the group’s findings are less dire than “Measuring Up," the report does acknowledge that tuition growth at public universities, largely due to cuts in state funding, is making attendance at a four-year colleges unaffordable for students from the most financially needy families. "We think public higher education is affordable right now, but we're concerned that it won't be, if the changes we're seeing continue, and family income doesn't go up," David Shulenburger, the association's vice president for academic affairs and co-author of the report, told The New York Times.

Adjunct Faculty Use High and Widespread

The majority of public college and university courses are taught by adjunct faculty members and graduate teaching assistants, according to a new report released this week by the American Federation of Teachers. The report found that 49 percent of courses at these public institutions are taught by non-tenure-track, part-time and full-time instructors. In addition, the report estimates that graduate teaching assistants represent between 16 and 32 percent of undergraduate instructors at these institutions. Meanwhile, the report found that the average compensation per course for adjunct faculty, $2,758, was about a third of that paid to full-time faculty. The increasing reliance of colleges on "a growing corps of instructors who teach classes part-time or on limited-term contracts, without permanent appointments, equitable compensation, or appropriate professional support," the report states, "raises serious issues about the ability of colleges and universities in the United States to provide the highest quality education possible."