In his second Op-Ed to the Post, Student Senate President Carl Edward Smith outlines his plan to respond to tuition hikes.
A New Economic Reality: Strategic Counter-Enrollment
This letter continues from my previous letter pertaining to Budget Planning Council votes held in absence of student leader members. What follows — though long — is a procedure I believe may ensure student leaders are included in the voting of tuition increases by the Budget Planning Council, and that those votes actually matter:
To begin, words cannot capture Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate’s frustration with the Board’s decision to raise tuition. However, to fault individual Board members or administrators is a mistake. Every decision by the Board to extract more debt from middle class families is both legitimated and necessitated by mirrored decisions at other regional peer institutions. Because Miami, Kent and Akron raise their tuition rates, so can we without steering away students, and because Miami, Kent, and Akron raise their tuition rates, so must we if we are to compete with the services and programs they offer students. The Boards of Miami, Kent, and Akron face mirrored challenges in their reasoning, and individual Board members and administrators at all universities are powerless against the ticking gears of centralized decision making in this network of interdependent institutions of higher education. Put simply, because any institution that does not take advantage of the market will lose out to the other competing schools, all institutions take advantage of the market — and the market is middle-class families.
With runaway tuition rates and the growing student debt bubble, what is needed in this broken system is a counter-institutional response. The ideal would be for lawmakers in Columbus to allow majority stakeholders at these institutions — middle-class students with growing student loan debt — to have a substantial number of legal decision-making seats on these governing Boards. As stated by our State Senator in Columbus, raising student tuition without representation by the students is no different than the British system of taxation without representation that Americans fought against long ago. As the State House reintroduces its bill to grant student trustees legal voting rights on the Boards, student government leaders will continue to remind our representatives in Columbus of the importance of this bill for middle-class families — this is the ideal long-run solution. However, bills take months and years to become law, and while the Boards continue to hike up tuition, a counter institutional response is desperately needed in the short run.
Institutions react to economic realities. Because of its importance, I will state this again: Institutions react to economic realities. Institutions also finance their operations by (1) expanding their membership base (increasing enrollment), and (2) increasing revenue generated off of each member (increasing tuition). An economic reality in the short run that may lift this institution out of its self-sustaining cycle is a decrease in its membership base. Any type of counter-institutional response to the 5.1% increase in tuition that causes more than a 5.1% decrease in enrollment will cause a net loss for the university because of its decision. What is more, if this response were institutionalized within a system of ongoing rules, it would create an economic reality where such decisions are no longer rational for the university administration.
I am introducing a resolution into the Student Senate that authorizes a multi-prong response to any tuition increase where democratically-elected student leaders on the Budget Planning Council do not approve. This response is known as strategic counter-enrollment, and the resolution outlines three steps: The first step is obtaining information on high priority prospective students who are likely future enrollees at Ohio University — per our request and in compliance with FERPA, we have already received a People Soft report with a list of high priority prospective student residential and email addresses from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Step one is complete.
The second step in the Resolution for Tuition Protection is the creation and distribution of media content that informs high priority prospective students of important information in their college enrollment decision — this information includes the rate of graduates who obtain employment in their degree field within three years of graduation from the university, as well as the student loan default rate for a particular school — for Ohio University, the first is very low, and the second very high. Dissemination would occur via email, social media, direct mail, and Student Senate members tasked with assisting tour guides in providing non-traditional information to tour groups. Step two is underway.
The final step is the allocation of any remaining student government accounts toward strategic counter-enrollment scholarships. Should student leaders on the Budget Planning Council not approve a future tuition increase, the remaining funds in Student Senate’s account (currently around $75,000) will be authorized to be distributed as $1,000 scholarships to any current Ohio University student who transfers to Miami, Kent, or Akron. Step three only requires majority vote at the next Student Senate meeting. Again, words cannot capture their frustration.
To reiterate, this procedure is designed to provide an economic disincentive for the university administration to increase tuition without approval by student leaders on the Budget Planning Council.
Carl Edward Smith III is the President of Graduate Student Senate at Ohio University.
