Social Mobility Through College

2020.02.15 Social Mobility Through College

SM Sarah McConnell

AS Audio Sample

SJ Scott Jaschik

LB Lelia Bradshaw

MA Maola Abdullah

JH Jason Houle

SC Stephanie Cellini

00:00:00

[music]

SM In the mid-2000s, Harvard and Princeton eliminated early decision. They explained early decision gave wealthier, more privileged students an unfair advantage, and this was a way of leveling the playing field. But five years later, both schools quietly announced they were restoring early decision. I donít tell you this story to make Harvard and Princeton look bad. Really, this is just one of the many, many times that elite universities have failed to follow through on their promises to give poor kids and minorities a better shot.

AS What I see a lot of is glorifying perfectly worthy efforts that will ultimately make no difference.

SM I'm Sarah McConnell, and today on With Good Reason, can a college education boost social mobility? One of the great American beliefs is that a college education gives us a chance at moving up a rung in society. But is that still true today? Scott Jaschik is a co-founder and editor of Inside Higher Ed.

[music fades]

SM He recently spoke at Old Dominion University's Social Mobility Symposium, and he shared a few changes that he thinks could actually make a difference.

SJ As a journalist, I'm constantly getting pitched stories about how various colleges are doing wonderful things for social mobility. They've added a scholarship program, they're admitting more how eligible students, whatever. And I am very dubious. The trend I see is colleges doing one good thing for social mobility, while they are not questioning three bad policies that hold them back. Number one, the counselor to student ratio needs to be a top issue if you want to deal with this issue. Nationally, the American Association of School Counselors recommends a ratio of 250 to one for high school students. And this is, of course, not just counselors who focus on going to college. These are the counselors who deal with disciplinary issues, who deal with all kinds of issues that have nothing to do with college prep. But the idea is 250 students to one. In California, the ratio is 822 to one. Now, you can't be surprised that students don't get good information if they can't see their counselors. Likewise, you can't blame the counselors. In lots of high schools, the counselors - it's like a, you know, assembly line. They see - look at the student, say OK, Are you the top student in the school? Therefore, all recommend you go to the flagship. If youíre everyone else, I'll send you to the local institution. If you have to see 822 students, you can't do very much with them. The reality is, and if you are talking about social inequity, if you send your child to a relatively well-off school, you're going to get pitched to hire a private counselor. More than 40 percent of students under-match, which means they go to institutions that are not as good academically as they could. And the African-American rate is higher in the low-income rate is higher. Then take policies of college's early decision - early decision overwhelmingly, evidence favors wealthier students. You know, a few years ago, there was a push, Harvard and Princeton scaled it back. But then when Yale and others didn't follow, they returned to early decision. If you need to make your decision, in part based on the financial aid package, you don't apply early. The role of transfer. And now I promise you, I was going to bash in the institution and I'll do so now. This year, something historic happened, Princeton University admitted transfer students for the first time since 1990. As a official university policy Princeton didn't admit a single transfer student from 1990 till now. What is the underlying belief behind that policy? The underlying belief is that all great talent could be identified by the time your age 17. I would say that's a flawed belief. And what's interesting is that Princeton and a lot of private colleges are starting to recruit, pay more attention transfers. At the same time, though, we have this bizarre situation where the president of the United States doesn't want community colleges focused on transfers. He has said four times in the last two months that they should only focus on vocational ed. Now, part of that is a geographic thing, I think that he comes from the northeast. If you go to Florida and many of Florida's public four-years, a majority of students start at community college. Same in California, Texas. There aren't enough spaces in the four-year publics to educate all the freshmen and sophomores. If you want to look at minority bachelors, degree holders, even a larger percentage of them start at community colleges. Transfer is absolutely crucial if you want to talk about social mobility. I think it is the shift that is taking place in higher ed, but it's not just enough to do what Florida does.

00:05:47

I was talking to a president of a community college in Florida that transfers huge numbers to the four-years near his institution. I said, so are you pretty pleased because he's transferring? And he said, well, yes and no. I said, well, what should they be doing? He said they take them in, but one, they don't always award credit. And to the entire place is designed for traditional freshmen. So what do you mean? He said my students, one, they really care about transfer credit - you got to work that out. But the entire student life apparatus is built about Greek life, athletics, parties, all things his students couldn't care less about. So you have institutions in Florida where half the students are transfer students, but 98 percent of student life is designed for the 18 year old. What do transfer students tend to want? They want a career center oriented around their issues, which may be different because they may be older students who didn't have a straight line in life. And they want practical things, like they want a place with computers that they can study in between classes because they're commuters and they don't have a dorm room to go to. This is a change in mentality that you need. And so again to me itís - so many of these things make the poor social mobility not shocking at all. Public honors colleges, they do great things in some ways. They provide a great experience, in some ways equivalent to a private college experience at a public college. But what are the demographics of the public honors college? What does it do when the best students are treated super well and everyone else isn't? One of my nieces just graduated in the honors college of a public flagship and she got dorm just with honors students, priority registration, more academic advising, more opportunity to work - all great. And she took advantage of it, that's wonderful. So public honors colleges are great for those who are in them, but what share of resources go to them as opposed to everyone else?

OK, online education. Lots of states are adopting policies to require or encourage more students take courses online. And this can be a great thing. But I like to apply a test when I hear about such a program, and the test I like to apply is, will this affect the governor's daughter? If online education is good for Joe Schmo, it should be good for the governor's daughter. So much research shows that online education is most effective with the best students who have the least needs. If M.I.T. announced tomorrow or Virginia Tech announced tomorrow that it was converting the entire freshman year experience to online, I bet they would do fine. I doubt that's the case here.

OK, now I want to talk about general education and the humanities and the liberal arts, Stevens Point in Wisconsin. What the officials are saying is like, we have an English major at Madison. We have a history major at Madison. And Madison is a great university. Call me old fashioned, but I actually think those things matter in all kinds of institutions, even if you don't have a lot of students majoring in those fields. Because students take a course, students have an experience. I actually think the world would be a better place if all college graduates had at least once deeply read a novel or studied a culture different from their own. When these departments are gutted, they are gutting the possibility for that happening at many of your institutions. And when you talk about social mobility, you're talking about the ability of your graduates to truly interact in a broader world where people have read novels and experienced different cultures and have knowledge beyond the major. And there is a false narrative that the only way you get ahead is by being a pre-professional, factual data that shows that's not true.

Now to talk about sort of some of the ugliness on campus. We are in terrible times on campus race relations. Like, not a week goes by that we're not writing about really ugly things going on. And it is affecting students. If you want to be an institution that cares about social mobility, you have to look at the campus climate. There are so many parts of the college experience that people don't think about. A good friend of mine who came from a very poor rural family got an all expenses scholarship to one of the wealthiest, most prestigious universities in the country. And she arrived on the first day of orientation before the dining halls opened with no money. Didn't occur to her, that she wasn't going to be fed on day one. So on day one, she was getting a job at the 7-Eleven. So to go back to what I said earlier about why I'm so cynical, it's not that I don't believe colleges are adding scholarships and doing this, that, and the other. But I see all these policies, some of them getting worse as colleges long for more full pay students that run counter to that.

[music]

SM Scott Gesture is a co-founder and editor of Inside Higher Ed. He was the keynote speaker at the Social Mobility Symposium hosted by Ultima Onion University. Coming up next, choosing between buying textbooks and paying the electricity bill.

00:12:26

SM Community colleges have long been leaders in providing higher ed to underprivileged students. And part of helping them succeed means paying attention to what's going on outside of the classroom.

[music fades]

SM Adriana Gallo has the story of how Virginia community colleges are stepping up to make sure their students have the food, shelter and transportation needed to get them to a degree and a better job.

AG Xiomara studies photography and digital media at Northern Virginia Community College.

AS I consider myself an artist, in general. It's one of my passions. Actually, the last picture that I took was a still picture for school. I - I didn't even think that was going to do this contest, but one of my professors invited me for ñ she was like, youíre going to do the contest, right? I mean, this is my like first year there, and I'm like, OK, you think so? You think this is very good? Why not?

AG Not only did she enter the photography contest, she actually won the contest.

AS I was one out of 10 students that won, and it was like over 100 students. And I was blessed to be one of those people that won, you know?

AG Xiomara probably not what youíd think of when you imagine a college student. Her schedule's tough and she takes on a lot of different roles.

AS I'm a like full-time mom. You know, I'm a full-time employee and I'm a full-time student. So that's crazy, right? But I do it - it makes me makes my brain, you know, expand. It makes me happy.

AG The stress of all those responsibilities constantly weighs her down. She worries about keeping up.

AS Itís a struggle every day. It makes it difficult when you have all these bills pilling up, and you don't know whether - how Iím going to pay for it.

AG A lot of college students face these kinds of struggles. Fortunately, some community colleges are stepping in to help their students manage their lives outside of the classroom.

AS My name is Rochelle Thompson and I'm the program coordinator at Northern Virginia Community College for our Financial Stability Program.

AG Thompson says the Financial Stability Program, originally focused just on hunger.

AS A fairly high percentage of our students were reporting that they were skipping meals and that they didn't have enough food to eat, or they had bought food once but they didn't have enough money to buy food again to get them through the month.

AG A survey on campus found that 31 percent of households were making choices about whether to pay for tuition and education, or food.

AS When students are faced with these types of budgetary decisions, the thing that ends up suffering the most is food, because students sort of think, well, I can just go without eating today and then I'll be able to use that money to buy the book that I need from my math class. Itís hard to learn when you're hungry. It's hard to focus or do well in the test if your tummy is grumbling, right.

AG So Nova started food pantries across their campuses. It didn't take long to realize the food wasn't the only financial challenge facing students.

AS Some of our students were homeless. They were sleeping on their friend's couches. They were jumping from place to place and they couldn't afford, you know, to rent a room somewhere. We found that a lot of our students were underemployed or they were trying really hard to find employment, but they weren't finding the right type of employment that was going to provide them with enough income to get through the month. We found that our students needed clothing. They needed school supplies.

AG The goal for the college is to try to get students closer to their academic finish line. Lelia Bradshaw works with a similar program at Mountain View Community College, where she's the dean of student services.

LB How can students be successful if their basic needs aren't met? So if they're dealing with being homeless, if they're dealing with, you know, I don't have child care, how am I going to go to school?

AG Transportation is a huge problem at Mountain View. It's in a particularly rural area, which means many students travel long distances just to get to class.

LB We do have a unexpected financial emergency assistance program here at Mountain Empire to assist students. You know, if we have a student who, let's say their transmission went out on their vehicle and they had to purchase a new transmission or help pay for that, then, you know, they may not have funds to have gas for their vehicle or they may not have funds then to cover child care, so then we could assist in - in that area.

AG Bradshaw views these programs as an insurance policy against student withdrawal.

LB I just think that you have to look at student as a whole and that includes their strengths, their weaknesses, it includes, you know, what they're - what they're dealing with, what their families are dealing with.

AG Rachelle Thompson, the program coordinator from NOVA says these kinds of wraparound services can disrupt a cycle of poverty that can drag students down.

RT We know that the very reason that they're here at NOVA is to better their lives and better their economic situation. And if they're leaving NOVA because of those hardships, then the cycle just keeps going round and round, right.

AG For Xiomara, the photography student, the Financial Stability Program helped keep her lights on.

AS I was so grateful that they were able to help me with that. I mean, my life ñ it was going to get cut off. It made me feel so welcomed and like, this is OK. It is okay to ask for help.

AG Someday, Xiomara wants to be a big-time photographer traveling the world, and she's gaining confidence through her classes.

AS It's exciting because when you go back into like this mindset as an adult, you wish you would've had the mindset like this back in high school. Like, I feel like I'm making up for so many different things.

AG She feels really good about being in school.

AS And I'm making my mom proud and I'm making my kids proud and making myself proud.

AG Most importantly, Xiomara wants other students to know that it's okay to ask for help and that asking for help is one more step towards a better life. For With Good Reason, I'm Adriana Gallo.

[music]

00:18:36

SM Makola Abduallah is the president of Virginia State University. He believes wholeheartedly that higher education should be the ticket up. But he sees some institutions have moved away from that mission. That's why he's calling Virginia State University, Virginia's ìopportunity universityî.

[music fades]

President Abduallah, you ended up at Howard University, the great historically black college in Washington, D.C., because your mother insisted on it, even though you had lots of other options. Tell me that story.

MA Well Iíll tell you, thank you for asking. My mother was a proud Howard grad and a fan of our historically Black colleges and universities. And when - when I graduated from high school, I had a number of scholarships to go to some - some quite prestigious institutions. And then she said, no, I think that you should consider Howard University. And I told her, mom, well you don't understand. I've got choices, I've ñ Iíve got these scholarships, and it's a decision I have to make. She said, ìson, I don't think you understandî. She said, ìif you choose not to go to Howard, then you will be disowned. I won't buy you any underwear, I won't buy your plane ticket home, and so you will not be in my house if you don't go to Howard Universityî. And so that was the best decision that I never made. I'm proud of my mother helped me make that decision, because I really believe that it changed the course of my life.

SM What did Howard give you that you might not have had elsewhere?

MA You know, it gave me a community, a community of - of professors, of - of colleagues, of friends, in an environment where it was really comfortable for me to learn while I was becoming the best engineer, getting the best skills that I could as an engineer. And just to have that supportive environment for me, really meant everything.

SM So should every black person go to an HBCU or simply have an HBCU on the list of schools they consider?

MA I wouldn't go as far as to say that every Black young person should choose an HBCU. But I do think that everyone should have one on their list. I think they should visit and consider one of our over 100 historically Black colleges and universities, because I believe that we provide an incredible value and a transformative education.

SM You have been making great strides in grant-getting branding, working with lawmakers on so many fronts since you came to Virginia State University two years ago. But would you candidly list for me the challenges your school faced when you arrived?

MA When I arrived at Virginia State University, we had quite a few challenges. There were people when I arrived who were really beginning to ask the question of what was Virginia State University's place in the Commonwealth of Virginia and its ability to - to educate students. I knew a lot about Virginia State and I knew that - that while some of the stories were - were challenging stories, that that didn't really accurately reflect the great work that the faculty and staff were doing every day. Some of that work isn't, you know, terribly exciting. It's not it's not newspaper worthy. And Iím talking about some of the small things when - when a faculty member takes a young person to Walgreens and take a picture so that they can get a passport. Or someone else, a staff member teaching a young man how to tie a tie, so he can get ready for his first interview. These are the kinds of stories that happen over and over at Virginia State. And they might not make the newspaper, but these are the kind of transformative experiences that I think students and prospective students and families want to know about their institution. That the institution cares about them and wants to see them succeed.

SM You have said that you want Virginia State University to be an ìopportunity universityî, but aren't all universities ìopportunity universitiesî? Don't we Americans believe higher education is the ticket up?

MA Higher education is the key to what we all think of as the American dream. And what worries me sometimes, and that's why I wanted to highlight it for Virginia State and call Virginia State University, Virginia's ìopportunity universityî, is because I believe that there are some institutions that have begun to move away from that ideal. Where no longer are they providing a level of education for those who need access and opportunity. And so since that has been a part of our mission for 136 years, we remain a part of that mission and we're committed to it, even when others may not be as committed to it.

SM Such as what? Candidly, such as which institutions?

MA I think it starts with the elite institutions, but I think the trouble with the rankings is that now we have many institutions chasing the rankings of the elite institutions. And so you have the elite institutions, many of them are not providing the level of access across the board, that they're not rep - they don't representatively represent the constituency of the United States. But now we have other institutions, some public, some private, who in the effort to chase rankings, are trying to be more like the elite institutions and are moving away from their original missions of providing access and opportunity. At Virginia State University, we won't do that.

SM What - what are you seeing? This has changed fairly recently.

MA I think so. There's such an emphasis on rankings, on metrics, and some of the metrics are just the wrong metrics, if not put into proper context. And so, one of the - the important metrics, and I do believe it's important, is graduation rates. All of our institutions should be trying to improve our graduation rates. And we have Virginia State are trying to do that as well. As a matter of fact, I believe if you don't have a graduation rate of 100 percent, then you're not doing all of the work you need to do. And so we want to be at 100 percent. But we also really understand and recognize that one of the keys to graduating for young people, is to - is having the resources available to be able to do that. In far too many young people, the reason why they leave school is not because they're not ambitious enough, it's not because they're not prepared enough, but it's because they don't have the resources to be able to finish. And so that rate is generally more of a function of the level of family income of those students coming into the university then if we overvalue that metric. What many institutions can do, or may do, is to begin to deny access to those young people whose finances are on the margins. And that's exactly what we don't want to do. We have talent here in the United States. We have so many young people who want access to - to chase their dreams. And we've got to be able to provide that here. I know that there are some who - who are beginning to question the value of a college degree, that it's not for everybody. And while I certainly understand that - that that is true. I think that it's important that we - we don't limit that, to try to steer young people because they don't have the family income into the trades and make sure that they have an opportunity to really become some of the best in the country.

SM What are the funding challenges for you? Do you feel that Virginia State University has been historically underfunded?

MA I feel like that there's - that Virginia State University has been historically underfunded. There's - there've been some, in recent years that has gotten better. But I think the bigger challenge is this is, that when you're committed to providing quality opportunity to those who have been historically underserved, we are always trying to do every single thing we can to make sure that we're as efficient as possible, while at the same time trying to keep our costs - our tuition costs as - as affordable as we can. We are we are the most affordable institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that's because we care very much about - about making sure that we pass along only efficient costs to our students. And so with that, you know, we understand that in some ways we'll always be in a place where we may have, you know, less dollars than others because we've chosen to make sure that we keep our tuition dollars at an affordable level. We are always interested in having the state to continue to invest in Virginia State University and also to continue to invest in young people, as we - as we always hope that the federal government continues to do also.

SM President Abduallah, thank you for talking with us and With Good Reason. And we can't resist going out with a piece of music from the vaunted Trojan explosion.

MA Anyone who's ever been to any of our campuses knows that - that we love our marching bands. Thereís nothing like an HBCU marching bands, so thatís why I'd love to - to give you a little bit of the Trojan explosion as we leave the interview. The VSU Trojan explosion.

[music]

SM Makola Abdullah is president of Virginia State University. This is With Good Reason, we'll be right back.

00:28:00

[protestors chanting]

SM Welcome back to With Good Reason from Virginia Humanities. In 2012, total student debt in America surpassed a trillion dollars. Students took to the streets in protest.

AS: [protestors chanting] Hey-hey, ho-ho ñ student debt has got to go!

SM Eight years later, the average student debt load continues to rise. But the pain of student debt is not felt equally.

[music]

SM Jason Houle is a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College. He says our conversation about student debt has a long way to go.

[music fades]

JH Well, we kind of hear is these two competing camps. And on the one hand, you have the folks who say, you know, student loan debt is a great investment - we shouldn't be worried about it. This is not a crisis. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. On the other hand, you have folks who are like, you know, student loan debt is a crisis. The sky is falling. And, you know, we're all going to die. Right. So there's a lot of hyperbole kind of on both sides. And - and I would say that my work kind of lands squarely in the middle of that, where what we find is that, yes, Students of Color, students from socially disadvantage, economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, tend to borrow quite a bit more than their counterparts. You find that these groups are also repaying their loans at much slower rates.

SM What portion of college students take on debt to help pay for their schooling? Is it almost everybody?

JH It's a large percent and a growing percent. But even 10 years ago, 2006, 2007, it was really only about 40 to 50 percent of college students. And now it's probably closer to 70 or 80 percent.

SM What changed? I remember when I was going to school, there were people who had to work off their payments, but there wasn't so much talk about massive debt upon graduation.

JH Well, I think one of the big things that's changed is our model for higher education has changed dramatically over the past several decades. You know, we've seen basically costs of higher education in terms of tuition and beyond tuition, in terms of things like room and board and cost of living creep up and up and up, while at the same time state and local appropriations and also federal aid has kind of stagnated. And it's basically families and, you know, the students who are going to school, who are kind of left to foot the bill.

SM Even at the state supported schools, tuition is so high, many are taking on debt?

JH Average debt tends to be higher at private institutions, but even at four-year publics, you're seeing a substantial amount of debt being taken out.

SM Is this a good investment for students? Does it pay off?

JH You know, that's a tough question, because for a lot of folks, this debt and this investment will pay off. But for others, it won't.

SM So who is most burdened by student debt? In your studies, are there groups that are having a harder time than others?

JH Yeah, what we're finding in our work is that students of color, particularly Black students and students from more socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, are the ones who are kind of struggling with the highest debt burdens and also struggling more to pay those debts off. So, if you are from a household where neither of your parents have a college degree or the first one to kind of step foot on a college campus in your family, you end up with a lot more debt. And part of that is because yeah, your parents can't help you pay this down, but also a lot of it is about cultural capital or cultural familiarity. So if you come from a college educated background, your parents know how to kind of help you navigate that college youíre going to, both financially and otherwise. Maybe help you find scholarships or kind of help you navigate the institutions, the pitfalls. First generation college students just don't have that.

SM Is there also a difference in what repayment looks like for some kids versus others? What did you find?

JH There is a difference. So for starters, we know from the College Scorecard data that only 47 percent of young people who are not in default, who are in repayment have made progress on their debt. That means they've paid a dollar or more towards their principal. So that right there, when folks say, you know, student loan debt isn't a problem, we shouldn't worry about it. Well, when only half of borrowers who aren't in default - this is totally getting rid of folks who are in default, which is another question entirely. But when half of borrowers are not really making any progress five years out, that raises a lot of questions. And so this led my colleague, Fenaba Addo and I at University of Wisconsin, Madison, to basically ask, what do these repayments look like by race? And what we're finding is that racial disparities are racial differences in debt when people leave college are big, they're large. We kind of knew that. But they get much, much bigger as people age. And so the racial disparity and debt we find at least doubles, if not triples by the time young people hit their 30s.

SM And what does that mean to you, as far as lives?

JH We think of college or getting a college degree as sort of this engine of upward mobility and that it can sort of solve a lot of our deep social inequities and inequalities. And - and what this shows is that the payoffs to a college degree are so starkly different, and in an era where college costs are high and debt is high, that Black students are paying a higher cost of entry for their college degree. And this is something that my colleague Louise Seamster has called predatory inclusion. That is, students of color have historically been barred from entering post-secondary institutions. Now that they have access, they have access on unequal terms.

SM It's sad to me because you think we spend a lifetime with these young students telling them college is everything, make sure you get to college, make sure you go through it. And when they get there and find out, they've got to take on a lot of debt, they just do. Because that's the formula.

JH So I would add one more thing about the race difference and in terms of one more reason why we should be concerned about it. So sociologists have long talked about the fragility of middle class status for Blacks. It is much harder for Black families to make it to the middle class. And once Black families get there - get there, it's so much easier for them to fall out. And this idea that these high levels of student loan debt among what is ostensibly the next generation of the Black middle class might be what makes this group fragile as well, just like their parents.

SM If we could wave our wand and change the debt crisis in some way, do you what are two recommendations on how we might restructure things politically?

JH This is a great question. So, the way I like to think about these interventions is, are - do - is this an upstream solution or is it a downstream solution? That is, are we pulling drowning people out of the water, or are we going upstream and preventing people from falling into the river in the first place? And so, I think we probably need a little bit of both here. You know, some of my colleagues are very much in favor of upstream solutions, and that is reinvestment in higher education, that's free college movement, which is sort of become the moniker for progressives in the past several years. But I also think there's some very simple things to do. So, one thing that does seem to be less successful than it should be is income-based repayment. This idea that your student loan payments are tied to however much you make. And it turns out that enrollment and IBRD programs are really shockingly low. And so if we try to think like behavioral economists in terms of nudges, maybe instead of making income based repayments, opt in where you have to go and sign up for them, we make them opt out and that is for the most vulnerable borrowers, that is the default setting, is income based repayment.

SM What about colleges bringing down the cost of attendance?

JH Colleges bringing down the cost of attendance, I mean, it's a great idea in theory. The question is, how do you do that? So, I mean, one reason the costs of attendance have gone up so much, particularly at state institutions, is that state appropriations to colleges have fallen dramatically. So if you take major flagship universities, places like the University of Wisconsin, Madison or Penn State or perhaps UNC Chapel Hill, a lot of these places get less than 20 percent of their budget from - from the state government. And these are not - these are sort of state institutions by name only. And what happens is when - when this occurs, is these colleges become more tuition driven. Schools have, I would say, responded to the climate in which they're in, and if we could wave a magic wand and reduce prices, that would be great. But then we would have a lot of schools operating in the red. But the focus on tuition kind of misses the boat on the student loan debt crisis, student loan debt, really very little of it is about tuition. So take Sweden for an example. Sweden has free college, free tuition. And yet they have debt levels that are comparable to the United States. A lot of it is about I can't really work and effectively study and get out of college in time. I need to rent a place, I need a place to lay my head, and I need to eat. And so a lot of the student loan debt crisis is driven by living - living expenses, not necessarily tuition.

SM How much of a factor do you think is the income cut off for aid? So many hopeful parents reach the stage or they're about to send their children off to a pricey institution, fill out the FAFSA forms only to be told ìeh, nothingî.

JH Yeah, I think that's a great point. And so that's something that my friends in the financial aid world refer to as the expected family contribution. And for a lot of folks, the expected family contribution doesn't really take into account the family's expenses. You know, when we think about the middle class, middle class wages have stagnated over the past 30 years and we're asking them to contribute more and more for, in this case, their kids education. For a lot of people, the expected financial contribution just certainly isn't realistic. And in fact, I can say that I found that in my previous research. So if we look at the relationship between how much money your parents make and how much debt you end up with, actually where we find the highest debt loads are students who are kind of just beyond that financial aid cutoff. So most need based aid, I'd say 90 percent of it goes to families who make less than forty thousand dollars a year. Where we find the highest debt in some ways, not surprisingly, is those families who are just above those cut off. So coming from families who make 40 to maybe fifty five thousand dollars a year, those are the families with the most debt.

SM What do you say to people who say, well, when I was coming through college, I simply buckled down, got as many extra side jobs as I needed and I worked my way through.

JH That's a great question. You know, there's so many think pieces out there about how financially irresponsible millennials are, right? You know, it's always the case where the generations before like to disparage the generation after. And perhaps, you know, sort of my favorite foil when it comes to this is Congresswoman Virginia Fox, who espouses this exact same idea where she's basically been on the record as saying, you know what, student loan debt - debtors. I have no sympathy for them at all, because they're basically a bunch of irresponsible misanthropes. I you know, I went to USC Chapel Hill, I waited tables, I worked, and maybe it took me five or six years to graduate, but I - I left debt-free. And that's fine, but the problem is - is that Virginia Fox has experiences in no way match up with the experiences of average students today. So let's say, you know, Virginia Fox went to USC Chapel Hill, she was an in-state resident and she went there in 1968. Right. So in today's dollars, tuition was around two thousand dollars. Maybe room and board was around fifty-three hundred dollars, so maybe she'd be on the hook for seven thousand seventy-four hundred a year, roughly. In, you know, at the minimum wage at the time, it would only take her 20 hours a week to pay that off busing tables, which is exactly what she said. But in 2013, tuition at USC Chapel Hill was eighty-three hundred, room and board and costs were fifteen thousand, almost sixteen thousand dollars. And so you're on the hook for around twenty-four thousand dollars a year, which under today's minimum wage, you would have to work 88 hours a week in order to pay off.

[music]

JH And so Virginia Fox might be able to say, you know, look, I did it, so can you. But the reality is, no, they can't.

SM Jason Houle is a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College. If you watch television, in the 90s youíve probably heard of ITT Tech. ITT Tech has since folded, but a new crop of for-profit colleges is expanding to fill the void.

00:40:17

AS [TV Ads] Start by calling ITT technical institute. Weíll send you an informative brochure on tomorrow's careers and what it takes to get them. Call one 1 800 942 0099Ö At Tampa University, we can help prepare you for that career you always dreamed aboutÖ discover Capella Universityís Flex PathÖ at DeVry University, we believe there are also lots of reasons to finish... you're ready for Strayer UniversityÖ

SM But as these for-profit colleges have grown in number, so have their critics. My next guest is Stephanie Cellini, a professor of public policy at George Washington University. She says for-profit colleges are often promising something they can't deliver. What are the for-profit schools, Iíve heard of the University of Phenix, are there are tons of others?

SC Yes, there's lots - more than 2000 or so of these for-profit colleges receive federal student aid. And there's many more thousands of these schools that don't receive federal student aid. They range from very large schools like the University of Phenix, which I believe is the largest institution of higher education in the country. Two very small schools that are focused on one particular vocation, so, for example, cosmetology schools are often for profit. You might have vehicle technology schools. You might have culinary arts schools. In the news, you might have seen that ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges have recently closed. So those are all examples of for-profit colleges, some very big, some very small.

SM How long have they been around for the most part, and haven't they been experiencing sort of boom and bust years, depending on the decade?

SC Yeah, that's right. They've - they've been around for a really long time, over 100 years, they've been around. And they do seem to go through these cycles. Around when the G.I. Bill was introduced there was some growth in the industry and then a kind of crackdown in the 1950s. And then we saw this again. We saw growth in the 1970s with the expansion of federal student aid programs and then another kind of crackdown again. And again we saw this in the 1990s and we saw under Bush Senior some new what they call cohort default rate regulations. And those regulations led to the sanctioning of over a thousand for-profit colleges in 1990. So we saw them kind of ebb in the 1990s and then kind of grow again in the early 2000s.

SM In the early 2000s - boy, did they grow. What was primarily responsible for that? Do you have numbers on how big they got?

SC Yeah, well, they enrolled at their peak over 2 million students. And that accounted for about 12 percent of all higher education enrollment. They're now down to about 1.8 million, in my latest count - students. And really the numbers just from 2000 to 2010, the number of students close to quadrupled.

SM Who are their biggest competitors? Who are they siphoning students away from?

SC So I think the kind of closest competitors and biggest competitors are the public community colleges. Most of the certificates and degrees that for-profit colleges grant are at the kind of sub-baccalaureate level. So associates degrees and certificates. So we're really thinking about those students as being able to choose potentially between community colleges and for-profit colleges. But it's also been interesting in the last few years, there's been a lot of growth in bachelor's degrees being offered by for profit colleges as well. So, there's still a fairly small share of overall for profit enrollment. I think less than 20 percent is in these bachelors degree programs and master's degree programs. But they are growing at this kind of higher level of education now.

SM Which charge more tuition, the community colleges or the for-profits?

SC Oh, the for-profits charge much more tuition. In fact, it's about five times higher in a for-profit college than in a community college. So I think the average enough for-profit for a year of your, you know, certificate program is about 15 thousand dollars. And I think that compares to about nationwide and community colleges, about three thousand, thirty five hundred, something like that.

SM Why do you think students, especially when so many of them really don't have means, are choosing the higher tuition, for-profit schools?

SC That's a great question and one that I've been trying to answer for a long time. My - my go-to answer here is that I think that students are taken in by advertising sometimes and may not have a lot of information about all their different college options. So, for example, it may be that some students who might be first generation college students don't have the information they need or access to networks that would help them choose or think about their options in terms of the public community college down the street that might offer the same program for a quarter of the price. And they might see a nice advertisement on TV and call the 1-800 number and get talked into a for-profit college without having that kind of full information. And we're particularly concerned about this, because a lot of the students in for-profit colleges, you know, they enroll a disproportionate share of minority students, students from lower income backgrounds. You know, students who are single parents, I mean, who donít have the time to investigate their college options. Students who are working and older and returning to college after many years in the workplace, who don't have access to high school counselors, for example.

SM So how should students look at the return on their investment? If you're a student who does not have means and you're thinking about a for-profit and a community college, what are some of the metrics that you have researched that helps the student know how to make a choice?

SC Yeah, so I think something that's very important to think about is the bump in earnings you get from kind of before to after. Are you getting that kind of increase that you might expect from going to college? And is that enough to kind of cover the debt that you're going to incur? So to do this, I've been doing some research with data from the U.S. Treasury using tax returns as well as the Department of Ed. And we have a very large sample of students who were graduating right around the recession. And we looked at this kind of after minus before earnings gain, this kind of value added of the education. And we compared for-profit students and certificate programs, to public students and community colleges in similar certificate programs, certificates in vehicles maintenance, in cosmetology, in health assisting, in health administration, those types of fields.

SM Right.

SC You might think about a public sector student in the local community college who's a woman in her 30s in Washington, D.C., in a health assistant program matched with a student in a for-profit college. Also, in Washington, D.C., also in her 30s, also in a health assistance program, but in a for-profit. So, in the public sector, those students who got these certificates, their earnings went up by about 15 hundred dollars and then for-profit students, their earnings were actually going down by about nine-hundred and twenty dollars. And so, this kind of difference between the two, which is what we were really interested in, the difference between them was this gap of about, you know, twenty-five hundred dollars or so.

SM So your research is showing for-profit colleges are costing more and giving less?

SC That's exactly right. For profit colleges are definitely costing a lot more for students and they are giving them less. Their earnings gains are a lot lower than going to a public institution. And then we can also take into account the fact that 75 percent or so of for-profit students are actually borrowing compared to just 20 percent of community college students, and they're paying a lot more. So, I think the average debt for a for profit student is about six thousand dollars and the average debt of a community college student is about 900 dollars.

SM What about the experience of dropouts for community college and for for-profit colleges? Are they comparable?

SC Yeah, this is a very interesting case. So in our research, the dropouts in our study from for-profit colleges do quite a bit worse. They have very large declines in earnings relative to before. And in contrast, the dropouts from public community colleges actually see a small increase in their earnings. So it seems as though that taking a few classes at a community college might boost your earnings and help you get a job and kind of be a signal to an employer that you took a good quality course at a local public institution that has a good reputation. And what I am concerned about is in the for-profits - it seems that if you take a couple courses at for-profit, it could almost be a negative signal of quality that you've started at a for-profit and you weren't able to complete.

SM Is there any understanding of why for-profit universities target the poorer students for recruitment, even though they have the higher tuition rates? This just seems counterintuitive.

SC Yeah, it does seem counterintuitive. But maybe not, when you think about the role of federal student aid. So federal student aid allows students to get a Pell Grant, for example, for about close to six thousand dollars to pay for their education. And then they can borrow.

SM And what - what percent of their revenue at the for-profit colleges is coming from government aid for these students?

SC On average, about 70 percent of the revenue that for-profit colleges get comes from federal student aid programs. And that is counting only the Pell Grant and student loan programs and not counting money coming from the G.I. Bill and other programs that are targeted towards military students and veterans. So, in fact, they may be getting even more of their revenue from federal government sources, than just that 70 percent that I mentioned there. So I think federal student aid is really important to get students access to college. But what I worry about is that some of the colleges and the for-profit colleges in particular, have not really shown that they can make that earnings gain happen. They haven't really shown that value. So I think we need to be very careful about making sure that these institutions really prove their worth before they're able to give out federal student aid.

SM Is there a role for for-profit colleges, in your opinion?

SC I think there is a role for for-profit colleges. I think filling some of the gaps, particularly if community colleges have, you know, wait lists for their nursing program or something like that, I think there might be a role for for-profits to step in and help ease those constraints and give students some of the training they need. But we need to be very careful about it. We need to make sure that students are getting that bump in earnings that we're looking for. We need to make sure students can repay their debts after they go. So we need to make sure these programs are high quality before we give them the federal student aid. Community colleges, public community colleges and all colleges, I guess, that I'll have non-degree programs - those are also subject to the gainful employment regulation. I do think we need to look carefully at the for-profit sector, because I think the incentives of the institutions are slightly different. I think the profit incentive and - and knowing that the profits do not need to be reinvested into the institution, but they can be given out to shareholders, I think it's a different mission and I think it's a different - it creates different incentives for the institution that I do think we need to be concerned about.

[music]

SM That is fascinating. Stephanie Cellini, thank you for sharing your insights on With Good Reason.

SC Thanks for having me.

SM Stephanie Cellini is a professor of Economics, Public Policy, and Public Administration at George Washington University. Major support for With Good Reason is provided by the law firm of McGuire Woods. And by the University of Virginia Health System, connecting doctors and patients through telemedicine to deliver high quality care throughout Virginia, the U.S. and the world, UVAHealth.com. With Good Reason is produced in Charlottesville by Virginia Humanities. Our production team is Allison Quantz, Matt Darroch, Alison Byrne and Jamal Millner. For the podcast, go to withgoodreasonradio.org. Iím Sarah McConnell, thanks for listening.