A Trip to Capitol Hill

i.e. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or rather, Dr. John (totally dating myself on the movie reference 😊)

This week I got the chance to be on Capitol Hill as co-chair of an Enrollment Management Advisory Group.  My many thanks to my compadres for the opportunity and friendship.  This month’s post will include an amalgam of themes from our conversation that resonated with me as takeaways.  In a conversation I had with a senior NACAC representative last week, we talked about continuing to look for hope and joy in our work.  I will say, I left the conversation on Capitol Hill with some sense of hope and optimism. 

One topic covered I believe is the grossly misinformed subject of student indebtedness.  First, I think there is a current phenomenon that all student debt is bad.  I do not believe this statement is true.  I think some level of student debt ensures the student has some skin in the game or investment in their education.  Now how much is too much is a personal decision and where the devil is in the details.  That said, according to Congress.gov, 46% of student loans in AY2023-2024 were graduate loans.  In addition, according to sofi.com, the average graduate student debt amount is $78,118.   However, the average undergraduate student debt in 2024 was $25,583 according to educationdata.org.  This amounts to about $6,400 per year for a traditional four-year graduate and is more than $50,000 less than graduate student loan debt – a meaningful difference.  I find many times the challenge in the conversation is the outlier anecdote reported on the student who graduated with over $100,000 in undergraduate debt.  As an industry, I think we need to do a better job of telling the undergraduate student debt story – and one I tried to convey. 

Another topic discussed was the challenge associated with net price transparency given differing socioeconomic strata and how financial aid is perceived by and awarded to students.  The story I shared was that families from the higher end of the socioeconomic strata feel they are paying too much and subsidizing lower income families.  Families in the middle of the socioeconomic strata many times make too much to afford but not enough to qualify for financial assistance.  This serves as an access barrier to higher education.  Families from the lower end of the socioeconomic strata are concerned with the affordability of college.  So, in working to develop best practice principles within enrollment management in higher education tied to net price transparency, we need to find a common thread amongst all three socioeconomic strata – a pretty heavy lift – acknowledged by the gallery. 

Discussion also ensued around the topic of assessing a family’s demonstrated financial need consistently while allowing for some level of ability to predict cost of attendance beyond a single academic year.  This would allow families to do more long-term college financial planning.  One of the thoughtful recommendations and conversations involved capturing multiple years of income data that would smooth out variability in a family’s financial profile.  This would allow for longer-term financial need assessment.  Tied to this, discussion involved indexing financial aid awards such that as tuition increased annually, so did a family’s need-based financial aid package.  I worked at one institution that indexed financial aid and another that grappled with the topic.  It is not an inexpensive endeavor for an institution but not only does this allow families to financially plan for multiple years of college expense, but over time the emergence of an unmet financial need gap does also not occur contributing to increased student persistence.  A real win for college completion.

Given my passion on the topic of student success, I tried to circle our conversations back to one involving a student focus.  Many times, I find higher education conversations get caught up in topics on the institutions themselves, the finances – revenues and expenses, price and cost, and we lose the student mindset.  One question that was asked of our panel involved how Congress could incentivize higher education?  In addition to providing a menu option of potential incentives, I tried to advocate for institutions that are doing good work and making innovations in student success such that a greater proportion of students complete their academic goals – whether a degree, certificate, badge, or some other type of credential.  Ultimately, if we continue to keep our focus on student outcomes, this serves as a win for higher education as well as the participants – the students.