Billions of Federal Dollars Flow to Institutions of Higher Education. Sometimes Very Little Goes Toward Educating Students. – Third Way
As institutions of higher education increasingly pivot to online learning due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, students are beginning to ask more questions about what value they’re getting for the tuition checks they write. “Will I receive the same quality of an education if I’m taking classes on a computer? And, if I’m paying the same amount, where exactly are my tuition dollars going?”
Even before the pandemic, students were left in the dark about how institutions spent their money, unaware of how much goes toward their own academic benefit versus other activities, like marketing and recruitment of new students or payments to administrators or stockholders.1 Yet several research studies show that instructional spending—especially at four-year institutions—correlates with a higher likelihood that students will persist, graduate, and find a good job after attending.2 So how are federally funded institutions spending the money that they receive from taxpayers and students?