2008 Woodie Awards
Guest Column: How to think about higher-ed funding
Jonathan Sachs
Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Opinion
How many times have you heard politicians claim to be the "education candidate"? It seems almost every candidate claims he or she is "the only choice for education" and, when in office, promises to do everything he or she can to "fully fund our public schools." But what does this really mean? Who are they promising to "fully fund"?
It's not college students, that's for sure: Our tuition keeps going up, we pay too much for textbooks and we cannot afford school repairs. The "education candidates" are the ones who work to fully fund K-12 public education. In fact, they do a fine job. Year in and year out, K-12 education is funded, new schools are built and the education in our state stays at the top of national rankings .
For the betterment of our university and the state of Maryland, it is crucial to make the option of coming to university attractive to the excellent minds already in the state and the ones coming from out of state. It is time for us to change the debate in the state House of Delegates from one that views college funding as an option to a necessity. Legislators should be encouraged to continue to fund K-12 education onto a higher education level, so that K-university is the education "model" that the state develops for funding.
The best example to juxtapose these two methods (K-12 and K-university) comes from my most recent testimony in Annapolis. Last week, I testified on behalf of the Tuition Cap and College Opportunity Act, which would require "the state to provide General Fund support for the University System of Maryland and Morgan State University to achieve 100 university of the Maryland Higher Education Commission funding guidelines by 2014; providing for a phase-in of increased General Fund support for the University System of Maryland and Morgan State University..." At that hearing, one senator asked me to find money in the state budget for higher education. Another senator explained how parents could simply save over the course of a student's life to be ready to pay for college.
These questions embody the problems with the current higher education debate in Annapolis. The first senator would never dream of cutting K-12 funding: There are unions, associations and voters actively involved. So, why does he throw the budget at us when we ask for affordability?
Why, when an elementary, middle or high school has one trailer functioning as a classroom, is there an outcry for additional school construction funds in the legislature, while the same legislators ignore us when we learn from an article in The Diamondback last Tuesday that our campus buildings need $620 million in deferred repairs?
In terms of saving for college, how can parents save for a total that they are unsure of due to rising tuition? Parents are often still struggling with their own student debt. Although parents do save for college, many of us find ourselves taking out additional loans every year to pay for inflated costs, anyway. The state needs to understand that we aren't looking for a giveaway, we're asking for predictability when it comes to the costs of college.
The debate in Annapolis must change from its current state to one of asking for a commitment to the continuation of the K-12 education that our state proudly funds. Rather than letting state officials "reward" our university with the occasional tuition freeze, we should be emphasizing the need for mandated funding, just like legislators do for K-12. We cannot allow our state's education to stop after high school; our university should be funded as an integral part of a full K-university education in the state of Maryland.
Jonathan Sachs is president of the College Democrats. He can be reached at president@umddemocrats.com.
It's not college students, that's for sure: Our tuition keeps going up, we pay too much for textbooks and we cannot afford school repairs. The "education candidates" are the ones who work to fully fund K-12 public education. In fact, they do a fine job. Year in and year out, K-12 education is funded, new schools are built and the education in our state stays at the top of national rankings .
For the betterment of our university and the state of Maryland, it is crucial to make the option of coming to university attractive to the excellent minds already in the state and the ones coming from out of state. It is time for us to change the debate in the state House of Delegates from one that views college funding as an option to a necessity. Legislators should be encouraged to continue to fund K-12 education onto a higher education level, so that K-university is the education "model" that the state develops for funding.
The best example to juxtapose these two methods (K-12 and K-university) comes from my most recent testimony in Annapolis. Last week, I testified on behalf of the Tuition Cap and College Opportunity Act, which would require "the state to provide General Fund support for the University System of Maryland and Morgan State University to achieve 100 university of the Maryland Higher Education Commission funding guidelines by 2014; providing for a phase-in of increased General Fund support for the University System of Maryland and Morgan State University..." At that hearing, one senator asked me to find money in the state budget for higher education. Another senator explained how parents could simply save over the course of a student's life to be ready to pay for college.
These questions embody the problems with the current higher education debate in Annapolis. The first senator would never dream of cutting K-12 funding: There are unions, associations and voters actively involved. So, why does he throw the budget at us when we ask for affordability?
Why, when an elementary, middle or high school has one trailer functioning as a classroom, is there an outcry for additional school construction funds in the legislature, while the same legislators ignore us when we learn from an article in The Diamondback last Tuesday that our campus buildings need $620 million in deferred repairs?
In terms of saving for college, how can parents save for a total that they are unsure of due to rising tuition? Parents are often still struggling with their own student debt. Although parents do save for college, many of us find ourselves taking out additional loans every year to pay for inflated costs, anyway. The state needs to understand that we aren't looking for a giveaway, we're asking for predictability when it comes to the costs of college.
The debate in Annapolis must change from its current state to one of asking for a commitment to the continuation of the K-12 education that our state proudly funds. Rather than letting state officials "reward" our university with the occasional tuition freeze, we should be emphasizing the need for mandated funding, just like legislators do for K-12. We cannot allow our state's education to stop after high school; our university should be funded as an integral part of a full K-university education in the state of Maryland.
Jonathan Sachs is president of the College Democrats. He can be reached at president@umddemocrats.com.
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