Here's an interesting approach to increasing funding for Higher Education. Rather than a large sweeping tax initiative - which is likely to fail in our current climate and has only limited chance to succed in a less economically stressed time - give away education! This is what the Louisville Seminary has decided to do. Those leaving seminary have a very challenging path ahead of them. There are few in the field who make any money at all and fewer still who enter the profession for the sole purpose of doing so (there are, of course, exceptions). The seminary school has decided that, given the market value of certain degree fields, they will provide full scholarships for those in their graduate programs.

Why don't we do this in Higher Education?

Louisville is relying on increases to their endowment from gifts and charitable donations to fund this initiative. The concern behind it is the amount of student loan debt graduates from their program will be burdened with. This is not limited to schools of seminary either. Certain schools (NYU Stein School of Business is an example) offer tuition stipends to the students who gain entry into their programs. The cost of these stipends often comes out of revenues from the endowment. Now, obviously, the limitations to how far this can go are certainly very real. But I would like to suggest that it may be a better approach than seeking an all-out redistribution of wealth (as some in the Occupy movement would like to see). In discussion over the weekend about the failure of Proposition 103, the point was raised that it would have cost a family making 50k a year 40 cents a day. Now, this doesn't seem like much, but there were a number of issues impacting public political will to see it happen:

1) disposition of the money: How are we to know the money will go to what they are saying? (More practically: How many ways could the state legislature define "education?" - it's a safe bet that, given the time, they would find ways beneficial to other agendas to qualify that, for example: giving some of it to Planned Parenthood for "Parenting Education" OR giving some of it local business for "Professional education." These are just hypotheticals, but the point should be clear - there is no way to guarantee tax revenues will be "earmarked" for a specific public interest unless we create an entirely new tax - and even then, there are ways around it.)

2) school performance: some folk in some districts think their schools are performing just fine! So why should we fund them more? (Doing more with less: welcome to the realities of military budgeting.)

3) That the initiative was far too little to make a significant impact.

The first and last present particular opportunities. If we solicit donations to the endowment from the people who do have money to give (the 'wealthy') they are assured that their money is going to go directly towards education. Second, they can more easily be shown the impact their donations will have. It is easier to clearly articulate the facts to an individual than to the public. So what are we doing to enlarge our endowments? There are limitations, of course - a certain percentage of our revenues must come from public sources and such. But I doubt highly that we would encounter this problem.

A final thought: quality versus quantity....

When I asked "what would we spend that money on" - the response was unanimously "man-power resources." More staff and faculty to handle the massive influx of students. If the influx is pushing us so far beyond our efficiency levels (not comfort levels) then shouldn't we consider limiting enrollment numbers until we have the resources and staff in place to sustain the high levels of enrollment we are, at this time, enjoying but apparently suffering from? If we can't service the students then we are defaulting on the implicit bargain we make with them when we grant them admission....another interesting conversation to have.

The value of our service to students is our single most important stock-in-trade. Stanford University provides an excellent example of how - when taxes fail to pass, individuals can fill the gap. I think we all to often look to collective action and government intervention to compensate for issues that may, quite frankly, be linked to the quality of service we offer and to how much after-market care of our graduates impacts the relationship we have with them after they leave our institution(s). Graduate success in the market is the single most important factor to institutional future, I would argue. But this factor is often lost in the discussion in Student Affairs where we are heavily preoccupied with front-end issues as opposed to back-end realities.
GO!