This is the question that we asked in a recent policy
brief that was released through the Wisconsin
Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. This policy brief is
based on our prior work on cross-national higher education policy diffusion
that considered postsecondary enrollment
levels, completion
levels, and the
role of different types of tuition systems.
In our work, we
noticed that no nations with upfront tuition systems have gross graduation
rates above 50%. This is a concern because the US has adopted a goal “that by 2020, America would once again have the highest proportion of
college graduates in the world,” but the US uses an
upfront tuition system.
Johnstone
& Marcucci argue that user fees enable the expansion of postsecondary
systems due to the infusion of resources that student tuitions add into these
systems. However, it appears to us that there is an inconsistent rate of
expansion. Nations with upfront tuition systems are able to expand from elite
systems in which few students graduate from college to massified systems with between
15-50% gross graduation rates.
However, upfront tuition systems have a negative effect on
the expansion of gross graduation rates beyond the 50% threshold. Upfront
tuition systems place an emphasis on students enrolling, since payments are
collected at the time of matriculation. Under these systems funding incentives
are generally comparable for both new and continuing students. As long as
replacements can be found for dropouts, upfront tuition systems provide similar
incentives for systems that churn through many students, who attend but never
graduate, and systems that have students return year-by-year. Perhaps because
of the incentives inherent in upfront tuition systems, it appears that there is
a structural limitation of upfront tuition systems in expanding gross
graduation rates above the 50% threshold.
In our policy brief we considered tuition structures and
gross graduation rates for 37 nations. Nations with other models of higher
education funding – deferred, dual track, and no/only nominal tuition systems –
have all passed the 50% gross graduation rate threshold. If large upfront
tuition levels impede students from completing their degrees, then the structure
of an upfront payment system itself may depress college completion rates.
We think that discussions about college completion should
include discussions of the financing structure that is currently used in the
US. Importantly, we would like state and national policymakers, and
institutional leaders to consider the question, Can the US meet its college completion goals with the current tuition
structure?
