Welcome and Remarks
Commencement-St. Lawrence University
Daniel F. Sullivan-May 19, 2002
Colleagues and distinguished guests, faculty,
trustees, parents, friends and family of graduating seniors
and masters candidates, members of the wider St. Lawrence
family, and-most of all-graduating seniors and masters candidates,
whether you are summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude,
or "thank you Lordy," a very warm welcome to this,
the commencement ceremony of the Class of 2002.
A Bully Pulpit
One of the things a president gets to do on commencement, if he wants, is to
use this podium-briefly, I assure you-as a bully pulpit. I'm going to do
that today.
It is to state the obvious to say that the
complexity of today's world, and the likely even greater
complexity of our future, requires an ever-more-educated
population to forge a viable, sustainable, way of life for
the peoples of the world. So it is not just on the grounds
of equity (though that should be enough), but also on grounds
of economic and quality of life self-interest, that we, the
richest society in the world, should make it possible for
people of equal ability to attain equal levels of education,
regardless of family income or race.
Alas, despite the efforts of colleges and
universities and the establishment of major programs of student
aid at the federal level and in most states, there remain
in America today highly unequal probabilities that students
of equal ability, but of different family incomes and races,
will attend and complete college. Here is a very stark comparison:
in our country, "only one-quarter of high-ability, low-income
high-school graduates ever enroll in higher education. By
comparison, nearly two-thirds of low-ability, high-income
high-school graduates go on to college, mostly to state-subsidized
schools." These differences in access to college are,
of course, worse when one brings race into the picture: black,
Hispanic, and Native-American high-ability students of low-income
are even less likely to attend college.
Senator Ron Stafford, St. Lawrence Class of
1957, St. Lawrence trustee, parent of a graduating senior,
Chair of the New York State Senate Finance Committee, and
author over 25 years ago of the legislation that provides
need-based aid to students in our state-New York's Tuition
Assistance Program-knows where this is going, because we
talk about these issues together. He gets it, and has always
gotten it.
While there are indeed federal and state programs
of need-based financial aid for college students, nationally
over 90% of state funding for higher education goes to institutions,
not students. In return, these public institutions agree
to keep tuition low for all. As the New York Times said in
an editorial on May 5: "The bedrock of [our nation's
approach to helping students finance college] was a dual
system: state legislatures subsidized public universities
to keep tuition low, while the poorest students could get
federal Pell Grants that largely covered the remaining costs."
And there is the rub. A policy of providing
low across-the-board public college and university tuition
is a very blunt instrument: it leads to "large subsidies
to students from middle-and high-income families, too little
education for youths from low-income families, lower quality
of education, and wasted public funds." Think about
these facts for a moment. In all states in which the research
has been done, including New York, the median family income
of students attending state colleges and universities is
higher than the median family income of students attending
private colleges and universities. As Jenny Wahl, an economist
at Carleton College in Minnesota, states: ". . . among
the most striking nationwide movements is the shift of middle-
and upper-income students to public universities, while private
colleges and two-year institutions enroll students from more
economically and socially diverse backgrounds."
This happens because the tuitions of low-income
students attending private colleges are heavily subsidized
by institutional, state, and federal need-based aid, bringing
the net cost to them close to that for attending a public
institution. With the cost difference reduced, research shows
that they differentially choose to attend private institutions
because they believe they are of higher quality. It is high-income
families that benefit most from the subsidized low public
sector tuition, and so students from those families take
advantage of that subsidy to attend public institutions at
higher rates.
We also know from research that "low-income
families are quite sensitive to the net price of higher education
whereas middle- and higher-income families are [much less
so]." The conclusion economists of higher education
draw from this is that income-sensitive public college and
university tuition, not today's low across-the-board public
college and university tuition, coupled with substantial
need-based financial aid-lowering even further the cost of
attendance at college for low-income students-would increase
the rates of college attendance by low-income students without
decreasing the attendance of middle- and upper-income students.
A consequence of this change in approach is
that public and private institutions would compete more with
each other for students on the basis of relative quality,
effectiveness and efficiency, and less on the basis of price.
This competition would be healthy, for it would focus college
and university leadership squarely on the issue of improving
quality.
So why, you may be asking, is a private college
president in his bully pulpit on the issue of public college
and university tuition? It's because I care deeply about
the inequality of access to higher education by family income
and race that I mentioned at the very beginning, and it's
because I do not believe that the independent actions of
private universities like St. Lawrence can overcome the powerful
effects of our national system of higher education subsidies
to effect a national, and not just local-that is, particular
to our own institution-solution. Almost 80% of four-year
college enrollment in America is in public institutions.
If financing policy doesn't change there, private colleges
acting independently cannot change the system, and there
will continue to be huge inequalities in the probability
of attending college by family income and race.
St. Lawrence works hard to provide access
to students from low-income families. You graduating seniors
are a far more diverse group than I suspect you imagine when
it comes to family income. Roughly 80% of you have received
grant aid from St. Lawrence. When you came to St. Lawrence,
the federal financial aid analysis indicated to us that almost
45% of you could not be expected to make a family financial
contribution toward your education greater than $5,000, excluding
what you might borrow or what you might earn at a job while
in college.
Because of the size of our endowment and our
fund raising success, the average St. Lawrence student today
receives a subsidy in excess of $22,000 per year-that is,
we spend on our students $22,000 per year more than the average
student pays us to attend. For students who receive no financial
aid from St. Lawrence, the subsidy is still in the range
of $10,000. This subsidy has been growing in recent years
at a fast pace as our fund raising success has grown. Today,
the average student pays only about half what it costs us
to provide his or her education.
You may also be surprised to learn that at
St. Lawrence, the net tuition revenue per student as a percent
of U. S. median family income actually declined steadily
from 1990 to the present. That is not, of course, because
tuition didn't increase! It was because of our efforts to
improve access to St. Lawrence for students from low-income
families. St. Lawrence students' median family incomes actually
fell by 10% in real terms over that period. The median family
income of St. Lawrence students is today exactly at the median
for national selective private colleges.
I believe we are doing our share. Indeed,
students at St. Lawrence this year received over $25 million
in institutionally-funded grant aid to help make it possible
for students from financially needy families to attend. We
must continue to do our share. That is the only responsible
thing to do.
But I'm raising this issue today because I
hope you graduates and your families will join me in advocating
for a fundamental shift in the way states help students finance
a college education. The unnecessary and inefficient tuition
subsidy of middle and high-income students at public colleges
and universities wastes taxpayer effort that could be far
more effectively used to further subsidize low-income students,
increasing the probability that they will attend college-an
enormous, broadly shared, public good. Savings could also
be used to improve the quality of public institutions, which
also would have powerful national benefits.
The New York Times editorial to which I referred
earlier got it partly right, recognizing the huge inequality
in college going among students with equal ability by family
income and race. But by failing to recognize the somewhat
counter-intuitive impact of low across-the-board public college
and university tuition, the editorial's public policy advice
badly misses the boat. We need income-sensitive public-sector
tuition and increased state- and federally-funded need-based
student aid to focus more public subsidy where it will have
the greatest impact-on students from low-income families
who have the ability to attend and succeed in college.
Thank you for letting me get this off my chest!
Conclusion
Let me now come back to our graduates. You
seniors were the second class recruited to come to St. Lawrence
on my watch, and the first for Terry Cowdrey, our Dean of
Admissions. You arrived on campus in August of 1998-eyes
filled with enthusiasm and promise, anxious to make your
way and find your place. I hope indeed that you have found
your place, that you will think of St. Lawrence as home throughout
your life no matter where you are and what you are doing,
and that you will come back home here many, many times in
the years to come.
You describe yourselves as a class with very
close bonds. That is surely how you look to me. Your commitments
to each other, your commitments to St. Lawrence, the way
you have helped us get better with your "loving criticism"-all
of these make you distinctive and very, very special. Your
hearts are big, your heads are full of thoughts, thoughtfulness
and, occasionally, mischief! You have been a true pleasure
to be around. I'm going to miss you guys a very great deal.
Thank you!
