BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Dr. Nicholas B. Dirks, president and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences, held a conversation earlier this week with two higher education experts about the current crises facing postsecondary institutions: rising tuition costs and student debt, decreased state and federal funding, an increased criticism of a humanities-centered education, and the value proposition of higher education.
Dr. Nicholas B. Dirks, president and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences.
Dirks was joined by Dr. Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which funds research and visual art preservation, and Dr. Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College at Columbia University and vice president for undergraduate education.
“Public universities and private universities all have very different kinds of funding allocations,” said Dirks. “But they’re all getting more expensive. All kinds of compromises are being made around what people would like to see, which is lower costs of tuition.”
But lowering tuition isn’t a simple task. As former provost, Fleming spoke at length about how tuition is the grease that spins the wheels of higher education.
“Most people don’t realize that financial aid is a line item in a budget, and it, like everything else, is funded by the same source: tuition,” said Fleming. “One of the only mechanisms you have to increase financial aid is to increase tuition. It’s a completely diabolical, upward spiral. I am prepared to call elite higher education a ‘luxury good,’ and we’re in this world where we want it to be accessible.”
Fleming added that, despite New York University’s $4 billion endowment, NYU’s annual budget is $6 billion for its downtown campus.
