Is UMass Pricing Out Kids Like Joe Drury?

Is UMass Pricing Out Kids Like Joe Drury?

As the system's flagship school in Amherst becomes more expensive, more competitive, and acts more like a public Ivy, it's time to ask what happens to the mission of furthering the common good - and who'll get left behind?

By Lisa Prevost | December 11, 2005

GROWING UP IN PITTSFIELD, JOSEPH DRURY JR. never thought of himself as different. His father worked as a machinist at the General Electric defense systems plant; his mother juggled a home day-care business and evening waitress shifts. After his father lost his job in the massive layoffs of the late 1980s, the family struggled, but so did the families of most of Drury's friends. "Everyone I knew on a personal level went through some kind of hardship because of the layoffs," Drury says. Nothing about his circumstances felt particularly unusual - until Drury's first semester at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst three years ago.

During an Introduction to Economics class, the professor asked students to break into groups of five and talk about their families' economic backgrounds. "We went around the group, and I was shocked by what I heard," Drury says. "The first person said her family income was about $250,000 a year, and she thought they were middle class. The next person said something like $500,000." Nobody came in under $200,000. Drury, the last to speak, found himself trying to persuade the group that he wasn't exaggerating. "They didn't believe me when I said my family made less than $25,000 a year."

...

The working-class kid, once a staple of the UMass-Amherst undergraduate population, is becoming an oddity on a campus increasingly geared toward the affluent. Established in 1867 through federal educational land grants, UMass-Amherst has evolved over the years. It's gone from being a tiny agricultural college to a sprawling state university and reliable "safety" school to a major research institution that is the flagship of the state's five-campus university system. What began as an affordable ticket to a higher standard of living for anyone who was willing to work hard enough is now, according to a recent USA Today survey, the fifth most expensive of the country's 67 public flagship schools.

While tuition remains relatively low, steep increases in student fees (which cover everything from sports to health benefits to course fees) and room and board have put a UMass-Amherst education out of reach for many lower-income families. More than a decade of budget cuts has whittled the state's contribution from a hearty half to barely one-third of the university's total funds. Long among the stingiest states in per-student spending on public higher education, Massachusetts is effectively forcing its most prestigious teaching and research institution to rely more heavily on private fund-raising, student charges, and research dollars, putting it on the road to privatization.

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seems to have forgotten it's mission.

because it was waived for in-state veterans. The state also gave me a check for $300 while the feds GI Bill gave me $261/month for 48 months. Without those financial breaks this dude from Somerville would not have been able to afford college. I don't know how they do it now, but it sure looks a lot more expensive.

UMASS Class of '74 - Fisheries Biology

...when I was in school tuition was well under half the total cost of attendence -- I expect it is even less now. Most everything is "fees" now so it cannot be exempted through employee benefits or whatnot.

...about some of the stuff I saw as an employee at the UMASS President's Office, but I will say that after Romney got bitchslapped for his inane plans to rework the whole system, the mice came back out to play. Any "cost savings" measures they took while in the limelight probably ended up not saving at all once the pressure was off.

That being a drain on the budget, and then we have this crazy endeavor on the Amherst campus to put security cameras just about everywhere. I wonder who gets the contract for those, and how many scholarships could have been payed for if that system hadn't been given priority.

Stuff needs to be fixed at UMASS -- not to say I don't know plenty of terrific folks still working there that put their heart into it. In truth, whatever waste happens there one does have to realize that MA puts a much smaller amount of money into public higher ed than most other states these days -- a shame. With that and the recent budget cuts going against them it's a pretty astounding acheivement to have ranked 45th in the world in the London Times survey last year.

their obligation to educate the students of their state.

Here's how to look at it. Figure out how far back you have to go to find a time when a student could earn in a summer job, the cost of next year's tuition. Don't even worry about room and board, although there was a time when that could also be earned in a summer job.

Back when I first attended college (the University of Arizona in the fall of 1965)I had two scholarships. One covered my tuition and fees, the other paid for my books. I hate to tell you what the actual dollar amounts were. The important thing was that I could live at home and have my tuition, fees, and books paid for. It takes so much more money, even for an in-state student in a relatively low-cost state.

It's one of the reasons need-based scholarships and merit scholarships have increased so much. Meanwhile, the average student who's neither poor enough nor bright enough to get scholarships, winds up borrowing vast sums of money. Often needlessly.

We have an excellent junior college system in many (maybe most) states. If I were advising a young person who didn't qualify for scholarships, whose parents could not afford tuition and fees without borrowing money, I would say, Start at your local junior college. Then transfer to the best state school you can get into.

I'm horrified at the amounts of money so many students borrow to go to school. And while I understand that at least some of that borrowing is absolutely necessary, no one should borrow a penny more than they have to.

I've been going to college on and off my entire adult life, always at junior colleges or state institutions, and you get every bit as good an education at the junior college level as elsewhere. Other than, obviously, upper division work.