4 WHA WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK IN THE YEARS AHEAD? WHAT CAN HIGHER EDUCATION BE EXPECTED TO COST, and IF THE COSTS ARE HIGHER PROPORTIONATELY THAN HERETOFORE, Economic outlook: Since the war, leading economists have been studying the economic, demographic, political, and sociological factors that affect the activities of this country. It is their conclusion that in the years ahead (barring war or other national disaster) the people of this nation can expect to have a greatly expanded personal income, and that this income will be available to pay for a great expansion in the volume of goods and services enjoyed by our people, including additional higher education if they so desire. The Committee for Economic Development (an organization long involved in careful and reliable studies of economic trends) has translated the economic conclusions into figures. Using a set of reasonable assumptions on economic growth in the future, these figures lead us to believe that the gross personal income of all individuals in the United States can hardly be less than $800 billion by 1980 compared with $430 billion in 1961-62 (see Chart 6) an 86 per cent increase with inflation excluded. We CHART 6 EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURES AT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES COMPARED WITH GROSS PERSONAL INCOME 100% $800 Excludes contract research, construction, as a nation can achieve this great increase in income, say nationally known economists, because day after day we are bringing to bear on the expansion of industrial productivity all the ingenuity, the inventiveness, and the ability of our people. Further, we are concentrating more time, effort, and money on research and development on the problems of mankind than the world has ever known. Higher education costs: A hundred long-range projections in my files from colleges across the country as well as data in the files of government agencies indicate that the cost of higher education is rising and can be expected to rise rapidly in the future A good guess is that total operating costs that is, educational and general expenditures for all colleges and universities, excluding construction, auxiliary enterprises, scholarships, and contract research will rise from $4.3 billion in 1962 to no less than $15 billion by 1980 (see Chart 6). Admittedly this is a pretty rough estimate but it is close enough to use for analytical and planning purposes. Can the country afford such great expenditures for higher education? If personal income rises along the lines shown in Chart 6 (and this appears to be reasonable and possible in the absence of war or other national emergency), the answer is clear: certainly the country can—if its people are willing to allocate the additional dollars that will be required. The amount involved will be a small percentage of the increase in personal income and productivity of the country and even a smaller percentage of the total personal income. Financing higher education is, therefore, a problem of policy, not of resources. The problem is to select the basis on which to make a small portion of the increased income and productivity of the country available for a service the people need and desire. 5 The next question considered by my statistical associates was: WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS IMPLY FOR THE AVERAGE PRIVATE COLLEGE? In order to arrive at some answers we studied the 20-year period, 1953 to 1973, at "Ashford College," the typical strong liberal arts college used as a basis for my report on the ten-year college budget.* Ashford, you may recall, is a 125-year old institution located in a town of 30,000 in the Midwest. It now enrolls 1,125 students, 60 per cent of whom are men. The student-faculty ratio has been growing moderately, from 12 to 1 in 1952-53 to 15 to 1 at the present time, partly as the result of filling up the junior and senior classes. This year there will be 190 B.A. graduates, 55 per cent of whom go on to professional or graduate school. The students are better today than they used to be, the average college entrance score having jumped more than 100 points in the past five years. The faculty is better qualified, too, and much better paid than a few years ago. Chart 7 shows how the picture looks as Ashford. Briefly, the outlook is for a 63 per cent rise in student body from 1953 to Sidney G. Tickton, Needed: A Ten-Year College Budget, Fund for the Advancement of Education, New York, 1961. |