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NATURE|Vol 465|10 June 2010 Vol

US students pay for downturn

Tuition fees have risen, but public universities still face a shortfall, and students are feeling the squeeze.
The global recession has proBut many science underduced some surprising wingraduates are also feeling the ners. Take the companies that squeeze, especially at univermake clickers hand-held sities where departmental electronic gadgets that allow budgets are declining even as students to answer pop quizzes, demand for courses increases. discussion questions or straw Cathy Koshland, vice-provpolls during class. As univerost for academic planning and sity budgets are squeezed, class facilities at the University of sizes are ballooning and so is California, Berkeley, says that the demand for clickers, which although money for underhelp instructors to retain some graduate science is tighter than interactivity in lecture classes at any time in recent memory, of several hundred students. students are crowding into Big classes are something we life-science classes. They are benefit from, confirms Kevin Standing room only: university class sizes have exploded as funding has dropped. lured by an expected boom Owens, spokesman for Turning in health-care employment as Technologies, a clicker maker based in Youngs- simply wont be able to get into courses. the US population ages and by the growing town, Ohio. Few others can make that claim. Many of Europes universities have also seen prominence of biotechnology, bioenergy and Nearly three-quarters of the United States large budget cuts since the downturn. France biomedicine. The hot fields at the moment 17 million undergraduates attend state-funded and Germany have defied the trend by pump- have a strong biological component, says universities, according to the Association of ing more money into higher education, but Koshland. Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) funding has dropped in the Baltic States, the in Washington DC. And those universities are United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland and Romania, The domino effect suffering in the recession. When the economic according to a report by the European Univer- This affects more than just biology departcrisis struck in autumn 2008, many state govern- sity Association in Brussels. ments, she adds. Students have to have a cerments rescinded their budgets and made immeIn the United States, science departments are tain amount of math and chemistry before they diate cuts. The 2009 budget cycle brought more tending to fare better than their counterparts in take their first biology course, so crowding is pain. A survey of 87 of the APLUs member insti- other fields, and in the United Kingdom special increasing in classes for those subjects too. The tutions conducted late last summer found that funds have been designated to boost science, result is a domino effect that can carry across 85% had had their state funds cut and that 50% technology, engineering and maths education. years of a university programme. To cope with had seen a drop in financial resources despite And Shulenburger says that at US state univer- the crowding, departments at Berkeley have tuition hikes and increasing enrolment. sities, science courses are less likely to be cut reduced the frequency or doubled the size of The result? More than half the universities than low-enrolment humanities courses. discussion sections. In some cases, lectures have surveyed admitted that the cuts been decoupled from labs, so that were affecting their undergraduates students dont have to take them FEELING THE PINCH education. Classes are swollen into during the same semester. Austerity measures implemented by US state universities the hundreds; there are fewer teachSimilar stories of shrinking to close budget gaps in 200910. ing assistants; hands-on laboratory resources and crowded classes are Reduced non-tenured faculty jobs sections and some whole courses playing out across the country. Instigated fewer, larger course sections have disappeared, programmes and At the University of Washington Reduced teaching assistants departments have vanished. And in Seattle, introductory biology Reduced tenured faculty jobs its likely that things will get worse courses have grown to 700 students Reduced elective courses before they get better. Economic and introductory chemistry classes Laid o non-tenured faculty recovery has been slow and state tax have had half of their lab sessions Shifted tenured faculty assignments revenues will necessarily lag behind. cancelled. Meanwhile, the College Eliminated courses Meanwhile, federal stimulus funds of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas is Eliminated programmes approved by Congress in 2009 are squeezing extra classes in around Increased rst-year student intake set to run out this autumn. the clock even offering classes Eliminated departments Reduced number of scholarships Most undergraduates will expeat midnight. Reduced rst-year student intake rience larger classes and shorter Susan Elrod leads Project KaleiLaid o tenured faculty hours of availability for labs and doscope, which is funded, in part, libraries, says David Shulenburger, by the National Science Founda0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Percentage of state universities surveyed vice-president for academic affairs tion and aims to improve learning at the APLU. Some students environments for undergraduate
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E. RisbERg/AP Photo souRcE: APLu

NATURE|Vol 465|10 June 2010 Vol 465|10 June 2010

NEWS

science, technology, maths and engineering. Chitty. According to Shulenburger, Students She worries about the effects large classes may dollars are being substituted for state dollars. have. Faculty are teaching more students, Diane Auer Jones, former assistant secretary and that takes away momentum that a depart- for postsecondary education at the Department ment might have gained as far as creating more of Education and current head of the Washengaging, interactive courses. It is tempting to ington Campus, which provides policy trainjust put up the PowerPoint slides and lecture to ing for business students, thinks budget pain students, even though we know that this is not should make smaller state schools rethink their very effective. research ambitions (see Nature 465, 3233; The answer, at least until budgets improve, 2010). You look at a state like Maryland where might be clickers, coupled with group work there are these university systems, she says. In and good conceptual questions in classes and the old days the flagship and one other were tutorials, Elrod says. the research universities. All the other camMeanwhile, colleges are charging students puses in the system were teaching colleges. more for less. Even as class sizes have increased, The problem is that in the past 15 years the the Missouri University of Science and Tech- non-flagship comprehensive undergrad instinology in Rolla has raised tuitutions have all decided that tion fees and, as many public Most undergraduates they too need to be research universities were doing even will experience larger universities. The result, Auer before the recession began, classes and shorter Jones says, is that administralooked to private donors to tors have been spending too make up for lost state funds. In hours of availability much on programmes besides the good old days we got about for labs and libraries. undergraduate education. Fac60% of our operating budget ulty members are rewarded on from the state, and now I get about 27%, says the basis of their research portfolios, and teachMissouris chancellor John Carney. You cant ing gets mere lip service. have a quality academic programme with Auer Joness opinions resonate with many smoke and mirrors. You need revenue. in higher education, but, not surprisingly, the One bright spot is the University of Michigan institutions contacted by Nature all felt that her at Ann Arbor, which has for years been pursu- criticisms were more applicable to other uniing a conservative money-management strategy versities. You would not be able to continue a response to rocky times in the car industry here if you werent a good teacher, says Diane that forms the states economic base. The Uni- Allen, the provost at Salisbury University, a versity of Michigan is set to hire 100 new faculty small Maryland state institution that Auer members by mid-2012. Michigan has been in a Jones attended. But, she adds, all of our facchallenging environment for so many years that ulty are expected to do some kind of scholarly we have gotten very good at saving money, says work. They need to stay current in their field. spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham. But even at Michigan, tuition fees have gone Into the field up. In the United States, fees at public universi- John Banks, who teaches environmental ties have been increasing by nearly 5% above science at the University of Washington in inflation every year since 1999, according to the Tacoma, says he still sees the value to his stuCollege Board. The average annual tuition fee dents of coming along on his fieldwork trips in for an in-state student at a US four-year public Costa Rica and East Africa. They learn things university is $7,020 in the 200910 school year, they couldnt in the classroom, he says. Everyputting pressure on students, parents and col- thing from linear statistics to negotiating entry lege aid programmes. Weve seen a dramatic to a national park with a ranger with a machine increase in the demand for financial aid and a gun at 5oclock in the morning. dramatic increase in the number of students Yet although the recession has added stress who are eligible for student aid, says Haley and cost to the undergraduate education system, Chitty, spokesman for the National Association most administrators argue that an undergraduof Student Financial Aid Administrators. ate degree remains good value. I dont apoloThe Federal Pell Grant Program promises gize for the tuition we have to charge because aid to all who qualify, so federal spending when our students graduate they are making on these grants has exploded, according to 50,00070,000 [dollars] a year, says Carney. It Chitty. But universities cant make up holes is a tremendous bargain. Shulenburger agrees. in their budget just by raising tuition fees and Theres still no better investment, long run, raiding the Pell Grant fund through students. than getting that degree, he says. The highest Pell award for 201011 is $5,550. All those in agreement, press your clickers The Pell grant increase isnt going to be nearly now. enough to cover the tuition increase, says Emma Marris
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