Interesante comentario de Arthur Hauptam publicado en The Chronicle of Higher Education del 18 de enero 2008 sobre la relación que pudiera existir entre el aumento de los fondos federales y estaduales para préstamos estudiantiles y el incremento de los aranceles cobrados por las universidades de los Estados Unidos. Tema, asimismo, de especial importancia para el debate chileno.
Ver texto completo más abajo.
El autor sostiene, en breve, que si bien no hay evidencia de que un fenómeo cause el otro, sin embargo entre ambos existe una relación.
Indeed, since 1980, federal student-loan volume has grown tenfold in constant dollars, while tuitions have increased, on average, at more than double the rate of inflation. Y luego agrega:
It is simply hard to imagine that many institutions in this country could have raised their tuition as much as they have if student loans had not been available to help students and their families fill the gap and pay the higher prices.
Sería interesante estudiar en Chile el tipo de relación que existe entre el constantre incremento de recursos asignados por el Gobierno los esquemas de crédito estudiantli y la presión que ejercen las universidades por elevar anualmente, en muchas ocasiones por encima de la inflación, sus aranceles. Debe recordarse que esto llevó en su momento al Gobierno a establecer el denominado arancel de referencia, con el propósito declarado de evitar que, por la vía de subir sus aranceles, las universidades fuercen al a la autoridad a incrementar en medida similar los recursos públicos destinados al apoyo de los estudiantes.
Recursos asociados
J. Salmi and A. Haptman, Innovations in Tertiary Education Finances: A Comparative Evaluation of Allocative Mechanisms, The World Bank, 2006 1,03 MB
El crédito estudiantil como instrumento de cambio en la educación superior, septiembre 18, 207
Mexico – Higher Education Financing Project, agosto 1, 2007
Recientes publicaciones sobre finanaciamiento de la educación superior (OECD), mayo 19, 2007
Educación superior en Chile: Financiamiento de la demanda, enero 7, 2006

POINT OF VIEW
Congress Can’t Simply Shame Colleges Into Limiting Tuition Increases
By ARTHUR M. HAUPTMAN
Since the last reauthorization of the federal Higher Education Act, nearly a decade ago, Congress has wrestled with what, if anything, it should do about rising college tuitions. As part of the current reauthorization, the House of Representatives is considering an education-committee bill that would require all colleges with federal student-aid recipients to report their tuition increases to the federal government every year.
The premise is that the harsh glare of adverse publicity will shame institutions with the highest tuition increases into slowing their price hikes. The bill’s provisions would also require those institutions to establish cost-cutting committees, as well as reward colleges that limit future increases with more student aid. But although the intent of such provisions is to restrain and moderate rising prices, the probable result will be that most institutions will manage to avoid being on the “Hall of Shame” list, and tuitions at many colleges will continue to climb significantly.
Many complex issues are wrapped up in the question of tuition charges, like the difference between the cost to the institution to educate a student and the price the student pays, as well as whether institutions efficiently spend the money that they receive. For almost as long as tuition has been rising at twice the rate of inflation, however, federal and state policy makers have been wringing their hands in particular over whether governmental policies themselves have been a factor in rising costs and prices.
The consensus among public-policy analysts of all stripes is that state support — or the lack thereof — has played an important role in the rapid growth of public-sector tuitions. The pattern is clear: In each of the last four national recessions, dating back to the 1970s, public tuitions spiked upward as states cut back higher-education appropriations. That would not be worrisome if states had increased their student-aid programs accordingly, but most have not. In fact, student aid is often the first victim of state budget cuts. So the price of tuition, even when student aid is taken into account, has risen sharply. (A nettlesome question is why public-sector tuition increases have not slowed much when the economy is going well and state coffers fill up. The House committee recognized that issue, inserting a provision that calls on states to maintain certain levels of appropriations for higher education.)
Another long-term debate, which is much more contentious, is whether federal student aid has encouraged high tuitions and other student charges at both public and private institutions. William J. Bennett fanned the flames of that debate when he was U.S. secretary of education in the mid-1980s. Painting with a broad brush, he asserted that student aid and rising tuitions were like a dog chasing its tail. Today there is general agreement on one point — that proprietary schools tend to charge tuitions that match federal grant and loan limits — but opinion is split about whether aid availability has affected prices at nonprofit institutions.
At one end of the spectrum are people who agree with the Bennett hypothesis that higher tuitions are the consequence of increased demand spurred by more aid. At the other end are the many policy analysts and lobbyists who for years have repeated the mantra that no causal relationship has been proved between student aid and tuition increases. Their corollary is that nothing useful would come of government getting involved in the process of setting tuition at either public or private institutions.
But the story is more complicated and nuanced. Although no causal relationship has been proved between aid and prices, there is obviously some correlation between aid and tuition increases — at least for federal student loans. Ironically, many people who make the argument that student-aid availability has had no effect on tuition would readily concede that federal tax deductions for real-estate taxes and mortgage interest drive up the prices of houses. Looked at another way, imagine what housing prices would be today if mortgages did not exist. The same is undoubtedly true in higher education: Most colleges could not charge what they are charging for tuition and other expenses if loans were not available to pick up much of the slack.
Indeed, since 1980, federal student-loan volume has grown tenfold in constant dollars, while tuitions have increased, on average, at more than double the rate of inflation. But the connection is much less clear for Pell Grants — support for such grants has not grown at nearly the rate of loan volume, and the maximum award has not nearly kept pace with tuition and fee increases for a long time.
Another reason to believe that loans are a far greater factor than grants in the run-up of tuitions is that eligibility for federal loans is a function of a student’s total cost of attendance while Pell Grant eligibility is not — price plays little or no role in determining the size of the grant. Loans also clearly influence how tuition is set based on where they fit into the process. They are the last piece in the aid-package puzzle — what makes up the difference between the sticker price and the other resources available to the student. What loans do not cover, the institution must provide in the form of a discount if the student is to attend. Finally, many more students borrow than receive government grants. That also helps explain the meteoric rise of private loans in the past decade, especially at higher-priced private institutions where private-loan usage is higher, as annual federal student-loan limits are now set too low to pay for rising student charges.
It is simply hard to imagine that many institutions in this country could have raised their tuition as much as they have if student loans had not been available to help students and their families fill the gap and pay the higher prices. While some well-endowed private institutions like Harvard and Princeton Universities and leading public institutions like the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina have now declared a moratorium on borrowing for students with family incomes below a certain level, most institutions don’t have endowments or wealth sufficient to cover such large discounts for a sizable portion of their student body.
Given the role that loans seem to be playing in college prices, will the House committee’s proposal to shame institutions with the highest price increases really make a difference in holding down tuition? Probably not, for several reasons.
For one, some institutions will respond by reducing their discounts to students to keep their tuition increases down, while others may shift their biggest percentage increases to living expenses that would not be monitored under the proposal. And as already noted in the news media, most of the colleges with the highest tuition levels would not even have the federal spotlight shine on them because their endowments allow them to keep tuition increases low and help them provide more aid.
Nor is the proposal to require institutions with the highest tuition increases to set up cost-cutting committees likely to do much good. The amount that colleges spend for each student generally does not correlate with tuition increases over time. The evidence and logic suggest that college pricing decisions are more a function of market forces or revenue effects, like the amount of state support that institutions receive or the growth of their endowments.
If Congress were serious about slowing tuition increases, it could do what it did when tuition tax credits were introduced a decade ago and tuition inflation was already a big concern. As with tax credits, it could limit loan eligibility to a percentage of tuition — say half — so that most institutions would feel more obliged to provide discounts to the students they wanted most to enroll, rather than force those students and their families to borrow more.
Congress could also limit the amount of living expenses that students can borrow to a standard level. That would curb the practice in which the federal government subsidizes lifestyle choices — a single dorm room rather than a double, for instance — because eligibility for the federal payment of in-school interest expands to reflect the higher charges. It could also limit the extent to which distance learners and students living at home are able to borrow fairly large amounts of subsidized loans to pay for living expenses unrelated to their attendance in college courses. Congress should scrutinize that practice as it searches for ways to help brake runaway tuition charges.
Like many regulatory efforts, the House committee’s proposal may miss its target if enacted in its present form, as institutions figure out ways to avoid its consequences. As the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act finally wends its way toward passage, let’s hope that Congress will instead decide to make a real impact on spiraling tuition by changing ineffective policies — rather than settle for simply waving a flashlight at a serious and chronic problem.
Arthur M. Hauptman is a public-policy consultant who specializes in issues of higher-education finance.
Copyright © 2008 by The Chronicle of Higher Education