WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite stated public policy goals meant to help low-income and first-generation college students go to college, certain policies hurt the very students they were meant to help because of the way they are implemented.
That was one of the key points made Thursday at the New America Foundation during a panel discussion titled “Funding Public Higher Education Post-Stimulus.”
The criticism wasn’t an indictment of the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which provided some $8.3 billion over three years to higher education institutions throughout the country.
Rather, the criticism was more directed at the flexibility the federal government granted to states under the Recovery Act that was used in ways that had side effects, which adversely impacted those who need help the most.
As a case in point, panelist Dr. Stephen Jordan, president of Metropolitan State College of Denver, told of how the state of Colorado—upon receiving Recovery Act funds—dropped down funding to institutions of higher learning to 2005-2006 levels as federally allowed without regard to enrollment levels at various institutions.
Jordan said that decision hurt institutions such as Metropolitan State College of Denver, which had higher levels of enrollment at the time, due almost, if not entirely, to greater enrollment among low-income students of color, while other institutions had lower enrollment and thus ended up with more money per student.
“The very institutions where we ought to be making investments to achieve our stated public goals, we’re actually disadvantaging them compared to research universities,” Jordan said.
