As I write my first blog installment, you may ask why the President of Fairfield University would be interested in starting a blog in the first place? It is my hope that we might begin a conversation about a matter that is of great concern to me, and one which I believe is of concern to everyone — education.
About 500 years ago, Jesuits got into the business of educating people almost by accident. The primary concern of St. Ignatius of Loyola was how to “help souls” as he would say. But how do you do that? The early Jesuits came to understand quite quickly that if you wanted to help people to realize their full potential, then you had to give them the tools. You had to teach them to read certainly, and to use their reason to analyze problems. You had to encourage them to pay attention to their own talents as they emerged, and you had to nurture those talents until they could be put to work in the world. In short, people need care given to them. We all need that, and education is an endeavor that requires genuine care above all else.
This is still true, but it seems to me that as a nation we may be failing our young people by not “caring” for them properly by providing them with the education they need. Certainly our public schools are overstressed. So many of our young men and women are not prepared by the public school system for further education. What can we do about that? Then of course there is the matter of a university education. The trends are quite worrying. The cost of higher education has increased by 439 percent since 1982, while the median family income has increased by only 147 percent. The result of this disparity has been predictable enough. According to one source, as many as 2.4 million students who were capable of attending a four-year college in this decade did not do so because of the cost.
With the economy in recession, I fear that this number will increase. At Fairfield we are doing what we can to increase our financial aid to students and to hold our costs down, but clearly we need fresh thinking about this problem and we need to engage as a community to reflect on how best to give our young people the quality education they deserve. Their education should equip them with not only the means to start a career but to contribute meaningfully to their professions and their communities. This is what I’ll be mulling over in this blog — this and other related matters — and I hope you’ll share your thoughts and ideas with me as we begin this important conversation.
The fact that tuition has gone up as it has is disturbing, especially as a father of a six year old. I think that the only immediate answer is to get students as much marketable experience as possible before graduation. One can only hope that a good bedrock of values will come with this experience. Perhaps this is where the conscious choice of mentors in the process is appropriate as it will add not just a set of skills but reinforce a set of values.
Looking forward to seeing more posts.
Comment by Tony Derbyshire — July 20th, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
This is the first time I have seen this blog and I think it is a good idea. As a member of the Class of 1961 and the father of four college graduates of Jesuit schools (in order, Fairfield, Georgegtown, Boston College and Holy Cross) I feel like an expert on the subject of college tuitions. At one point for a number of years I had three in college at the same time. It was interesting to me that each spring we recieved letters from each of three colleges telling us about the upcoming tuition increases far in excess of the then current rate of inflation. They were essentially the same letter on three different letterheads.
I have never had a satisfactory explantion as to why tuition has increased substantially more than inflation. When I attended Fairfield there were no federal loans, grants etc. to the average student coming directly from high school. The GI bill was a major exception but by and large there were no large scale loans and grants avaliable to students. It was normal for students to have summer and part time jobs to help pay for college. In my case I was fortunate to have a summer job in the Post Office. At the end of the summer I had enough money to pay for the first semester tuition and room and board. My parents took out a loan to pay the second semester. At the end of four years I had no debt.
At the risk being called a cynic my theory is that the complex system of loans and grant programs which emanated from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was seized upon by the colleges and universities as an opportunity to substanially raise their tuition and fees with a base guaranteed by the U.S. Government. Then they could expect the students and their parents to add to the pie. To steal a phrase from a famous patriot, “If this be treason make the most of it.” One illustration of my point. If one could locate a University brochure from the fifties it would make an interesting comparison to today’s. Particularly noteworthy was the small number of administrators in comparison to the present. In few of the discussions on tuition increases does one hear about why colleges have indulged in their gargantuan increases. There will come a time whan parents say,”Enough.” For my part I am reminded of that wonderful speech by Martin Luther King, jr. given during height of the civil rights movement, “Free at last.”
Comment by William E. Melahn, 61 — September 11th, 2009 @ 10:58 am