Page 22 - Crisis in Higher Education

About the Book

Higher education in the United States is at a tipping point. For decades, it
has been regarded as the best in the world and for good reason: The United
States gained worldwide economic and technologic stature through its
incomprehensible feats of production during World War II and its achieve-
ments in computer and information technology, space travel, biotechnology,
and other fields. Fredrick W. Taylor, the father of industrial engineering;
Chester I. Barnard, the author of The Functions of the Executive; and Peter
F. Drucker, Douglas M. McGregor, and Herbert A. Simon are just of few of
the scholars who set the stage for the success of U.S. business in the twentieth
century. The United States enhanced its educational arsenal by passing the
GI Bill at the end of World War II, which created a generation of scientists,
engineers, educators, and others, who continued the extraordinary achieve-
ments in economic performance and technological advancements.
Their sons and daughters (baby boomers) had access to a growing public
college and university network in the 1960s and 1970s that offered high-
quality education at an affordable price. During this era, students could
hold a part-time, minimum-wage job during the school year and a full-time
job in the summer, and they could pay their tuition, fees, and books at a
public community and technical college or public university. If they lived
at home, they probably had enough left over to buy a used car. With a little
help from their parents, they could afford to live in a dormitory or an apart-
ment. People who were motivated to earn a college or university degree were
not held back by money. These were the halcyon days for higher education.
A primary cause of the pending crisis is out-of-control costs that restrict
access to higher education, even for students from middle-income fami-
lies, and create mountains of debt. High costs and fear of debt may cause
some students and their parents to give less consideration to higher educa-
tion or avoid it altogether. For graduates and even for students who start
but drop out of school, student loan debt curbs their lifestyle and restricts
U.S. economic growth because they postpone purchasing homes, cars,
and other goods and services. The culprits are high costs for tuition, fees,
and textbooks, which for decades have risen much faster than the rate of
inflation. In fact, the rate of increase for tuition, the largest of these costs,
is nearly twice the rate of increase in healthcare costs and three times the

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