The Politics of Public College Tuition and

William R. Doyle

The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid

For many prospective college students and their families, the issues of tuition and financial aid are paramount in thinking about attending higher education (Immerwahr, 2000). The concern among the general public about the price of higher education has not gone unnoticed by elected officials (Immerwahr, 1999). Nearly 80% of college students in the United States attend a public institution (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). How much these students should pay for college has proved to be a perennial issue among state policy makers. Governors and state legislators have spent substantial amounts of political capital to affect the outcomes of the debate about how much students and families should pay to attend college (Carnevale & Fry, 2000).

The question that this study focuses on is not what the effects of changing tuition and financial aid are, but rather, why do levels of tuition and financial aid vary so much from state to state? To answer these questions, I begin with public institutions. I posit that decisions about public institution tuition and state financial aid are made at the state level by state policy makers. The question for this study is: To what extent do state policy makers' preferences affect levels of tuition and financial aid in the states?

This article is based in part on my dissertation. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my dissertation committee: Myra Strober, Mike Kirst, and Susanna Loeb. In addition, Jennifer Delaney, Nicole Kangas, Kathleen Burson, and Amita Chudgar all reviewed earlier drafts and provided helpful feedback. The author bears sole responsibility for the content of this article.

William R. Doyle is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.

The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 83, No. 5 (September/October) Copyright ? 2012 by The Ohio State University

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Despite the consensus among economists regarding the impact of price on attendance, and the amount of time and energy spent in the states to decide how much students and their families ought to pay for college, nothing approaching consensus has emerged from the states. For instance, in 2004 full-time tuition and required fees at public fouryear comprehensive institutions in Nevada totaled $2,477, while charges at the same type of institutions in Vermont amounted to $8,771 (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). While federal financial aid programs are administered in a similar fashion across all of the states, state student financial aid programs show as much variation as state tuition policy. For example, Illinois provides $924 in state grant aid per student, while South Dakota does not provide any state financial aid to its students (National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, 2005). This variation can be explained in part by several factors: A state's economy and the structure of its system of higher education certainly play a role in determining tuition and financial aid policies. But these factors have been shown to have only limited success in explaining the kinds of variation observed across states (Hearn et al., 1996; Lowry, 2001a; Nicholson-Crotty & Meier, 2003; Rusk & Leslie, 1978). The high levels of variation observed among states in the area of college affordability require a different kind of explanation.

If all states shared common goals in this area, then a framework that assumed some kind of common goal, such as maximizing attendance rates or institutional revenues, could be used. The variation in state policy could be attributed to a set of factors that enabled or limited the states' abilities to achieve this common goal. However, this type of analysis has had only limited success in explaining the differences among states (Lowry, 2001a). What remains to be understood about variations in policies on college affordability is not how state policy makers are achieving their goals, but rather, what are the goals of state policy makers?

I argue in this paper that policy makers' preferences are not uniform, and that all policy makers are interested in and have an influence on tuition and state financial aid. The influence of policy makers on state financial aid programs is straightforward--these are programs created via statutory authority and are typically run by a state-operated office. The influence of policy makers on institutions as they set tuition levels may be direct, as in Florida where legislators set tuition levels, or indirect, as in California where policy makers seek input into tuition at the University of California through the budget process (Richardson et al., 1999).

However, the literature on higher education politics and policy indicates that institutional interests are also not uniform (Berdahl, 1971;

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Glenny, 1959; Millett, 1984; Richardson et al., 1999; St. John, 1992). Tuition and financial aid policies, which are created through the joint efforts of institutions and policy makers, are also the target of prolonged and sometimes confrontational negotiations between these two groups. This study suggests that in particular, the interests of public and private institutions differ in specific ways that will impact tuition and financial aid policies.

Neither legislative preferences nor institutional preferences act in isolation. Instead, tuition and financial aid policy is set as a result of policy makers' actions in the context of the higher education institutions that are in their state. My hypothesis is that public tuition and state financial aid are determined through the interaction of policy makers' preferences and institutional influence. This is a hypothesis that has not yet been tested.

Literature Review

The policies of states differ in terms of how public and private institutions of higher education are financed (Lenth, 1993). In some states, appropriations are provided at a certain level and institutions are allowed to bring in revenues from all other sources as they see fit (St. John, 1992). In other states, policies are in place to fund a certain number of students or a certain percentage of overall costs. In still other states, policies limit revenue from other sources, particularly tuition (Richardson et al., 1999). In all cases, state decisions about the level of funding to provide to higher education and their degree of involvement in the process of collecting revenue translate into a direct effect of state policy on tuition and financial aid policy. Directly or indirectly, governors and legislators in all states have an effect on the net price of higher education for students (Lenth, 1993). This model of state policy making for tuition and financial aid policies will be developed more fully later in this paper.

There is voluminous literature on the process of policy setting within the states as well as the specifics of policy formation within higher education. This literature review is focused specifically on the handful of studies that have taken up the question of how state policy makers decide on tuition and financial aid levels. In particular, I discuss Rusk and Leslie's (1978) foundational study on the process of tuition setting. I then discuss Paulsen's (1991) study, which employed a similar supply and demand model for tuition setting. I next turn to the Hearn et al. (1996) study, which used a more recent dataset to analyze the correlates of tuition levels throughout the United States. Finally, I review two related studies which used similar datasets and diverging theoretical

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frameworks to attempt to explain variation in tuition and financial aid policies.

Rusk and Leslie's analysis of tuition prices in the states provides direct empirical support for the hypothesis that state decisions about the financing of higher education, particularly in the appropriations process, have a direct effect on tuitions charged (Rusk & Leslie, 1978; St. John, 1992). Their study is limited in that they assume a standard pricing model for higher education, assuming that higher education is a commodity like other goods. However, tuition levels are implicitly a decision about subsidy levels for higher education, and better models have been developed which take into account the political and economic characteristics of states.

Following Rusk and Leslie's analysis, Paulsen (1991) provides a fully specified supply and demand model for both public and private tuition. Paulsen suggests that tuition at public and private institutions is set jointly as a function of income and other economic conditions in combination with appropriations and the provision of financial aid. Paulsen argues that tuition is set similarly to the price of other goods--as a function of the quantity supplied and the amount demanded. Using nationallevel time series data, Paulsen estimates the parameters of these two systems of equations (one for publics, one for privates) using two-stage least squares. He finds that public tuition is driven by the availability of grants, the level of state appropriations, and is negatively related to enrollment. Paulsen's study is groundbreaking in several ways. First, as he notes, his study is among the very first to take up tuition as a dependent variable: "In spite of the plethora of inferential studies of enrollment, there have been very few inferential (rather than descriptive) statistical studies of tuition determination" (Paulsen, 1991, p. 350). Second, Paulsen was among the first to identify and attempt to overcome the endogeneity between tuition, appropriations, and enrollment.

Hearn et al.'s (1996) study of tuition and aid policies in the 50 states is the most comprehensive study to consider the question of how state contexts relate to policy outcomes in this area. The authors seek to show some "causally suggestive" associations, using generalized indicators that may shed light on the context in which student aid and tuition are set. They ask two broad questions: "In what ways are postsecondary financing policies associated with region, social and economic resources, and governance factors" and "Which of these state characteristics are most closely associated with postsecondary financing policy?" (Hearn et al., 1996, p. 252).

The authors' findings indicate that "region seemed to be the critical factor in the formation of state policies relating to tuition and student

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financial aid" (Hearn et al., 1996, p. 266). The authors acknowledge that region does not seem to be a concept that is a true causal factor and that other processes may be at work in states with geographical proximity. The authors argue, in short, that states are similar in a sufficient number of ways within regions to use region as an identifying concept (Hearn et al., 1996).

Hearn et al.'s study is a landmark in attempting to understand the context in which states set prices for higher education. Earlier studies suggest mostly economic reasons for the pricing of higher education. Hearn et al. are unique in creating a model that suggests that the values and preferences of those within the states are a key factor in setting tuition and financial aid policies. This aspect of their research, along with the inclusion of the organization of governance of higher education, makes this study and their model of tuition setting important (Hearn et al., 1996). Hearn et al. state the following regarding modeling tuition as a political process:

We would need to add variables concerned with the actual political processes and balances in each state (not simply variables concerned with the size of potentially competing interest groups); the nature of constitutional, bureaucratic and regulatory authority over education in the states; historical patterns in the states; and many more aspects of state contexts (1996, p. 247).

However, there may be a few of these variables that are critical in the process of setting tuition and would unmask the regional effect and provide better understanding of state-specific processes for setting tuition and financial aid. Understanding what these specific effects are would advance our knowledge in this field.

Lowry (2001b) takes up the question of the processes within each state that may affect tuition charges at colleges and universities. Lowry poses the problem of the setting of tuition at public colleges and universities as a principal-agent problem (Moe, 1984). He suggests that state policy makers, as the principals, wish to hold tuition and fees lower and keep university spending down. Administrators and faculty members, on the other hand, wish to raise tuition and fees and spend more on all activities. Trustees in Lowry's framework are the implementing agents, responsible for carrying out the wishes of the state policy makers (Lowry, 2001b).

The key influence on the policy making process, according to Lowry, is the degree to which policy makers have oversight to the decisions of administrators. Policy makers can gain oversight through one of several

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