Lumina Foundation president Jamie Merisotis 鈥�86, Brown admission dean James Miller, policy expert Sandy Baum and economists David Feldman and Robert Archibald gathered at 乐播传媒 in fall 2011 to debunk the conventional wisdom that college costs are out of control.

Roger Williams Hall, photographed by Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College.

1. College costs are proportionate to the considerable benefits of a higher education, but schools need better measurements of learning. 鈥淲e need to shape the accountability movement rather than be shaped by it,鈥� Feldman said.

2. Systemic factors beyond the control of colleges drive costs. Similar to such industries as healthcare and legal services, higher education is delivered by highly educated/skilled professionals whose high salaries are determined by the market.

3. College degree-holders take home about 84 percent more compensation than non-degreed workers. Two-thirds of all positions created in the next decade will require at least a bachelor鈥檚.

4. Colleges spend huge sums on areas like travel, technology and financial aid to create a microcosm of the real world that their graduates will enter. Such expenditures don鈥檛 drive productivity, yet are essential to quality and value.

College Quote

鈥� Without a college degree, there鈥檚 a very good chance you鈥檙e going to be poor.鈥� 鈥� Lumina Foundation president Jamie Merisotis 鈥�86

College Facts

乐播传媒 accepted 25 percent of applicants this spring, a college record for selectivity.

Applicants base their essays on a part of the 乐播传媒 mission statement.

The Chronicle of Higher Education calls Clayton Spencer鈥檚 becoming president a 2011 鈥渂est鈥� moment.

The average principal of a 乐播传媒 student鈥檚 debt is $18,699 at graduation.

Of the CBB schools, only 乐播传媒 has a multifaith chaplaincy.

Merisotis is president of the Lumina Foundation, which works to increase access to higher education. In October at 乐播传媒, he moderated the college’s Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price and Financial Aid.

Jamie Merisotis '86, a 乐播传媒 trustee and a dedicated advocate for improved access to higher education, spoke at the 乐播传媒-hosted Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price, and Financial Aid in October.

Merisotis tells Times reporter Tamar Lewin that there seemed to be some consensus at the White House meeting that the federal government should develop policies on financial aid, its biggest tool, to spur a higher graduation rates.

reports that the White House meeting “appears to mark a shift in policy for the administration, which will focus more on college affordability in the coming months.”

Video clips of the five speakers at the Leadership Symposium on Cost, Value and Financial Aid at 乐播传媒 College.

• Watch the complete symposium.
• Read the news story about the symposium.

Nancy J. Cable, President

“It is my pleasure to introduce our chairperson for our symposium today, Jamie Merisotis ’86, long a champion of the idea that higher education enhances both society and individuals.”

Jamie Merisotis ’86

“The demand for people with increasing skills, knowledge and experience, as reflected in [college] degrees, is as high as it’s ever been.”

Robert Archibald

“The success of colleges in producing graduates who can do well in the labor market is part of the reason why college costs have gone up.”

David Feldman

“[Robert Archibald and I] are anti-catastrophists. We don’t tend to think that higher education is coming to a cliff and you are about to fall off of it. [But]…we know we are not perfect.”

Sandy Baum

“The headlines are about what will sell and capture attention, and not about what’s really accurate. It’s important to put numbers into context.”

Jane Bode Brown ’69

“We do a lot of work helping families apply for financial aid. It’s tremendously complicated, and there are a lot of misconceptions about how much aid is available.”

James Miller

“More families are concerned with outcomes than in any point in my career. What is the outcome of this four-year commitment? The confidence level of parents has dropped dramatically.”

The Leadership Symposium on Cost, Value and Financial Aid

Watch the full symposium.

Jamie Merisotis ’86, a 乐播传媒 trustee and a dedicated advocate for improved access to higher education, moderated the symposium.

Everyone knows the big story about higher education: The price of college is out of control. That story sets the tone for media coverage of higher education, and it’s the story that keeps parents awake at night.

And it’s wrong.

While the cost of higher education is certainly rising, a group of national leaders in higher education told an Oct. 29 gathering at 乐播传媒, that cost is neither inflated nor out of proportion with the considerable benefits of a higher education.

• View video clips featuring each symposium speaker.
• View the full symposium.

This was the message that dominated the Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price and Financial Aid, held at 乐播传媒 and co-hosted by Brown and Northeastern universities. Suggested by 乐播传媒 board chair Michael Bonney ’80 and convened by President Nancy J. Cable, the afternoon symposium brought some 100 education professionals to Perry Atrium.

Six national experts in college cost and admission issues addressed the symposium:

• Moderator Jamie Merisotis ’86, a 乐播传媒 trustee, longtime advocate for improving access to college and head of an organization dedicated to producing more college graduates;
• Robert Archibald and David Feldman, economists at the College of William and Mary and authors of the recent book ;
• Sandy Baum, professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College and adviser to the College Board, who gave an analysis of trends in cost and financial aid;
• Jane Bode Brown 鈥�69, vice president for enrollment management at Northeastern;
• and James S. Miller, dean of admission at Brown.

In his welcome, Merisotis sounded a note of urgency about the need to broaden access to higher education. “Today, the stakes have never been higher for our country in delivering the promise of an affordable, accessible higher education.”

The symposium filled Perry Atrium just hours before an Oct. 29-30 snowstorm stunned New England.

Demand for higher education is “dramatically higher,” he said, and the market’s demand for employees with degrees is greater than it has ever been. Degree-holders on average take home 84 percent more compensation than non-degreed workers, up from the 75 percent premium of a decade ago.

Two-thirds of all positions created in the next decade will require at least a bachelor’s degree. And today, without some kind of post-secondary credential, people are much more likely to be unemployed, and to make low wages when they are employed.

More than ever, Merisotis said, post-secondary education is not a guarantee, but “a prerequisite for entry into middle-class life in our country. To put it more starkly, without a college degree, there’s a very good chance you’re going to be poor.”

The benefits of a college education are just one part of the story that needs to be more forcefully told about access to higher education, the panelists agreed. Here are other highlights from the afternoon’s discussion:

College of William and Mary economists David Feldman, left, and Robert Archibald wrote the book “Why Does College Cost So Much?”

The “dysfunction narrative”

Summarizing their data and arguments from Why Does College Cost So Much?, Archibald and Feldman convincingly refuted the common wisdom that college costs are out of control, running away thanks to bloated administrations, effete tenured faculty and “country club” expectations of comfort and service — all of which the economists labeled as the “dysfunction narrative” usually cited in the media and by critics of education.

Instead, these increases result from systemic factors affecting other industries too — for example, health care and legal services — and the increases in educational cost parallel the increases in those fields. All of these services can be delivered only by highly educated, highly skilled professionals whose high salaries are determined by the market; and are fields in which productivity cannot be dramatically improved through technology, unlike in manufacturing. The latter illustrates the phenomenon called “cost disease,” where certain segments of the economy see costs rise as rising productivity in other segments forces prices down.

In addition, higher education is unique in that colleges and universities are obliged to prepare students for the real world by recreating that world in microcosm, incurring expenditures — from travel to technology to financial aid — that doesn’t directly drive productivity but is essential to quality.

Feldman and Archibald offered the concept of an “unholy trinity” or “iron triangle” that rules the college-cost equation. The three elements are tuition and fees, subsidies to schools (whether from government, endowment or gifts) and the quality of education — and you can’t change one without changing another. If subsidies drop, either you raise tuition or reduce quality.

Sandy Baum, professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College, makes a point while Jane Bode Brown ’69 of Northeastern University listens.

The income gap

Currently, about two-thirds of college students receive some sort of financial aid. As demand for higher education grows and the gulf in earnings widens between the richest Americans and everyone else, the resources to support aid will become scarcer and scarcer.

Miller and others pointed out that, despite the common wisdom that college costs are out of control, higher educational institutions are actually serving as a bulwark against the widening income gap: Especially for state schools hard-pressed by falling state appropriations, the rise in the college “sticker price” is driven largely by subsidies, in the form of grants or scholarships, for less affluent families.

The economic context that in past years made higher education seem like a given has changed drastically. As Miller pointed out, middle-class families formerly were able to use home equity to finance a college education because their retirement funds were solid. There were sometimes family financial reserves, such as an expected inheritance, that they could count on. “But all that’s gone,” he said. “The confidence level of parents has dropped dramatically.”

As Miller said, any other industry whose product was as much desired as higher education would follow the rule of supply and demand by raising prices. Instead, higher education is containing price increases.

Baum pointed out that, thanks to a shift in emphasis from need-based to merit-based aid (which favors families that have been able to give their children every advantage in college preparation), a considerable amount of aid is going to students who could afford to enroll without it. Even public institutions, she said, are “giving a lot of money to people who could do without it.”

She said, “We need to talk about whom we’re helping, how and why.”

The symposium on college costs brought about 100 leaders in higher education to 乐播传媒.

The wrong story

The panelists were clear that when the curtain goes up on the topic of access to college, the spotlight is usually on the wrong actors.

Despite the economic advantages conferred by a college degree, as Baum said, the media’s approach seems to be, “We found an unemployed college graduate and we’re going to write a story about him.”

Panelists agreed that higher education needs to take charge of the story. To defend both the costs and the sticker price of higher education, schools need to find a way to measure learning and produce data that make the case, rather than relying on storytelling to win hearts and minds. As David Feldman said, “we need to shape the accountability movement rather than be shaped by it.”

• Read the news story about the Leadership Symposium on Cost, Value and Financial Aid.
• View video clips of the featured speakers.

乐播传媒 College, in partnership with Brown University and Northeastern University, will host approximately 200 New England higher education leaders for a Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price and Financial Aid, featuring an array of national experts on these subjects, from noon to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29.

The symposium will include:

鈥� A keynote address by Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman, authors of the widely noted 2010 book Archibald and Feldman are faculty members at the College of William and Mary, where they teach in the economics and public policy departments. Both have published much research on the economics of higher education, in scholarly journals and for the general public.

鈥� An Update on National Trends in Student Financial Aid by , professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College and a senior policy analyst for the College Board. A sought-after expert who is frequently quoted in the national media and has testified before Senate and House committees on matters of higher education finance, Baum is the co-author of a number of publications for the College Board, including Trends in Student Aid, Trends in College Pricing, and Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society.

鈥� A panel discussion featuring Archibald, Feldman and Baum together with two leaders in college admission: ’69, vice president for enrollment management at Northeastern University; and , dean of admission at Brown University.

Serving as moderator and honorary chair of the event is , a 1986 乐播传媒 graduate and current member of the 乐播传媒 board of trustees who is president and chief executive officer of the Lumina Foundation, the nation’s largest foundation dedicated exclusively to increasing students’ access to and success in post-secondary education.

While the symposium is not a public event, it is open to news coverage. Proceedings will also be posted on the 乐播传媒 website following the conference.

, president of 乐播传媒 and a higher education leader for three decades at top liberal arts and sciences colleges and universities, said, “We’re excited that the nation’s leading experts in cost, price and financial aid will be at 乐播传媒 for this event.

“The public has a right to be told accurately what various colleges are charging and why,” she added. “The symposium is intended to help participants think together about cost and value questions the public is deeply interested in, as well as how to most meaningfully present the answers, which usually are not simple or easy.

“For instance, it’s very important to understand the difference between cost and price in higher education.

“In highly selective colleges and universities, which are experiencing ever-increasing public demand for the education they offer, price is directly related to the ability of the institution to create a community that is as diverse in every way as the world its students will enter and help lead; and on the institution’s ability to provide a top-quality faculty.

“The financial cost to the institution of creating and maintaining such communities is very high. But not everyone in such communities pays the same price for the product. Those who can afford to pay full price help make possible financial aid for those who cannot. Yet all benefit equally from the resulting community of great diversity and talent. And without that benefit, you would not have the same quality of education.

“The cost of top-quality higher education is also about investing in an appreciating asset that is highly respected worldwide.

“We hope participants in this symposium will share the discussion here with their counterparts in other colleges and universities outside New England, helping spread the benefits nationwide.”