'Big College,' big gouge

THE CALLER was simmering with rage. Was it something I said about abortion, the death penalty or health care?

No. He was outraged because I had dared say that, just because Princeton had raised its tuition to $38,000 a year, it didn't make it the best college in America, and what they were charging was obscene.

The caller was a hardworking dad drawn to the cachet of Princeton, including its huge price. I thought about him on Thursday when tens of thousands of college students took to the streets and blocked highways and destroyed property across the U.S. because, they say, they're not getting enough aid to pay for college and are often saddled with huge debts when they graduate.

It was a flashback to the Vietnam protests that erupted on campuses in the 1960s. But what was most curious at the protests was that the students had no chants or signs directed at the real culprits: what I call "Big College."

We all know how tobacco, drug and insurance companies acquire the tag "Big" in a very negative way. The perception that an industry has seemingly unchecked power against a helpless public is a vivid one. In each of these cases, the giant firms take a skewering from the public, politicians and the press.

Yet obscene college tuition hardly registers a blip on the outrage radar. Why is the anger of students and parents not directed toward those running America's colleges? They are the ones who've raised tuition way beyond the level of inflation and even acted like a cartel to keep out cheaper alternatives.

Analyst John Steele Gordon writing in Commentary magazine says, in the 1960s, he paid $2,200 a year to attend a first-rate public college. From the month he graduated to December 2009, inflation was more than 550 percent so tuition should have been around $12,500, but it's now $37,000.

How is that possible? Is Tony Soprano running many of these colleges?

There are at least three major reasons that this has happened.

Colleges know, as they raise prices, the public will pressure Congress and the states for more aid. They know people will scream that we have money for stealth bombers, but no money to help poor kids advance in college.

Second, like all good cartels, colleges have an enforcement mechanism. Steele points out that those who want to offer a much cheaper four-year college experience are kept out by accrediting agencies that require ever more facilities and libraries in order to get into the club.

The third reason colleges have been able to jack up their ridiculous prices is they are master marketeers. Big College doesn't have Joe Camel like Big Tobacco, but they have conditioned generations of young people to view college not as primarily an academic entity, but a place with a beautiful campus, hotel-like amenities in dorms and good teams.

Our kids have been sucked into this myth, and we parents are put on a guilt trip if we don't start saving as a child is being conceived for the right college.

Take heart - I do see some signs of pushback and sanity due to the current recession. A recent study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that 60 percent of people now see colleges as businesses more concerned with their bottom line than the education of students. About two-thirds believe colleges should use the federal stimulus money they get to lower tuition rather than use it on their operations.

In reviewing the study, the New York Times said a new kind of "misery index" is developing. A growing number of Americans view college as essential to success, but fewer believe it's affordable for the middle class.

I'm encouraged to see that more colleges are now offering a three-year course of study in some majors. Locally, Holy Family and Arcadia are engaging in this concept. America's community colleges are still a great value. Many students I teach at the Community College of Philadelphia tell me they're going to CCP for two years and then are off to a four-year school.

SADLY, Big College isn't going to give up easily. When asked about the public's growing call for lowering tuition and educating more Americans, Terry Hartle, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the American Council on Education, said, "It's nice to think we can have guns and butter, but it's not that easy. The public is not always right."

Remember this guy the next time you think about college and your child.

Teacher-turned-talk show host Dom Giordano is heard on WPHT/1210 AM. Contact him at askdomg@aol.com.