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Imprimis, On Line -- December 1992
Imprimis, meaning "in the first place," is a free
monthly publication of Hillsdale College (circulation
360,000 worldwide). Hillsdale College is a liberal arts
institution known for its defense of free market
principles and Western culture and its nearly 150-year
refusal to accept federal funds. Imprimis publishes
lectures by such well-known figures as Ronald Reagan,
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Tom Wolfe, Charlton Heston, and many
more. Permission to reprint is hereby granted, provided
credit is given to Hillsdale College. Copyright 1992.
For more information on free print subscriptions or
back issues, call 1-800-437-2268, or 1-517-439-1524,
ext. 2319.
------------------------------
"Hillsdale College vs. the
Federal Bureaucrats -- Again"
by George Roche, President
Hillsdale College
------------------------------
Volume 21, Number 12
Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
December 1992
------------------------------
Preview: What follows are excerpts from remarks
President George Roche prepared for delivery to the
Hillsdale College faculty and staff on August 22, 1992.
We chose to share these remarks with our Imprimis
readers because we believe that they reflect an
attitude that stands in sharp contrast to what passes
for "educational leadership" on other campuses.
------------------------------
A School with a Stubborn Streak
From its humble beginnings, this small rural school had
a stubborn streak that prompted it to champion
principle over expediency. In Historic Hillsdale
College, Professor Arlan Gilbert cites a State Board
Visitor's report from October 14, 1882:
"In these times when there are such inducements to
surcharge the college curriculum with modern subjects,
we think it very credible that this College [Hillsdale]
should maintain its integrity with respect to the
humanities. So far as we could observe, there prevailed
in the College a sincere and well-directed effort to
educate rather than instruct."
It is hardly likely that a similar government
report in the 1990s would compliment us for defending
the traditional liberal arts. We would be assailed
because we have not surcharged our curriculum with
"modern" subjects and academic fads ranging from
deconstructionism ("there is no objective truth, only
different interpretations") to gender or race-based
teaching (disguised as multiculturalism).
Hillsdale has always been a conspicuous symbol of
old-fashioned independence and is an institution that
has never abandoned its history. But living up to our
history becomes more difficult every day, for the
"powers that be" place less and less value on
independence. How different things would be if the
government would credit Hillsdale College with the
mandate in the State Board Visitor's 1882 report! But
instead it has created a centralized bureaucracy
intolerant of local rights and power and hostile toward
individuals and institutions that prefer to be
responsible for their own destinies.
Wrongfully, America's colleges and universities
encourage this bureaucracy. They eagerly compete for
federal funds and seek an active partnership with
government. But not at Hillsdale. We don't view
government as a partner but as a threat to our very
way of life. And in my 21 years as president, the
threat has changed and grown yearly. I now think of it
as the Greeks did Proteus: it changes shapes constantly
and with each change it is uglier and more difficult to
combat.
The Financial Crisis in Higher Education
At first glance, however, it looks like the threat is
to other schools, rather than to us.
Today, many institutions of higher learning are
conducting their financial affairs only a step or two
ahead of insolvency. Sixty percent of all public and
private colleges were forced to cut their operating
budgets in 1991-92--many in mid-year. It is not just
small schools that are in serious financial trouble.
Harvard had a $42 million deficit last year. Yale has
deferred $1 billion in maintenance. The entire state
university system in California has promised 17-33
percent cuts across the board this year and Oregon's
public colleges will have to slash 20 percent over the
next several years.
In the short term, this means increased student
fees, postponed capital expenditures, increased class
size, and hiring and salary freezes. In the long term,
it means more dependence on tuition revenue, outdated
facilities and equipment, smaller endowments, fewer
programs and fewer courses.
Approximately 20 percent of all schools have cut
full-time faculty and are relying more and more on
part-time instructors. In the past year, the Chronicle
of Higher Education and the Wall Street Journal have
documented the uncertainty and hardships on hundreds of
campuses. Overall, America is spending more than ever
before on higher education, yet her colleges and
universities are experiencing an unprecedented budget
crisis. Clearly this is an indication of a collapsing
infrastructure.
Exploding Federal Grants and Loans
If Hillsdale College had not gotten its own financial
house in order in the last two decades, we would be in
similar trouble. At other pre-opening conferences
around the country, I can guarantee that the mood is
substantially different than it is here today. We have
many blessings for which to give thanks.
But before we become complacent, we must realize
that we currently face one of the greatest problems
ever to confront the school. It comes as a result of
the Higher Education Amendments of 1992, passed as
Public Law 102-325. For the past year, all signals
seemed to indicate that President Bush would not sign
the legislative package that covers all federal tuition
assistance programs. He was urged by his education
secretary not to sign. He publicly and repeatedly vowed
that he would not, yet he did sign on July 23, 1992.
As a consequence, a federal Pell Grant-- available
to any student with financial need---increases from a
maximum of $2,400 to $3,700 next year.* By 1997, Pell
Grants will peak at $4,500. Of course, Hillsdale has
been replacing Pell Grants and other federal grants and
loans with private funds ever since 1985 when the
Supreme Court ruled that such funds made colleges
"recipient institutions" subject to total federal
control.
So why are we in danger?
We aren't competing against other colleges for
students--we are competing against the federal
government. We are simply unable to replace all the
federal grants and loans our students would have
received on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The hard truth
is that students are eligible for thousands of dollars
more if only they will choose another school. The
pressure not to attend Hillsdale is enormous, but
students continue to choose us anyway, even if it means
that they or their parents are forced to assume a
heavy financial burden.
In 1991, a student with what is termed a "full
need factor" could have received some $8,650 from the
government in Pell Grant, Perkins Loan and Supplemental
Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) funds. At
Hillsdale, by comparison, the same student received in
private funds only $4,220. By 1997, a "full need
factor" student will be eligible for $11,500 from just
three government programs. Where will Hillsdale come up
with the funds to compete?
No matter how exceptional we are, we have to be
concerned about being priced out of the market by
skyrocketing federal assistance programs that literally
force students to attend other schools. We have never
been and will never become a school for a select few
based on the ability to pay. But we aren't setting the
rules of the game--the federal bureaucrats are.
Beating the Bureaucrats at Their Own Game
We have to beat them at their own game. We have been
doing it for 148 years, after all, and we will keep on
doing it, as long as we remain committed. There is a
national leadership audience of thousands of heartland
Americans who already support us in our efforts.
Twenty years ago, the College's endowment was
slightly under $3 million. The Freedom Fund launched in
the late 1970s brought in over $30 million. In the late
1980s, we began the FreedomQuest 150th anniversary
campaign with its goal of $151 million. Many of you
here took part in the extensive planning sessions that
shaped the heart and working agenda of this campaign.
It is your campaign meant to secure your future and the
future of Hillsdale College.
When we celebrate our 150th anniversary in 1994-
95, we will be uniquely positioned in American higher
education, and there will be many more chapters to come
in Hillsdale's proud story.
But I will warn once more about being too
complacent. When we set the goals for the FreedomQuest
campaign, we could not know that federal assistance
programs were going to explode by 40-50 percent. And
although the Higher Education Amendments are not due to
take effect for another year, their impact is immediate
since we are currently recruiting students for 1993-94.
The Department of Education already has a total
aid budget of more than $19.5 billion. Last year, it
overspent its Pell Grant budget by $1.5 billion and
there is every expectation that it will continue to
exceed its authority. In 1986-87, 75 cents out of every
dollar of need-based tuition assistance came from the
federal government. That figure will increase
dramatically next year, and as it does, our colleges
and universities will become, in effect, incarcerated
wards of the state. If you teach or work at such a
school, you might as well request that your salary be
paid directly by the U.S. Treasury. You work for the
government.
Hillsdale must become more competitive. We are
already on the right track. Last year, 73 percent of
Hillsdale's students received some sort of financial
aid from private sources. Fifty-one percent of that aid
was need-based while the other 49 percent was merit-
based. The need-based funds come from the Hillsdale
College Independence Grant and Loan Program. The
average grade point of the 51 percent was 3.2 on a
scale of 4.0. This not only reflects the sound quality
of the students, but the strength of their belief in
what the College has to offer them. Their appreciation
is evident in the fact that our student loan program
has a zero percent default rate.
So much for the good news. The bad news is that
changes affecting Guaranteed Student Loans (GSL), now
known as Stafford Loans, are going to make it even
harder for students to attend Hillsdale. The government
is the ultimate guarantor, but these are still
essentially private loans handled by commercial banks.
In the political jockeying behind the Higher Education
Amendments, a battle was mounted to remove Stafford
Loans from the banks and place them under the direct
control of federal government. Eventually, a compromise
was reached in which students from 300-500 schools will
receive direct aid.
This "pilot" program, which nobody expects to
remain limited very long, was agreed upon despite the
fact that under the old system, default rates were in
excess of 50 percent. This year, more than $2 billion
Stafford Loans are in default. Direct aid will only
make matters worse. It wipes out any remaining vestiges
of institutional accountability and it will drive up
tuitions and federal assistance even further.
Long ago, Hillsdale anticipated that the
government would seize control of this private loan
program. So we included $10 million for the College's
endowment in the FreedomQuest campaign to replace the
funds involved. However, there is a more immediate
concern. It would only take an administrative ruling
within the Department of Education to determine right
now that all Stafford Loans are really federal loans.
Without warning, we would have to raise an extra
$600,000 or more each year on top of everything we are
struggling to raise already for scholarships, grants
and loans--the hardest category of all for which to
raise funds.
Why Hillsdale's Future Looks Bright
That is a very real threat. It will undoubtedly change
and grow even more menacing. Still, we have the means
to ensure a bright future. At the FreedomQuest
campaign's outset, we established benchmarks of so many
million dollars to be raised each year.
Every year since 1987, we have exceeded those
benchmarks. (You might be interested to know that our
auditors, the nationally-known firm of Arthur Andersen,
has told our board of trustees that it uses Hillsdale
College as the financial model for its edu cation
clients.)
The more knowledgeable you are about the financial
aid crisis in American higher education, the more you
can appreciate Hillsdale's independent stance and the
ways we can continue to defend it. We can remain
competitive, too, with your help. Encourage prospective
students to visit your classroom, keep current parents
involved, attend admissions-sponsored open houses,
participate in campus events. Most of all, remember
that your classroom teaching and hands-on academic
advising are what attract students to the College and
keep them here.
Students choose Hillsdale not only because of the
high caliber of our faculty. They also choose us
because we are different from other colleges. While
other institutions exist merely to exist, we have a
special mission and a special identity.
Our mission is to kindle in the next generation a
love and understanding of what Edmund Burke aptly
called "the perma-nent things" and "the moral
imagination." During its formative years, the College's
founders defined education as the preservation,
refinement and transmission of values. Its tools
included reason, tradition, moral concern, and
introspection. It was an undertaking that sought
meaning in human life, justice in human affairs,
dignity in human aspiration. That definition best
describes Hillsdale College's mission then and now.
As for our identity, it is rooted in our fierce
and steadfast independence. It is not just a matter of
our refusal to accept federal funds or federal control;
we have always chosen to go our own way.
A few years ago another government official
reported his observations about the College--just like
the State Board Visitor in 1882. He summed up our
identity this way: "Hillsdale College is a beacon to
all who labor for freedom." This visitor, whose name
was Ronald Reagan, had cause to appreciate our
identity. I hope that you do too.
------------------------------
Footnote: * Once more promising more than it can
deliver, Congress will not be able to budget more than
$2300-$2400 per student for now. Federal assistance
conforms to the laxest possible standards. Perkins
Loans can be obtained without an acceptable credit
rating_the same is true with the private/public
Stafford Loans. Even if an institution knows that an
individual has no intention of repaying, it is required
by law to certify the loan as long as the eligibility
requirements are met. And under the Higher Education
Amendments, a family's home and farm equity and college
savings accounts are removed from the asset column, so
more and more students are eligible for more and more
money that the government does not have but spends
anyway.
------------------------------
George Roche has served as president of Hillsdale
College since 1971. "Firing Line," the "MacNeil-Lehrer
News Hour," the "Today Show," Newsweek, Time, Reader's
Digest, and the Wall Street Journal have chronicled his
efforts to keep the College free from federal
intrusion.
Formerly the presidentially-appointed chairman of
the National Council on Educational Research, the
director of seminars at the Foundation for Economic
Education, a professor of history at the Colorado
School of Mines, and a U.S. Marine, Dr. Roche is the
author of ten books, including five Conservative Book
Club selections. Among them are: America by the Throat:
The Stranglehold of Federal Bureaucracy (1985), A World
Without Heroes: The Modern Tragedy (1987), Going Home
(1986), and A Reason for Living (1989). His most recent
book is One by One: Preserving Freedom and Values in
Heartland America (1990).
###
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End of this issue of Imprimis, On Line; Information
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