Public Good or Private Benefit?

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Public Good or Private Benefit?

5/19/2004

By Terry Calhoun

In the broader world of higher education policy, finance, and decision-making, perhaps the hottest issue at the moment is whether state-supported higher education is a public good or a private benefit. As a public good, it's primarily seen as benefiting all of society, with everything from indirect spinoffs from having a highly-educated populace to the results of research conducted at public institutions, public funds. Those who view it as a private benefit point to the fact that access is still quite restricted to students who come from more affluent families. They also note that the individual students who get degrees derive substantial personal lifetime benefits from their education.

D'es this matter to IT professionals on campus? Maybe it really matters. Maybe it matters only a little. Even if it d'esn't really directly matter all that much, it is still useful to understand the terms of the debate going on near the top of the ivory towers, among the folks whose policies determine our institutions' strategic aims. I think it matters. I think the "public good" perspective is part of what has created such a unique IT culture in higher education institutions, even private ones. It's something I've given some thought to recently. I'd love to have more thoughts stimulated, please share your thoughts with me - terry.calhoun@scup.org!

First, let me share with you that I am one of those who sees higher education first and foremost as a public good. I'm a big fan of that bumper sticker which reads: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!" Don't get me wrong. I understand first-hand the private benefits of higher education: It's been more than 20 years since I have been inside the offices of a law firm other than as a client, but the Juris Doctor I earned from the University of Michigan Law School in 1980 is a credential that has opened many doors for me.

But the "private good" folks have been making headway in recent years. One indicator of that is that today's undergraduates are relying far more on loans (which they personally have to pay back) than in previous years, where outright grants were a more significant part of an undergraduate's tuition and fees portfolio. Another indicator is waning state funding for public colleges and universities. The University of Michigan, for example, now receives less than 10 percent of its funding from the state. Quite a few institutions are looking to make the move from public schools to private schools, perhaps led at the moment by the College of William & Mary and other Virginia schools.

For some good background on the ways public institutions are looking at new ways of doing business, including moving from state-supported, to state-assisted, to maybe even becoming private schools, check out this prophetic 24-page white paper New Forces and Realities: Making the Adjustment (PDF). The paragraph quoted below, in particular, made me think of a number of IT initiatives on various campuses and, in fact, in reading the monograph you will see that IT folks are a bit ahead of the curve in reacting to some of the "new forces and realities" that it refers to.