Opinions
COMMERCIAL EDITORIAL -- HIGHER EDUCATION COSTS ON THE RISE -- SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009 8:41 PM CDT
With the Arkansas lottery opening to more than $1.2 million in first day sales and payoffs of more than $760,000, college and university scholarships stand to gain big bucks from gambling, er, entertainment. However, the money cleared on Monday represents the cost of a scratch-off to the overall expense of higher education.
Educational progress faces major challenges that has nothing to do with the lottery. Sixteen states represented by the Southern Regional Education Board will account for most of the nation’s population growth in the next decade, noted Dave Spence, president of the SREB, with much of the growth among African-Americans and Hispanics, minorities who have traditionally been the least likely to enroll in and graduate from institutions of higher learning. Now there is progress worth celebrating.
Snapshots reflected in the SREB’s latest “Fact Book on Higher Education” reflect major changes facing higher education:
Arkansas’ population is expected to grow by 6 percent between 2009 and 2018, adding 168,600 to the 2020 census count.
The Hispanic population increase is the South’s major demographic trend, accounting for 43 percent of the entire population growth in the 16 states in the SREB region from 1998 to 2008. The Hispanic population of 153,700 accounted for 6 percent of the state’s residents in 2008, with 71 percent added since 1998.
By 2022, African-Americans and Hispanics will account for 51 percent of the public high school graduates. White students, who represented 60 percent of the high school graduates in 2005, are projected to be 43 percent in 2022.
The percentage of adults with high school diplomas or GED certificates has been rising steadily since 2000. In 2007, 81 percent of the adults age 25 and older in Arkansas had a diploma or GED, up from 75 percent in 2000.
The percentage of Arkansas adults with bachelor’s or higher degrees rose from 17 to 19 percent from 2000 to 2007. Among Arkansas’ adults, 20 percent of the whites, 12 percent of blacks and 8 percent of the Hispanic adults had bachelor’s or higher degrees.
Black and Hispanic students posted a 71 percent enrollment increase in the state’s colleges and universities during the decade ending in 2007.
More than ever, education pays. The average earning of an adult in the United States in 2007 was $46,000, according to the Census Bureau, compared to $121,300 for a professional degree, $95,800 for a doctoral degree, $70,600 for a master’s, $59,400 for as bachelor’s, $33,600 for a high school diploma or GED and $22,700 for less than a ninth grade education.
Women now represent 59 percent of Arkansas graduates with bachelor’s degrees, with African-Americans and Hispanics accounting for 27 percent of the increase in degrees earned in the state.
In 2008, the cost of one year attendance at a four-year public college or university — tuition, required fees, room and board — was 30 percent of the annual income for middle income households. For students from families in the lowest one-fifth of incomes, one year of college costs a staggering 131 percent of income — up 56 percent from 1988.
In Arkansas, tuition and fees totaled $5,700 annually, up 103 percent from 1998, requiring more than 80 percent of college freshmen in 2007 to obtain a financial aid grant and 44 percent to take out a loan.
Even with the lottery, education has become very expensive for many families.
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