College student protests are going about it wrong. At least that’s how IWF’s Hadley Heath Manning sees it in writing for NewBostonPost. Manning recognizes that student protests focusing on race is laudable, but that there is another issue they should be focusing on:
Students today pay an exorbitant price for college, and much of that money is, quite frankly, wasted.
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It seems that when we hear of students and college tuition, they’re merely demanding that tuition be free. Manning lays down the issues and plans for making tuition more affordable, all without saying it has to be free.
As Manning points out, it’s not merely the tuition which goes into the cost of an education. Instruction only includes 27 percent of the cost at public universities and 33 percent at private universities. Administrative costs have also gone up, as the “number of non-teaching professionals at public colleges has risen dramatically in the past couple decades…” These administrators are even “a major driver of increasing college costs.”
Perhaps, then, when it comes students protesting about administrators, it should be about the rising costs more so than supposed racism.
Manning also relates the cost to race:
It is not that all these costs on other aspects of college life are all bad; Manning admits that “arguments can be made in favor of all these things.” But, she points out that while students may be enthusiastic about green efforts, such “green construction” can be costly. There’s also the unnecessary amenities colleges are adding on as well.
Manning closes with a sobering mention, that “…the associated loan debt is one of the greatest costs that young Americans will face.”
