It is hard to have a day go by where there is not at least one article in the major media about the high cost of college.  With the recession and its impact on state and local budgets, tuitions are being increased at many public colleges and universities and some institutions are reducing the number of students attending in order to cut costs for next year.  Unfortunately, these actions are not increasing the access and affordability of higher education in the United States.

While access and affordability of higher education have been stated goals of the Spellings Commission, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (NCPPHE) in its annual Measuring Up reports, President Obama, and others, the recommendations for improving affordability are few and far between.  The Spellings Commission stated that colleges need to think more like entrepreneurs and examine partnerships and distance learning as options to improve access and cost.  Many in traditional higher education panned the Spellings Commission’s recommendations although little was said that had not already been identified by many of the other public policy organizations like NCPPHE, State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), and The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS).  This past January, I wrote an article for this blog about a survey of college presidents entitled The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk About Costs, Access, and Quality.  I was aghast that during a period of economic downturn, most of the presidents surveyed stated that the only solution to improving access was to provide them with more funding at the federal and state levels.  I wonder how many entrepreneurs have succeeded by waiting for more money to pay for a product rather than designing the product to meet the ability of their customers to pay for it.

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This week represents National Teacher Appreciation Week and if there was ever an appropriate time to applaud the efforts of our nation’s teachers, it is now.  Considering the well-publicized and overwhelming reality of our nation’s fiscal concerns, there can be little doubt that the nation’s leadership faces an arduous task.  The nation’s teachers, however, have arguably an even greater and more daunting task: preparing our youngest minds for the uncertain future that lies ahead of them. 

A 2006 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau states that there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States, approximately one-third of them teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels (the other two-thirds teach at preschool, kindergarten or college levels).  According to the Census Bureau report, teachers in Connecticut enjoyed the largest salaries in the nation, an average of $57,300, while teachers in South Dakota earned only $33,200 per year, the lowest in the nation.  The national average teacher salary in 2006 was $46,800.  Considering the importance of the job the nation’s teachers perform, such striking salary discrepancies are disappointing.  The recent budget crises in most states don’t offer much hope that teacher salaries will improve in the near future.

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