Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

College has become so unaffordable, and graduation rates so stubbornly low, that America's great higher education engine may be sputtering, according to Measuring Up 2008, the latest report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a San Jose, Calif.-based nonprofit.

Issued every two years, the report card measures progress in academic preparation for college, enrollment, graduation rates, economic benefit and affordability for all 50 states, assigning grades in each category.

Every state except California earned an F in affordability, and despite modest improvements in other categories, America stacked up poorly when compared with other countries. About 39 percent of young Americans have at least an associate's degree, compared with more than 50 percent in countries such as Canada, Japan and South Korea, the report found.

Texas made some progress, earning a B in academic preparation, but the 18 percent gap in college graduation rates between Anglos and Hispanics — Texas' fastest-growing population — is one of the largest in the nation.

“This is not a problem you can act on after it exists, sort of like global warming,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center. “When you see the ice cap melting, it is too late to fix it. If we don't begin to act on it now, we could see absolute decline.”

Though experts have been sounding the alarm about higher education for a while, the issue has reached a turning point, Callan said.

In the next few years, 78 million baby boomers will retire and the nation needs at least enough degreed workers to replace them, and even more to compete in a global, knowledge-based economy.

In an ailing economy, state lawmakers soon will begin wrestling with thinning state budgets, and dumping more of the cost of higher education onto students could worsen the problem.

“When the economy is good, we raise tuition as little as possible,” Callan said. “During a recession, we sock it to students and families when people can least afford it.”

According to the report, since 1982 college tuition increases have far outpaced wages, inflation, housing and even medical costs. College costs make up a larger share of family income than in 1999, especially among low-income families, and student borrowing has more than doubled.

Middle- and upper-class families still are doing whatever it takes to put their kids through college, said James Boyle, president of College Parents of America. But a breaking point may be coming soon.

“Delaying the day of reckoning, if you will, can only go so far,” Boyle said. “By the entering class of 2010, you will start to see some fraying at the edges, where those parents will be looking for lower-cost alternatives.”

Texas beat other states in affordability, but earned an F on the report card because lower- and middle-class families have to shell out 37 percent of their income after financial aid to afford a public, four-year university.

California got the report's highest score in affordability, a C minus, because of its cheap community colleges, Callan said.

In Texas, Callan blamed state lawmakers' vote to deregulate tuition in 2003, calling it a “back door invitation for colleges to raise tuition as much as they dared.”

Callan also said lawmakers ought to restrain the ambitions of a handful of public universities — University of Texas at San Antonio included — clamoring to be the next national research university. When money is tight, dollars should be focused on undergraduate education, he said.

David Gabler, a spokesman for UTSA, disagreed.

The lack of state funding has forced universities to raise tuition in order to maintain quality, Gabler said. And though every institution can't climb the ranks, there is statewide consensus that Texas needs at least one more national research university.

“There is brain drain from Texas. That does not serve our state well,” Gabler said.

According to Alan Richard, a spokesman for the Southern Regional Education Board, Texas ought to focus on college graduation rates, especially among minorities.

Texas' six-year graduation rate is about 50 percent, compared with 55 percent nationwide. But among African Americans, the rate is 36 percent, and 38 percent among Hispanics. That inequity costs Texas $98 billion a year in personal income, the report found.

“Enrolling students in college who do not finish a degree takes up valuable classroom space and costs students money,” Richard said. “Without more minority students completing degrees, we could slide backward.”

The report gave Texas a C minus in completion.

In participation, which measures enrollment rates, Texas earned a D minus. At 35 percent, likelihood of 19-year-olds to enroll in college is low compared with other states, the report found, largely because Texas has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country.