U of Ideas of General Interest -- August 1998
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Craig Chamberlain, Education Editor (217) 333-2894; [email protected]
FINANCING SCHOOLS
Lessons from higher education cast doubt on value of vouchers
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Advocates for school vouchers increasingly point to the system of direct student aid in higher education as proof of the benefits that vouchers can bring in K-12 education.
But the student-aid system is ìnot as successful as they would like to think, or want us to believe,î says F. King Alexander, a professor of higher education at the University of Illinois.
ìThe federal and state direct student aid or voucher programs in higher education have not created a more efficient system where the open market brings down costs,î Alexander said. In fact, the opposite is true.
ìNor has it opened the doors to greater student choice for lower-income students,î a claim made now by voucher advocates as it was three decades ago in the debate over student aid, Alexander said. The percentage of private college and university students defined as low-income is actually down slightly since 1973, while the percentage of public students is slightly up.
ìWhat it has done is create a funding scheme where private colleges and universities receive a disproportionate amount of public student-aid resources,î and without a need to account for how those resources are spent, Alexander said. Alexander has written a paper on the subject, ìVouchers in American Education: Hard Policy Lessons From Higher Education,î which will be published in October in the fall issue of the Journal of Education Finance.
In his paper, Alexander notes that private colleges and universities serve only about 25 percent of the full-time-equivalent (FTE) student population. Yet in 1995 they received 35 percent of all federal grant funds, 46 percent of grant funds awarded by states, and 62 percent of all federal loan funds. Private schools, under the system, also get a much greater and increasing share of federal loan dollars per student, Alexander said. From 1971 to 1980, private schools received twice that of publics in loan funds per FTE; the ratio grew to 3.4 to 1 in 1985 and 4.6 to 1 in 1995.
These trends have occurred largely because cost of attendance has been factored into aid formulas, providing an economic incentive for schools to raise tuition, Alexander said. Private schools overall have higher tuition to pay for higher faculty salaries and higher per-student costs, and do not face the same public pressure to hold tuition down.
ìThe disparity issues that are inherent in the voucher scheme suggest that this form of financing, by its very nature, will result in greater inequality between public and private schools and their students,î Alexander said. ìIf the experience in higher education is a valid indicator, then one can expect that voucher plans at lower educational levels will produce only marginal, if any, increases in choice for lower-income students while greatly increasing inequalities between public and private schools.î
-cdc-
RSS