Forty years ago, 1974, the “Godfather Part II” was a hit in movie theaters, the cost of a first class stamp was a dime, President Ford granted a pardon to disgraced former President Nixon, and the Universal Product Code, aka the bar code, was first introduced.
That was also the year of the establishment of New York’s college financial aid program – the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).
The world has come a long way from the introduction of the bar code – smart phones, twitter and the Hubble telescope are testimonials to how much the world’s technology has changed since 1974.
The demographics of college students have changed, and continue to change, as well. There are more women and more non-whites attending college now. There are more students attending college than ever before, both full-time, but also part-time.
In recent years, there has been a faster growth in the enrollment of college students who are over the age of 25 than those between 18 and 24.
As the college student population has changed, so its financial aid needs to change too.
Unfortunately, instead of making college more affordable, state policies have made it less so.
A recent report found that state funding for public higher education in New York is down since 1991/92. The so-called “rational tuition” policy has jacked up the cost of tuition at public colleges by 19%.
Yet, at the same time, the ability of typical New York families to absorb these costs has been limited. A recent survey found that income growth from 1979 through 2011 showed that the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers saw an income growth of 240%, while the bottom 99% saw an income growth of only 8.5%. Moreover, the lower the income, the more stagnant the wages.
This combination has eroded college affordability: stagnating state support plus rising tuition that outpaces family income growth has resulted in rising debt for college students. For example, 60 percent of New York college graduates now carry debt loads that exceed $26,000.
Ensuring that TAP offers financial aid to those students most in need as well as ensuring that the program is adapting to the changing demographics of New York’s college student body are important reforms that should be put in place this year.
TAP at 40 has a lot to brag about: it has helped make a college education possible for millions of New York students. Yet, it hasn’t sufficiently changed with the times. TAP should cover more of the cost of tuition for those who qualify, and be flexible enough to meet the needs of all types of New Yorkers , not just the “traditional” straight-from-high-school-to-college full-time student that it was initially designed to serve.
A good first step in the reform of TAP is to address the unfairness facing the children of undocumented immigrants.
In 2002, then-Governor Pataki and the legislature agreed to grant undocumented students access to in-state tuition rates. Moreover, in most instances these college-ready students have gone through the state’s K-12 educational system—representing a significant investment in their education.
Yet the state denies these students eligibility to the state’s TAP assistance. What is the logic of that? Allow in-state public college tuition while denying financial assistance is simply indefensible. This fundamental unfairness must be ended in the upcoming legislative session.
It has been estimated that the overall cost of making this change would be less than $20 million. The Office of the State Comptroller estimates that 8,300 undocumented students attended public higher educational institutions in 2012.
Helping all of New York’s students to be eligible for college aid is simply the right thing to do.
That’s all for now. I’ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week.