American universities at risk.

In the spring of 1996, I was the Rolf Sammet Guest Professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main in Germany. One afternoon, I accompanied one of the chemistry department s professors to a part of the city of Frankfurt called Sachsenhausen to enjoy Ebbelwoi, a German hard cider. As we sat in the sun, relaxing, the conversation turned to a comparison between life in America and Germany. After one too many glasses of Ebbelwoi, my companion asked me, “Do you realize that, on average, German universities are much superior to American ones?” After more sips of Ebbelwoi, I replied, “I agree fully with your assessment.” He smiled knowingly. After a pause, I added, “But I think you are asking the wrong question. What really matters is not the average, but rather the very top. In that regard, America has Germany completely beat.” My new friend became quite cross with me. In 1996, the facts were undeniable. The top American universities were regarded as among the very best in the world by the international community. This statement still has a ring of truth about it today. For example, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University annually ranks the top 500 universities in the world by a variety of measures of research productivity and quality. In 2011, the United States dominated the rankings with 8 universities in the top 10 and 17 in the top 20. This statistic was unchanged from the previous year. Additional proof of the high regard in which American universities are held throughout the world is seen in the number of applications from international students to attend these schools. About one-third of the students who leave their home country to travel elsewhere for higher education come to the US. Moreover, many of these foreign students are from the top of their classes back home. Given all of these factors, then how can I dare write that American universities are at risk? I claim that a deeper inspection shows a looming crisis, particularly for publicly supported institutions, based on a funding structure that is unsustainable. American universities derive their income from four major sources: 1) tuition collected from students; 2) direct government support; 3) indirect government support coming from overheads on research contracts and grants; and 4) investment returns on endowment, which comes from gifts. The proportions vary from one institution to another. They also depend on whether or not the university is public, such as the University of Michigan or the University of Wisconsin, or private, such as Stanford University or Harvard University. The distinction between a private and public institution is an important one, but it is getting increasingly blurred with the drop in contributions from states to their flagship universities and the rising reliance of almost all universities on federal funding. Recent trends and figures, in 2009 inflation-adjusted dollars, tell an alarming story about American higher education. In 1988, the average tuition and fees for a fouryear undergraduate degree at a public university were about $2800. By 2008, that number had climbed to roughly $6500, not including books or room and board, which is about a 130% increase in cost. During the same twenty-year period, the median income of Americans has been flat to slightly negative, and the amount of available federal aid for individual students has failed to keep pace with tuition hikes. Since 1992, the maximum amount available through government-subsidized student loans has remained at $23000 for a four-year undergraduate degree. Worse still, appropriations per full-time student have fallen sharply in many states. The University of California system serves as an example. In 2001– 2002, state funding for the university system was $4.37 billion; in 2011–2012, state funding is $2.44 billion despite the increased number of enrolled students. With the present difficult economic times, it is not obvious that this trend will be reversed. Moreover, there are limits to how much more costs, if any at all, can be recovered from increased acquisition of federal research projects. Limits also apply to philanthropic donations. No wonder then that some distinguished American educators are questioning if the business model for American higher education is broken. I join in expressing this concern. It is no surprise to discover that many American universities have tried to overcome these financial shortfalls by neglecting the maintenance of facilities, hiring more part-time faculty members, and raising tuition costs. At the same time, many students leave universities in deep debt which has been fueling a growing belief that the focus of a university education should be job preparation, not critical thinking for a lifetime of learning. Let s examine what drives the costs of higher education. It roughly costs a student twice as much to attend a private over a public research university. Here is an accounting of these costs for 2009 (Table 1): The total for a public institution is $15919, and $35956 for a private institution, again not accounting for the costs of room and board. [*] Prof. R. N. Zare Department of Chemistry Stanford University Stanford, California 94305-5080 (USA) . Angewandte Essays