Higher Education Affordability and Concerns About the Rising Costs: Blaming Student Services is Not the Answer

Colleges and Universities play a key role in the development of future leaders and citizens. No corner of the campus should be excluded from the expectation that it contributes to the academic mission of the institution, and all of us who work in higher education must be dedicated to creating the highest quality educational experience for our students and in helping them matriculate to graduation. Learning occurs in classrooms and laboratories, but also in residence halls, student centers, on athletic fields, and online. If we diminish any aspect of our potential, we risk becoming a more fractured entity working at cross purposes, rather than functioning as one, united in our desire to be an exemplar for higher education in our world. We, in student affairs, need to be good partners with faculty and all of academic affairs to construct, provide and assess high impact learning experiences that are essential for the education of students as whole people.

When concerns about the cost or price of higher education in the United States are raised, student affairs is often cited as one of the reasons. While cost of delivering student affairs programs and services have increased in recent years, what is frequently missing in the discourse is an acknowledgement that societal trends, government regulatory action, and accountability concerns have been significant driving forces. Arguments about increasing student services’ costs often fail to acknowledge such issues as:  

• the after effects of  9/11;
• rapidly changing student demographics and increasingly individualized support needs;
• concerns about campus safety after campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois;
• a federal mandate for greater international student visa controls (SEVIS);  
• GI Bill changes resulting in much deserved additional benefits and support for veterans;
• challenging mental health issues  and concerns within the college student population;
• Title IX, the “Dear Colleague” letter and the Violence Against Women  act;  and
• increasing numbers of students seeking ADA accommodations. 

Despite these and other added expectations and requirements, the cost of student affairs on most college campuses still comprises a relatively small percentage of an institution’s operating budget. At most institutions, even draconian cuts to student affairs would not be enough to solve the affordability issue. No doubt, higher education in the United States of America is a costly enterprise, and greater efficiency is surely needed if we are to make a college education more affordable and attainable for more students, but we cannot simply ignore the forces that have resulted in rising student affairs expenses.

If higher education is to become more affordable, then the entire academy must be engaged in tackling this problem, and we must do so in ways that improve the quality of learning while increasing our value, affordability, and our accessibility to an increasingly diverse student population while maintaining and in many cases improving quality of service. An argument that rising student service expenses in higher education over the past couple of decades is a primary reason college has become less affordable is simply inadequate. The problem is far more complex.