Press Release: "College Vs Unemployment" Paper Offers Ideas for the In-Coming Obama Administration’s Stimulus Package

CSHE > News > Press Release: "College Vs Unemployment" Paper Offers Ideas for the In-Coming Obama Administration’s Stimulus Package

November 24, 2008 – In forming his initial economic stimulus package, CSHE researcher and policy historian John Aubrey Douglass suggests that President-elect Obama and his economic advisers recall the largely successful and innovative efforts by the federal and state governments to avoid a projected steep post-World War II recession – in particular, the key role given to expanding access to and enrollment capacity of higher education.

Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns, he notes. Expanding higher education funding and enrollment capacity may be as important as any other policy lever to cope with an economic downturn, including funding for infrastructure. Yet most state and local governments are in the midst of wholesale cutting of their budgets. Some 75 percent of all students in the US are in public institutions. Feeling the effects of repeated cuts in budgets, many multi-campus public systems are threatening to cap or reduce enrollment despite growing demand.

Douglass asks if it, “Would it be smart to constrict access to higher education just when unemployment rates are potentially peaking?”

An exploratory Commission on Higher Education, not unlike what President Harry Truman formed in 1946, but with more urgency and possibly an initial budget, might provide a larger vision and contemplate a range of options. Short-term and immediate policies could include significant directed subsidization via state governments of their public higher education sectors; a large increasing in Federal Pell Grants for low-income students, a program already severely under-funded relative to demand; expanded resources for direct loans; the possibility of a one-time grant for middle-income students to attend a participating public or accredited private institution; for some targeted age groups, federal unemployment compensation could be tied to enrollment access to an accredited higher education institution; and support of public college and university building programs related to expanding enrollment capacity as part of any new infrastructure investment program.

Long-term goals should include an assessment of the overall health of the US’s still famous, but strained, higher education system and what national and state goals might be conjured. Globally, those nations that resort to uncoordinated and reactionary cutting of funding, and reductions in access, will find themselves at a disadvantage for dealing with impact of the worldwide recession, and will lose ground in the race to develop human capital suitable for the modern era.

Douglass also states that, “the post-World War II era economic stimulus efforts, which focused on a federal-state partnerships, might prove a more valuable source of inspiration for dealing with the current economic downturn then the more interventionist New Deal.”

Info on Author(s)

John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow – Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley. He is the author of The Conditions for Admissions: Access, Equity and the Social Contract of Public Universities (Stanford University Press) and writes about global trends in higher education.

CONTACT:
John Aubrey Douglass
douglass@berkeley.edu

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