Many students at colleges and universities pay for more than what colleges provide, according to a report released yesterday by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
"It's something we've been looking at for a while," Research Director Andrew Gillen said. "One of the strange things about higher education is the difference between the cost of doing something and the cost that's charged ... We wanted to find out if these institutions were outliers or how common this was." The researchers found it was very common for a college to be paid more than it provides for, he said.
The report, titled "Who Subsidizes Whom?", compares the educational costs and revenues of colleges and universities. It found that many colleges and universities are paid more to provide an education than they spend in this area. It says students' payments subsidize university spending on things unrelated to classroom education, such as research. Universities and colleges inflate the figures they spend to educate students by including all of their spending, whether or not it is directly related to instruction, Gillen said.
The report used data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System of the U.S. Department of Education, which gathers financial information for every educational institution participating in the federal student financial aid program, to conclude that more than half of students attend colleges and universities which take in more per-student payments than they spend to provide an education.
Gillen said from a federal policy perspective, "We need to look at why are we spending so much financial aid money on institutions that are taking this money and then are not spending it on students ... the focus for us is to see how much money we need to provide for."
University spokesperson Carol Wood said the report's calculation of the cost of an education was misleading, however. "U.Va. is a top-ranked research university," she said. "We have nationally and internationally known scholars and researchers. Research is a critical part of our mission, particularly with a teaching hospital, and it is part of what makes U.Va. what it is." She also noted that more than half of the University's undergraduates are "engaged in some form of research," including classroom and independent work. Direct research is paid by the federal government and private granting agencies, not through student tuition, she added.
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