Tranquility

Tranquility
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Friday, August 9, 2013

Why expensive tuition will undermine graduate education and research at Howard University

Students go to graduate school to pursue areas of interest in a specific discipline .   They also serve another important role: helping to expand the boundaries of knowledge through research as it relates to a particular professor (especially the doctorate degree).  The time to doctorate is generally 5-7 years meaning that there must be committed resources to support a full-time student.

Since approximately 2008, the tuition has increased at a rate of 15% per year.  In the last year the rate of tuition increase was reduced to 5%.  For comparison, in the fall 2007-2008 graduate tuition per semester was 8,087.50 or about $16, 167 per year. The part-time per credit hour rate was $551.00.   Currently tuition is 15,272 per semester or $30, 545 per year.  The part-time per credit hour rate was $1700.00.  This is nearly a doubling of tuition rates in 6 years and more than a tripling of the per credit hour rate.  It there anything else in the economy that has doubled or tripled in price in 6 years ????  Gold, gas prices (maybe)...  

Given the large percentage of minority students at Howard University, and the fact that only 25-30% of student receive graduate support (teaching assistant, research assistant, fellowship, tuition remission) how would these students pay tuition and also support themselves in one of the most expensive cities in the country?  Loans or full-time work while going to graduate school.  That solution means high debt after graduating or longer times to graduation because of working.  It also makes it difficult for the faculty member working with someone who is working full time to get research done in a timely manner.  It also puts too much stress on the student.

But the problem for faculty goes even deeper:  how do we get the same amount of research done with few students that we can fund?  This is a point that the leadership clearly does not understand.  You can bring in new faculty members but they still have to teach and they need graduate students to help them for specific projects.  Funding 3 students with an average $23,000 stipend in Washington DC is approximately $200,000 per year when you add in fringe and indirect cost on the stipend.  This is a million for 5 years. Really???? At the beginning of their graduate student education these students must take classes, pass their PhD qualifying exam, and put together a dissertation proposal.  So essentially the first year and at least part of the second year only minimal research can be accomplished with new students.  It is a gamble because the students may take interest in something else, not do well in classes or not pass their exam the first time.  So research productivity is marginal during the first 2 years.

The apparent solution is to hire a postdoc who has already finished their degree and is focused on research only.  The math works out:  A typical postdoc will cost 55,000-60,000 in the DC metro area but their fringe benefits are higher and indirect cost turn out to be closer to 100,000 per year as compared to 70,000 for a graduate student.  However a postdoc is definitely more productive spending all of their time on focused research, and postdocs are typically hired for 2 or 3 years.  They make it more likely for you to get published and compete for future funding.  The problem is workforce development.  The graduate student develops a niche under a professor-- a postdoc already has a niche .  Graduate students are expected to become future professors, researchers and innovators and eventually distinguished alumni.  These students make the reputation for the institution.  In some areas like the physical sciences, minority PhDs make up less than 5% of the discipline with doctorate degrees; their presence is needed for the changing demographics of the United States.

So faculty members are faced with a choice of either funding fewer graduate students, or funding postdocs.  If you want to focus on research -- fund the postdocs.  If you want to strengthen graduate education, fund the students.  Seems easy.  But the poor research infrastructure (physical) and processes associated with research (on-boarding,  purchasing....) makes research and supporting students/postdoc very difficult at Howard while shifting most of the burden onto the faculty member.  

So some faculty just give up and stop research altogether or limit their research.  Two years ago while sitting on the graduate advisory committee, I suggested that we reverse the tuition trend and take the tuition back to the 2011 rate or even lower if we could.  I have not seen where the increasing tuition revenue has gone into the infrastructure or benefited the students.  In fact given our funding model at Howard, higher tuition essentially reduces the numbers of teaching assistants and tuition remissions adding further pressure to a weak system of funding graduate education.

The University's Tuition and Rates Committee (TRAC), which is supposed to be made up of faculty, staff, students and administrators (www.howard.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/20130131-BoardApprovesTuitionRatesforGraduateProfessionalPrograms.html), but only had deans on it this year has reduced the rate of tuition increases at Howard.  However, this committee which needs to have its full composition, must consider the full implications of the current and future tuition rates.... 

  • Fewer students who can no longer afford to come to Howard for graduate education.
  • Students who take longer to complete the doctorate degree.
  • High debt burden for graduate students.
  • Fewer students undertaking research at Howard; Reduced ability by faculty to support more students on grants because of tuition costs.
  • Less productivity from faculty who support fewer students.
  • Fewer PhD Alumni from Howard University. 
The goal should be to make graduate education as cheap as possible, helping to increase Howard's innovative and discovery driven research by faculty and students thereby increasing research revenue to the university.  The revenue should not be sought through tuition!!