Heather Lindkvist, photographed by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

The Portland Press Herald and Maine Public Broadcasting check in with Bates officials for their reactions to the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges have all signed a brief supporting the University of Texas and the use of race-conscious admissions.

“This particular case can have repercussions about how we think about faculty and staff diversity and student diversity,” Heather Lindkvist, special assistant to the president for diversity and inclusion and member of the anthropology faculty, tells thePress Herald.

Leigh Weisenburger, photographed by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger tells Maine Public Broadcasting that because “we were founded by abolitionists…one of our number one goals since the very start, and we’re talking back to 1855 here, has been to be open and accessible to all.”

Using race as one part of the admission equation “is not just for the good of our own institutions,” she said, but to ensure that “we are creating a truly global classroom setting, a truly global community, so that as we prepare our students to be those leaders and go out into the world, that we can promise them, promise their families, that they’ve truly had a diversified learning environment.”

• View story from the Portland Press Herald, Oct. 9, 2012.
• View story from Maine Public Broadcasting, Oct. 8, 2012.

Jamie Merisotis '86, a Bates trustee and a dedicated advocate for improved access to higher education, moderated the symposium.

Everyone knows the big story about higher education: The price of college is out of control. That story sets the tone for media coverage of higher education, and it’s the story that keeps parents awake at night.

And it’s wrong.

While the cost of higher education is certainly rising, a group of national leaders in higher education told an Oct. 29 gathering at Bates, that cost is neither inflated nor out of proportion with the considerable benefits of a higher education.

• View video clips featuring each symposium speaker.
• View the full symposium.
• Read “Education experts defend price of college degree,” the Hechinger Report’s coverage of the symposium by Jon Marcus ’82.

This was the message that dominated the Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price and Financial Aid, held at Bates and co-hosted by Brown and Northeastern universities. Suggested by Bates board chair Michael Bonney ’80 and convened by President Nancy J. Cable, the afternoon symposium brought some 100 education professionals to Perry Atrium.

Six national experts in college cost and admission issues addressed the symposium:

• Moderator Jamie Merisotis ’86, a Bates trustee, longtime advocate for improving access to college and head of an organization dedicated to producing more college graduates;
• Robert Archibald and David Feldman, economists at the College of William and Mary and authors of the recent book Why Does College Cost So Much?;
• Sandy Baum, professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College and adviser to the College Board, who gave an analysis of trends in cost and financial aid;
• Jane Bode Brown ’69, vice president for enrollment management at Northeastern;
• and James S. Miller, dean of admission at Brown.

In his welcome, Merisotis sounded a note of urgency about the need to broaden access to higher education. “Today, the stakes have never been higher for our country in delivering the promise of an affordable, accessible higher education.”

The symposium filled Perry Atrium just hours before an Oct. 29-30 snowstorm stunned New England.

Demand for higher education is “dramatically higher,” he said, and the market’s demand for employees with degrees is greater than it has ever been. Degree-holders on average take home 84 percent more compensation than non-degreed workers, up from the 75 percent premium of a decade ago.

Two-thirds of all positions created in the next decade will require at least a bachelor’s degree. And today, without some kind of post-secondary credential, people are much more likely to be unemployed, and to make low wages when they are employed.

More than ever, Merisotis said, post-secondary education is not a guarantee, but “a prerequisite for entry into middle-class life in our country. To put it more starkly, without a college degree, there’s a very good chance you’re going to be poor.”

The benefits of a college education are just one part of the story that needs to be more forcefully told about access to higher education, the panelists agreed. Here are other highlights from the afternoon’s discussion:

College of William and Mary economists David Feldman, left, and Robert Archibald wrote the book "Why Does College Cost So Much?"

The “dysfunction narrative”

Summarizing their data and arguments from Why Does College Cost So Much?, Archibald and Feldman convincingly refuted the common wisdom that college costs are out of control, running away thanks to bloated administrations, effete tenured faculty and “country club” expectations of comfort and service — all of which the economists labeled as the “dysfunction narrative” usually cited in the media and by critics of education.

Instead, these increases result from systemic factors affecting other industries too — for example, health care and legal services — and the increases in educational cost parallel the increases in those fields. All of these services can be delivered only by highly educated, highly skilled professionals whose high salaries are determined by the market; and are fields in which productivity cannot be dramatically improved through technology, unlike in manufacturing. The latter illustrates the phenomenon called “cost disease,” where certain segments of the economy see costs rise as rising productivity in other segments forces prices down.

In addition, higher education is unique in that colleges and universities are obliged to prepare students for the real world by recreating that world in microcosm, incurring expenditures — from travel to technology to financial aid — that doesn’t directly drive productivity but is essential to quality.

Feldman and Archibald offered the concept of an “unholy trinity” or “iron triangle” that rules the college-cost equation. The three elements are tuition and fees, subsidies to schools (whether from government, endowment or gifts) and the quality of education — and you can’t change one without changing another. If subsidies drop, either you raise tuition or reduce quality.

Sandy Baum, professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College, makes a point while Jane Bode Brown '69 of Northeastern University listens.

The income gap

Currently, about two-thirds of college students receive some sort of financial aid. As demand for higher education grows and the gulf in earnings widens between the richest Americans and everyone else, the resources to support aid will become scarcer and scarcer.

Miller and others pointed out that, despite the common wisdom that college costs are out of control, higher educational institutions are actually serving as a bulwark against the widening income gap: Especially for state schools hard-pressed by falling state appropriations, the rise in the college “sticker price” is driven largely by subsidies, in the form of grants or scholarships, for less affluent families.

The economic context that in past years made higher education seem like a given has changed drastically. As Miller pointed out, middle-class families formerly were able to use home equity to finance a college education because their retirement funds were solid. There were sometimes family financial reserves, such as an expected inheritance, that they could count on. “But all that’s gone,” he said. “The confidence level of parents has dropped dramatically.”

As Miller said, any other industry whose product was as much desired as higher education would follow the rule of supply and demand by raising prices. Instead, higher education is containing price increases.

Baum pointed out that, thanks to a shift in emphasis from need-based to merit-based aid (which favors families that have been able to give their children every advantage in college preparation), a considerable amount of aid is going to students who could afford to enroll without it. Even public institutions, she said, are “giving a lot of money to people who could do without it.”

She said, “We need to talk about whom we’re helping, how and why.”

The symposium on college costs brought about 100 leaders in higher education to Bates.

The wrong story

The panelists were clear that when the curtain goes up on the topic of access to college, the spotlight is usually on the wrong actors.

Despite the economic advantages conferred by a college degree, as Baum said, the media’s approach seems to be, “We found an unemployed college graduate and we’re going to write a story about him.”

Panelists agreed that higher education needs to take charge of the story. To defend both the costs and the sticker price of higher education, schools need to find a way to measure learning and produce data that make the case, rather than relying on storytelling to win hearts and minds. As David Feldman said, “we need to shape the accountability movement rather than be shaped by it.”

A new genre of presidential letters, memos, columns, and blogs has sprung up on most college campuses in response to the ongoing global financial turmoil.

Demonstrating a greater sense of accountability and transparency than ever before, higher education leaders offer different details but all try to balance two messages. On one hand, we speak with both urgency and candor about budget cuts, sacrifices, and contingency plans. On the other hand, we reassure our stakeholders that we will not only survive this crisis but use it to grow stronger, with core values intact.

I have thus far contributed three letters to this outpouring. Each letter emphasizes how our response to rough economic seas is rooted in the character of the College. Bates is prepared by longstanding habits of heart and mind to economize and to be entrepreneurial, and our efforts are as always collective and sustained.

In the most immediate term, it’s all hands on deck to control costs, maintain revenues, and balance our fiscal 2009–10 budget in the face of diminished endowment performance.

This is not new or unwelcome work here; sound fiscal management has earned Bates a reputation for academic excellence that far outstrips our financial resources. Every department is pursuing greater frugality on the operations side, for example, through a Cost-Saving Initiative piloted by our Department of Human Resources.

We still plan to invest now in faculty excellence and financial aid. Planning for the next phase of the Campus Facilities Master Plan is getting under way, as we look to future improvements that will be critical to our educational excellence, including space for residential life, for research and teaching in the sciences, and for athletics and wellness.

On the revenue side, we have seen an enormous growth in the culture of philanthropy at Bates. We have a robustly emerging habit of asking for and receiving your support to keep Bates strong for future generations. In the short term, we are focusing fundraising efforts on the Bates Fund, whose revenue makes up about 5 percent of the annual operating budget. New and better ways for those who care about Bates to give of their time are also in the offing.

For the longer term, thinking and acting strategically have never been more critical, and we know the ropes here, too. Through multiyear budget planning we have a tool for considering multiple scenarios and giving serious thought to an array of options. Following up on the institutional planning work that began last year, three faculty/staff teams are now developing strategic initiatives focused on:

• the innovative learning agenda at Bates, enhancing the student experience as well as faculty teaching and scholarship;
• the natural sciences and mathematics, strengthening both curricular and physical infrastructure;
• the arts at Bates and in the community, extending the reach and visibility of our creative campus.

Around each initiative we will implement short- and middle-term projects by redeploying existing resources and by fundraising. Looking out further, our planning process will help us monitor what is changing in the environment and how we can respond now to be ready for the future.

Lasting change grows organically from the strengths of a culture, as its champions embrace the possibilities always inherent in the challenges. This college has never grown accustomed to plain sailing. The first president mortgaged his house to meet debts related to the institution, which in its infancy could easily have succumbed without the financial support of both Sunday school children and philanthropists like Benjamin E. Bates.

As Professor Emeritus of History Jim Leamon ’55 notes, early Bates students “found moral advantage in their hardscrabble reputation.” At the same time, President Cheney believed in and worked for nothing less than a grand concept. Raising money to build Hathorn and Parker, he reminded the leading citizens of Lewiston that smaller facilities would suffice for an ordinary school but not for an institution intended “for coming time.”

During the Great Depression, Bates never cut faculty or staff, nor ran deficits. Reacting to increased competition for students and their greater needs, Bates doubled its financial aid over a six-year period early in the decade and increased its spending on recruitment later in the decade. In 1936, Harry Rowe ’12, the longtime lieutenant to Bates presidents, summed up the Bates philosophy: “A holding-our-own policy will not do.”

In 2009 we will draw on these inspirational ancestors even as we look forward, not backward, and we will call on our entire community of talented faculty, dedicated staff, ambitious students, and generous supporters.

By Elaine Tuttle Hansen

Then, midway through Ken’s first semester, his dad lost his job. But Ken didn’t lose out. “Bates really came through for me,” he recalls. “I received grants and loans, and I did campus work. The Bates philosophy was, ‘We have you here. We want you to stay here.’”

Spalding had reason to reminisce after attending the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon on April 3, where supporters of Bates financial aid met current students who benefit from their generosity.

Currently, about 37 percent of Bates students receive more than $20 million in scholarship grant aid. A few of them spoke at the April luncheon, held in the Jarnryd Room of the new dining Commons on the day of the annual Mount David Summit.

“It makes it gratifying to give and compelling to give more.”Rising from her seat, Nicole Svirsky ’09 of Newburyport, Mass., talked about her senior thesis combining political economy and law. She examined the transnational barriers that inhibit effective child-labor policies, scrutinizing ideological differences between the International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization and doing comparative case studies of Pakistan and Brazil.

At Bates, “I have learned and matured as a person and a scholar,” she concluded. “I have made friends here that I will keep in touch with for the rest of my life. The Bates community is fantastic, and we are all fortunate to be a part of it.”

Another speaker, Oscar Cancio ’08 of Los Angeles, talked about his unlikely hockey career at Bates as a metaphor for opportunity.

“That’s what gets to me,” says Spalding, the Maine woods project coordinator for RESTORE: The North Woods, a conservation organization. “Given the opportunity to attend Bates, these students have accomplished so much, and they appreciate the support they’ve been given. It makes it gratifying to give and compelling to give more.”

As some Bates students (and alums) look back on their experience, members of a younger cohort — high school seniors — are now deciding where they’ll attend college. About half of all incoming Bates students typically apply to six or more schools, and April is when students compare the colleges that accept them.

Financial aid is part of the comparison.

“After acceptance letters go out, it takes about a week before we hear questions from families,” says Wendy Glass, director of Student Financial Services. “They spend time looking carefully at all of the offers they’ve received from colleges. They are being cautious and realistic about this financial commitment.”

When families do start asking questions, an increasingly common one reflects the current U.S. recession. “Families are concerned about moving forward, about what they can expect if their circumstances change,” says Glass.

Do you have questions about the Bates financial aid program? Contact the Office of Student Financial Services.

The answer hasn’t changed much since Ken Spalding was a student. Bates still meets the demonstrated need of all matriculated students, for better or worse.

“We will strive to make decisions that are consistent and equitable from one year to the next.”"Paying for a Bates education is a collaborative effort among parents, students, and Bates,” Glass explains. (That hasn’t changed, either: as a student, Spalding worked two summer jobs at 70-plus hours at week.) “When parents ask about the future, we try to paint a realistic picture of how an aid package might change if circumstances change. We reassure families that we will strive to make decisions that are consistent and equitable from one year to the next.”

Glass and her staff field many concerns and outright complaints, but she makes sure not to forget the happy words from families just beginning their Bates relationship.

It might be just a handwritten note added to a financial form: “Our daughter is absolutely thrilled to be coming to Bates. We are committed to doing what we can to make this happen, and we deeply appreciate the aid you’ve provided to our family.”

Panelists for the session include Jane Armstrong, assistant director of undergraduate admissions, Tulane University; Leigh Campbell, director of financial aid, Bates College; Dean Jacoby, director of guidance, St. John’s International School, Belgium; and Linda Matzen, guidance counselor, Edward Little High School. The discussion will be moderated by Wylie Mitchell, dean of admissions at Bates College. Brief presentations by the panelists will be followed by a question-and-answer session.