The big divide between rich and poor colleges

COMMENTARY As the Occupy protest movement highlighted, the gulf between the rich and poor in this country is enormous and continuing to grow. You can find the same phenomenon happening on college campuses between the elite universities and everybody else.

The Ivy League institutions and the other highly selective private universities continue to spend staggering amounts of money on their campuses, while declining to open their doors to additional students who could benefit from these platinum-plated educations. These institutions continue to be exclusive playgrounds for largely wealthy student bodies.

In contrast, state schools are coping with less money while they try to accommodate growing numbers of students. Public institutions, which enroll the most students, spend the least on their students' education.

The rich vs. poor divide

The Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability documents this sad reality in a report entitled Trends in College Spending 1999 - 2009.

"Disparities between rich and poor institutions in overall spending levels have never been larger," the report states. "The 'new money' coming into higher education is coming from either student tuitions or user fees. Rich institutions are getting richer and poor institutions are getting poorer."

Private research institutions have set the spending bar so high, the report notes, that it "will be almost impossible for public institutions to compete with them on the basis of resources and reputation." In fact, with state budget difficulties, the problem is likely to worsen.

The largest majority of students attend public colleges and universities that spend about $10,000 per full-time student, which is about what high schools and elementary schools spend.

In contrast, private research universities devote more than $35,000 per student, which is vastly ahead of all other categories, including other private institutions. Private colleges, for instance, spend more than $20,000 per student.

Tuition at public research universities rose 56% or $2,486 during the decade while tuition at private universities rose 32% for an average increase of $7,380.

Ironically, the area where public institutions are outspending their private peers is in employee benefits, which isn't helping students at all. Benefit costs for full-time employees at public institutions is growing at 5% a year, which is two to three times greater than at private schools.

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