What role have governing boards played in tuition and fee escalation
at four-year public colleges and universities?
In the United States, college costs, especially tuition and fees, have
increased much more rapidly than either the overall Consumer Price Index
or median household income. This cost inflation has effectively closed
the doors of higher education to many qualified students and contributed
to a staggering $1.5 trillion in student debt. Additionally, the number
of college enrollments in the United States actually declined for eight
straight years between 2011 and 2019, as college student bodies became
increasingly stratified on the basis of family incomes.
Virtually every public college cost increase, however, requires a
positive vote from each university's governing board--and the record
shows that these votes are nearly always unanimous. In Runaway College
Costs, James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula argue that many trustees
have forgotten that they should act as fiduciaries who represent the
best interests of students, parents, and taxpayers. Instead, Koch and
Cebula explain, too often many trustees prize size and more prestigious
rankings over access and affordability. These misplaced priorities make
them vote in favor of ever more plush facilities, expensive
intercollegiate athletic programs, administrative bloat, and outdated
models of instruction and research.
Koch and Cebula supply groundbreaking empirical evidence on the impact
of governing board membership, size, and operations on tuition and fees.
They show, for example, that the existence of a powerful statewide
governing board exercises significant downward pressure on tuition and
fees and that state funding cuts cannot explain more than one-half of
the cost increases at the typical four-year public institution. The
authors propose an action agenda for governing boards, including
changing the incentives placed in front of campus presidents and senior
administrators. Finally, they conclude that, although public university
governing boards deserve blame for accelerating college cost inflation,
they also are ideally situated to improve the situation.
Runaway College Costs ends hopefully, suggesting that governing boards
and their member trustees actually have the greatest potential to
improve the situation. Providing the first rigorous empirical evidence
of the impact that various modes of governance have had not only on
tuition and fees but also on a half-dozen measures of institutional
performance, this book will be of serious interest to governors,
legislators, public university board members and their staffs, those
interested in supporting the traditional goals of public higher
education, and of course students and their parents, as well as
taxpayers.
