“Elite U.S. colleges…. are perpetuating deep inequalities in American society. They equate success with serving the privileged elite and have largely abandoned talented youth from poor families… [t]his deepens the country’s growing class divisions and exacerbates the long-term decline in economic and social mobility.”
Think this statement came from Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky? Try again. It came from the president of Amherst College, a top two liberal arts college in a fascinating 2006 article in Businessweek. According to the article, more than half of Amherst’s students pay the entire $42,000 tuition out of pocket without any financial aid.
As an American outsider looking in to the British higher education system, I see worrying levels of interest among top British universities to become independent of the state and establish Ivy League-style pricing and, the hope is, an according level of “prestige” and “quality.” Though this will permit such institutions to free themselves from potentially detrimental government targets (with regards to taking under-qualified students from state schools, for instance), I must warn you of the other, even less appealing consequences.
Coming to England, the fact that Oxford and Cambridge were state institutions capped at £3,225 per annum shocked me. In the United States, they would all charge at least $30,000 just for tuition fees. The general idea that all universities are public and affordable to the general public seemed charmingly egalitarian. But the push to privatise British universities, given the large gap in endowment compared with American universities, would lead to them charging the same as the Ivy League, but with less financial aid and scholarships.
Outside of the northeastern United States, we take our state universities very seriously, and our local elites are educated by the likes of the University of California or the University of Texas. The University of Michigan, for example, was a Public Ivy which provided an “uncommon education for the common man.” Generous state funding and local loyalty meant that residents of the state would get the overwhelming majority of seats with a few outsiders paying an out-of-state premium price.
However, we have seen a marked abandonment of public interest and funding for state universities. Michigan is considering privatising its state university by ending the last bit of state funding for the school (6% of the budget).
One should never take seriously university chancellors’ promises to make university free for middle- and low-income households if they are also given the ability to raise tuition. When the much-quoted Mark Yudof ran the University of Texas system, he proposed a “Compact with Texans” promising the above. He got his tuition fee rises, but the “Compact for Texans” was never mentioned again. Now, as the head of the University of California, he is cutting classes, maintenance, and affordability (tuition will rise to $10,000 per annum), but sadly not his $500,000+ compensation.
So when you hear administrators fawning over American education, remember the market values underlying that education. And when you think of prestigious private universities in America, remember that ten per cent of seats are set aside for legacy admissions (unqualified children of prominent alumni donors). Remember too that Michelle Obama’s University of Chicago’s A&E refused to repair a child’s face after a dog mauled him because he had only public health insurance. Don’t say that this American didn’t warn you.
[...] students like the Government wants them too. As the token American writer, I warn Britain what private university education really means and obscene social inequalities that result from [...]