The report card is in, and the grades have disheartening implications for the college students of Rhode Island.
For the third consecutive time, Rhode Island received an "F" in the area of affordability on the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's "Measuring Up" report.
With 2004 tuition increases of 9 percent for Rhode Island's public colleges and universities, Rhode Island students can expect continued financial difficulties - as can an increasing number of students nationwide.
NCPPHE's biannual score sheet critically examines each state's higher education program by dividing the report card into categories including "Preparation," "Participation" and "Completion." In the area of "Affordability," three components were analyzed: the average family's ability to pay, how much the state invests in need-based financial aid compared to the federal investment and the amount that undergraduates must borrow each year to pay for school.
Rhode Island continues to fare poorly in all three areas. According to the NCPPHE, from 2000 to 2004, the state's indexed score for "Overall Affordability" decreased from 49 to 42 out of 100.
A mixture of federal, local and state problems are responsible for this rut. "In Rhode Island, it's a combination of historically low levels of state support, low levels that the state offers in the way of financial aid and the cost of public and private institutions," said Rhode Island Commissioner of Higher Education Jack Warner.
The 9 percent tuition increase implemented by Gov. Don Carcieri '65 this year has been a major source of increased strain for Rhode Island students. Warner said this tuition hike will in part contribute to salary increases for a faculty that hasn't seen a raise in two years.
However, these tuition increases have shifted an even heavier burden onto needier students, to whom relatively little scholarship aid is available. "(Rhode Island's) state scholarship program has been low," Warner said. Currently, the average student financial aid award in Rhode Island is only about $1,000.
Lawmakers did double the amount of money reserved for need-based scholarships last year - from $4.9 million to $9.9 million. In comparison, Warner quoted Massachusetts' stipend for need-based scholarships in 2002 as close to $100 million. Massachusetts has roughly six times the population of Rhode Island but about 10 times the money set aside for its neediest college students.
Rhode Island ranks among the top 10 states in the nation for the largest gap between the wealthy and the poor. University of Rhode Island junior Byron Gonzalez said he knows URI students who have been forced to drop out of school because of tuition costs. "(Students have had to take) extra jobs, or ask for grants," Gonzalez said, adding that he believes tuition costs are an issue for "about 25 percent of (URI) students."
According to NCPPHE, the 40 percent of Rhode Island families with the lowest incomes would need to expend, on average, 42 percent of their income to put a child through a community college and 52 percent for a public college. A private institution would likely be an impossibility - 118 percent of such a family's income would be needed to cover the costs of tuition, room and board minus financial aid.
A Sept. 16 article in the Providence Journal predicted that if the current pattern holds, Rhode Island's total state investment will be zero by the year 2024.
Private schools also played a role in the NCPPHE report. The high tuitions of private institutions, which outnumber public colleges and universities three to one in Rhode Island, were also taken into consideration. The state received a score of 42 out of 100 in "Family Ability to Pay for Private 4-Year Colleges."
Rhode Island is far from alone. This year, 35 other states received an "F" for affordability on the NCPPHE report card. In 2002, only 12 states flunked.
Declining state aid to higher education has been a national trend over the past 25 years. Warner said that according to Postsecondary Education Opportunity, a newsletter on education policy, a national average of $10.56 of state tax money per $1,000 of personal income was spent on higher education in 1978. Today, that figure is $6.80 per $1,000. And in Rhode Island, it's $5.19 per $1,000 - a decline of more than 50 percent.
For some American college students, these figures are meaningless. But for many, they mean years of struggling to pay back loans or trying to juggle full-time jobs with going to class. Warner cited Postsecondary Education Opportunity as reporting that in 1979, a student from the lowest income quartile was four times less likely to get his bachelor's degree than a student from the highest income quartile. Such a student is now 11 times less likely to get his bachelor's degree than a wealthier peer.
"The good life is more and more defined by educational level. It's a question of who gets to take advantage of the clear economic benefits of a college education," Warner said. Reflecting on the fact that 72 percent of the nation's states were flunked in affordability, he added, "That's a very good public statement about the 'land of opportunity.'"
