Coleman reveals financial aid plan

Updated 10:00 AM March 07, 2005

Coleman reveals financial aid plan

Editor's note: President Mary Sue Coleman announced the M-PACT program at the Midwestern Regional Forum of the College Board, where she delivered a speech that explored the broad implications of university accessibility. What follows are brief, edited excerpts of that address, "The Public Purpose of Higher Education: A Priority at Risk."

For full text, go to http://www.umich.edu/pres/speeches/050228finaid.html.

"Higher education, especially public higher education, has long been seen as a door of opportunity for future generations. In the face of changing trends and market pressures we have become more of a private good than a public one. Today I want to propose to you that the country will be at great risk in the years ahead if higher education does not recommit to that public purpose."

"We know we have to encourage more young people to complete a college degree. Right now only 22 percent of Michigan adults have a B.A. degree or higher, well below the states whose economies are recovering and growing. The Cherry Commission report said that 'the troubling reality is that nearly all of the state's 9th-graders say they want to go on to college, but only 41 percent enroll directly out of high school, and ultimately, only 18 percent graduate with a bachelor's degree.'"

"Our country will have to ask more of its colleges and universities than ever before. And yet, for public higher education, state funding has suffered deep cuts as many states struggle to close serious budget gaps. If the current state budget proposal is enacted, the University of Michigan will have lost $50 million in appropriations in just three years. State support used to account for about 70 percent of the costs for undergraduate education at my university. Students paid for the other 30 percent with tuition. Now, four decades later, the sources of funding are completely reversed."

"What troubles me most is that college accessibility and affordability are at risk. We can see it in the income disparities on our campuses now; in the sometimes insurmountable barriers for low-income families as well as the squeeze on the middle class; in the amount of debt our students have to take on in order to complete their college degree; and in the data that show us there is considerable confusion and misunderstanding about the real costs of a college education today."

"The first step on our future path must be to strengthen academic preparation for college. None of us can solve this problem alone, but neither are any of us exempt from the responsibility. This country needs more college graduates, students who are prepared for college and who have confidence that a college degree is an achievable goal."

"We must also lower the real, and the perceived, financial barriers to a college education. Colleges and universities will have to direct more of their own resources to need-based financial aid. We have to reach out with special attention to our neediest students if we hope to achieve true economic diversity on our campuses. Tuition increases cannot simply translate dollar for dollar into more debt for our students."

"We need to focus on the affordability of a college education, and not simply on tuition. The stated tuition price, or as some say 'the sticker price,' is simply not the full measure of affordability. If we focus on the sticker price alone, we end up with a one-sided look at a multi-dimensional challenge—and the results can be misleading or sometimes just plain inaccurate."

"Lack of awareness and deeply-held perceptions lead to a troubling national challenge: Half of all college students fail to even apply for financial aid. Research suggests that 850,000 of those students likely would have qualified for a Pell grant."

"We are educators, and yet we are the cobbler's children when it comes to demystifying college cost. We have complicated webs of financial aid that confuse and inhibit students and their families. Although the barriers of cost are sometimes all too real, studies also show us that families have unrealistic fears of college expense which shut down the path to a college degree before it even begins."

"If we are to remain accessible in the years ahead, we also must make diversity on our campuses real. Eighteen months ago the University of Michigan won a major victory for higher education in this country. But that milestone ruling was the beginning of our hard work, not the end of it."

"Last year we experienced a significant decline in underrepresented minority applications and enrollment. So we redoubled our efforts this year. We asked our entire University family to help us extend a warm welcome to minority families in the face of this anxiety. We invited faculty, students and alumni to join us at recruiting events."

"And I have good news to report. Our total applications have increased about 13 percent this year, and our applications from underrepresented minority groups are up more than 14 percent. So far the trend for admitted students looks even better than that, so we are on the right track."

"I learned an important lesson first on the steps of the Supreme Court and again when I participated in this year's recruiting efforts. The power of our voice matters. Our personal outreach, our persistence, and our unwillingness to accept anything less than broad diversity on our campuses sends a strong signal in this country."

Coleman reveals financial aid plan

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