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Pomp and Circumstances
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Business New Haven
11/25/2002
By: BNH
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With more college-age students in the population and less money to go around, the outlook for the state's private colleges is challenging Judith Grieman is president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges & Universities. She spoke with BNH about the issues facing the state's 16 independent college.
What does the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges do?
It's an association of the state's colleges. We do lobbying specifically for needs-based financial aid and more generally for higher ed policies. We also handle purchasing and, across the sector, areas of interest come together for programs to address issues and trends.
What are some of the issues facing independent colleges?
Our biggest issue is need-based financial aid. There are two need-based aid programs in the state: one for students going to public colleges and one for students going to independent colleges. They were both cut last year by 16 percent. This is a time where more students are eligible for aid, so that's not good. Our primary focus in the legislative session coming up will be need-based aid programs. Need-based is for students who have economic need as opposed to merit [aid], which is for students who excel academically but may be wealthy. Connecticut has traditionally not done a good job of funding need-based programs.
How is the economic downturn forcing colleges to rethink tuition and financial aid packages?
It's a serious issue on every campus. There are a few things going on on campuses. First, there are demographically more college-age students around. There's a little bubble of them going through the population. Second, there is the economic downturn where parents who could pay last year may have lost a job or saw their college savings shrink because of the market. So you have more students generally and more students with need. On top of that, we have seen college endowments suffer in the market. Most of the institutional aid - financial aid that institutions directly put up - comes through earnings on their endowments. It's difficult all around. I've been in touch with all of our financial aid directors and have talked to people nationally. We all see there are many more students eligible for aid and students coming from backgrounds that we've never seen these people asking for aid before.
How does that impact a college's budget?
If you're putting more into the aid pot at the college level, you're taking it from somewhere, whether it is an academic program or somewhere else. At the same time we have state programs cut. That program was even cut to students who had already been awarded packages. It's a tough time.
College must also be feeling financial pressure as a consequence of reduced giving from private sources and individuals who themselves have seen their portfolios disappear.
Certainly right after September 11, 2001, there was reduced giving, but I need to do a little bit more research into how we are doing right now. Certainly corporate giving is down, and if you look anecdotally, it's the same people who've lost money and are finding it hard to pay for college are also having a hard time maintaining their pledges.
Is it placing private schools at a competitive disadvantage to cheaper public schools?
I'd put it a different way. Students who go to our schools tend to graduate faster and they tend to be graduating in many of the cluster areas that Connecticut's economy needs, especially biotech and information technology. We've broken it down into economic clusters and within those clusters, the independent sector is doing more than 50 percent - and in some cases much more than 50 percent - of the degrees.
I was at Sacred Heart this morning and I listened to three students talk. They said, 'Sure, I could've gone to Central or UConn, but I wanted the environment that was here and I wanted the program that was here, and the other schools didn't have it.' They each talked about how they're going to graduate in four years. The public schools see a six-year graduation rate right now.You have to look at the full package. Whether you're getting out at the right time, whether you have the hands-on support that helps you to graduate on time, and whether the institutional aid is there to help put a package together and whether you going to end up with a program you need.
Is the traditional liberal-arts education under pressure from the forces of specialization?
When employers want people who work in the economic-development side of government, they want people to be graduating in what they call the 'right' degrees. You could say that's a workforce pressure. But they also say they want students who can think, who can adapt to change and who can work in teams. There are some of these softer, less-job specific skills that employers say they need students to be able to do, because no job is ever going to stay the same. That's where liberal-arts education comes in. As much as there are pressures around job training, there is really an understanding that students need to have these flexible thinking skills.
Aside from the most elite institutions such as Yale, what is the future for smaller, independent institutions of higher learning?
There have been a few very small colleges closing or merging here and there, though not in Connecticut. I think that every college, public or private, needs to have a good sense of what its mission is and who its market is. They need to know what kind of value they add to the community. If a college is able to do that and be nimble about it, they've got a good match.A good thing about my colleges is they are market-driven in terms of program. They can't put on a program that students aren't going to come to. They simply can't afford it and they're not going to get state subsidies to do that. So they need to have a keen sense of where the market's going, what jobs are out there, and they need to respond to that. If you're doing that, you're going to remain healthy. I'd say the private institutions in Connecticut are doing that on a regular basis. They have advisory committees and department-specific connections to the community so that they have a keen sense of what's happening here.
What to you do to get out-of-state students to come to Connecticut for higher education?
There have been a few different efforts that we've participated in. One, all of the colleges joined to hold fairs. We developed, in collaboration with the [state's] Department of Higher Education, a Web site called the Connecticut Mentor Site, which helps students understand Connecticut colleges. You can take tours online, you can apply online, you can say you went to a certain high school and describe the classes you took and it will tell you what else you need to take in high school. The financial aid programs are only for Connecticut students going to Connecticut colleges. That money can't be taken out of state, so that also helps students stay here.
And how do you get them to stay in Connecticut after graduation?
If somebody comes out with a degree in a sector where there is employment in Connecticut, there's a likelihood that they may stay. Most of our colleges are looking at experiential learning, or internships, and that gets you in touch with employers here, not at home. We also import a lot of students from out of state.
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