Officials disagree on higher ed. spending

During his first Congressional address last week, President Barack Obama said postsecondary education remains a necessary long-term investment, but not everyone agree.

“I ask every American to commit to at least one year of higher education or career training,” he said Feb. 24. “And every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option.”

Obama’s comments and the billions of dollars allocated toward higher education in the stimulus package are meant to solve two problems: the ability to afford postsecondary education and the difficulty of completing a higher education program. The bill raised questions about whether increased education spending could help aid a hurting economy, officials said.

Dan Lips, senior domestic policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said increased education spending would not help the economy.

“I think that if we’re looking at what can be done to stimulate the economy, education spending is not the answer,” he said. “The funds that are being spent on education represent an unprecedented increase, and the impact is debatable.”

Lips said leaders should try to solve problems in the secondary education system before tackling higher education issues.

“We should no longer have high school dropouts, and focusing on [college enrollment] will no longer make that a reality,” he said.

Lips said the problem of college affordability was not rooted in government.

“We’ve seen in the past few decades a more than doubling in federal student aid, and the great risk is that this isn’t going to make college more affordable,” he said. “To solve the problem of college affordability, universities should be lowering costs.”

However, looking at education purely from the side of cost discredits education’s greater value, Valerie Williams, assistant director of public policy for the National Association of College Admission Counselors, said.

“An investment in the Pell Grant and an expansion of the education tax credit would work twofold,” Williams said. “It will prevent students from dropping out because of difficulties in paying tuition, and it will help students get into and afford college.”

Williams said she agreed with Obama when he said postsecondary education was increasingly important in a global marketplace.

“Our research gathered indicates that college is now the standard,” she said. “Jobs now and in the future will require higher education, and in that way, a high school diploma will not work for a truly educated workforce.”

Boston University Metropolitan College Dean Jay Halfond said education is vital to the nation’s growth.

“It is clear that education provides the knowledge, the flexibility and the skills a workforce needs to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and the increasing requirement for sophisticated workers,” Halfond said.

Postsecondary education is not one-size-fits-all, however, Williams said.

“Postsecondary education will be different for every student, and it’s dependent on the student’s goals,” Williams said. “It might be a year in community college, a technical education or apprenticeship, or four years in a public or private university.”

Halfond said all education should be forward-thinking.

“My sense is that academic learning is also the most practical — especially in the long run,” Halfond said. “Training shouldn’t just be for the next job, but for the decades ahead.”

Williams said the higher education system could accommodate a dramatic increase in students if Obama’s call to education gets a heavy response.

“The capacity of the American higher education system is not infinite, but there is room for everybody,” she said. “The more students that go on, the better.”