Thread by @saragoldrickrab, Read this piece Private universities only look like “solutions” or “saviors” of [...]

Read this piece

Private universities only look like “solutions” or “saviors” of low-income students because we have systematically disadvantaged the publics through austerity. See not only Harvard but SNHU and the like.

Biden is right to focus investment on publics/MSIs. https://twitter.com/james_s_murphy/status/1355908340514222080

https://twitter.com/james_s_murphy/status/1355908340514222080

We cannot proclaim to have anti-racist commitments and ignore the many ways that funding “choice” neither makes college affordable for low-income students nor advances the college prospects for the majority.

We should fund high quality public & MSI higher ed FIRST.

The fact that private institutions enroll some #RealCollege students - even the fact that some have higher grad rates— is irrelevant to this decision. Those statistics reflect the austerity imposed on publics to the benefits of privates.

If you are having trouble with this argument, I’d like you to ask yourself “What university am I thinking of when I think private? When I think public?”

I suspect you think of the most selective privates and publics. And that’s not the point.

Most publics are not flagships.

I’ve written a lot about the consequences of the choice/voucher-driven approach we now have to higher ed finance.

Notice that both the Pell and student loans are vouchers usable at any type of institution? That they fail to extract accountability for much of anything?

This was exactly the intention when privates argued (with the support of Milton Friedman) for a higher ed finance model that follows the student (consumer) rather than the institution. They win, it’s easier to maximize use of those dollars without public oversight. Publics lose.

Again, check your own assumptions. Are you feelings about this argument based on your own personal experience attending a private institution?

Notice that’s the experience held by most people in power.

That’s not evidence-driven decision making.

In k12 education we used to focus our support on publics, and understood the importance of compensatory funding.

That’s steadily been eroded. But it never existed in higher ed. We need to reinstate that in k12 and create it in higher ed.

Check out this piece I wrote (ironically) for a book I co-published with @AEI - this version is a preprint draft- find the final in “Rethinking Student Aid.”

https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/68200/Goldrick-Rab_Schudde_Stampen_AEI%20conference%20draft_Reinventing%20aid.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Two more things:

1. I’m not suggesting private colleges shouldn’t exist or do a bad job. I’m saying that public dollars should focus on public institutions.

2. Some argue public colleges *can’t* do a good job because they are public. I don’t buy that at all.

This thread is tightly connected to this earlier one

https://twitter.com/saragoldrickrab/status/1199682740402216960