College in N.C. becoming less affordable

An independent report on American higher education flunks North Carolina and all but one other state when it comes to affordability -- an embarrassing verdict that is unlikely to improve as the economy contracts.

The biennial study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which evaluates how well higher education is serving the public, handed out Fs for affordability to 49 states, up from 43 two years ago. Only California received a passing grade in the category, a C, thanks to its relatively inexpensive community colleges.

Former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt is chairman of the center's board of directors.

The report card uses a range of measurements to give states grades, from A to F, on the performance of their public and private colleges. The affordability grade is based on how much of the average family's income it costs to go to college.

In North Carolina, the study found that poor and working-class families must devote 32 percent of their income, even after financial aid, to pay for costs at two-year colleges.

Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC system's Board of Governors, said public higher education is still a good deal in North Carolina, but university leaders intend to pay attention to the challenges facing North Carolina families. The state this year provides $117 million for need-based financial aid.

"We are a bargain compared to other institutions; we're the lowest of our public peers almost every year," Gage said. "But the area we need to examine very closely is that North Carolinians' ability to pay may have changed. If middle-class income levels have flatlined over the last several years, it may have changed their ability to pay."

At UNC-Chapel Hill, officials are bothered by the report, which clumps private and public institutions together.

Shirley Ort, UNC-CH's director of scholarships and student aid, questions the report's methodology and points out that while tuition and fees have increased at her institution over the last several years, so too has aid -- perhaps most notably with the creation in 2004 of the Carolina Covenant program for low-income students.

"I think [the report] is vague and not particularly helpful," Ort said. "This is not Chapel Hill's story."

In other measurements, North Carolina earned:

- B-minus for preparing young people for college. The proportion of eighth-graders scoring well in math has almost tripled over the past 15 years, and the state is the top performer in enrolling high school students in upper level math. About three-fourths of high school students are taught by qualified teachers.

- D-plus for college participation. The likelihood of enrolling in college by age 19 has increased but still remains only "fair." A racial gap remains, with 35 percent of young black adults enrolled in college, compared with 41 percent of young whites.

- B-minus for college completion. Fifty-eight percent of college students complete a bachelor's degree within six years.

- C-plus for college benefits, based on the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees. Of black residents, only 16 percent have bachelor's, compared with 30 percent of whites. If all racial/ethnic groups had the same educational attainment and income, the total annual personal income in the state would rise by $18 billion.

Patrick Callan, the center's president, said the United States is at best standing still while other countries pass it in areas like college enrollment and completion. And as higher education fails to keep up with population growth, the specter lurks of new generations less educated than their Baby Boomer predecessors.

"The educational strength of the American population is in the group that's about to retire," Callan said. "In the rest of the world it's the group that's gone to college since 1990."

The full report is available at www.highereducation.org.