18 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JANUARY 2022
EXCELLENCE IN ENGINEERING
Garvies Point
Waterfront Redevelopment
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Geothermal System
Brookhaven National Lab
Groundwater Remediation
Environmental Solutions
for a Sustainable Future
With more than 30 years of multidisciplinary engineering
and environmental consulting experience, PWGC offers
a diverse range of services to meet market demand
regionally and nationally.
Listen live every Wednesday as partner and renowned
engineer, Paul Boyce breaks down the environmental
issues of Long Island and the NY Metro area with
industry thought leaders. Prospective guests are
welcome, visit our podcast page.
Paul K. Boyce,
PE, PG; CEO/President
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CLIENT DRIVEN SOLUTIONS FOR TODAY’S CHALLENGES
CURRENT COLLEGE
CONTROVERSIES
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT
PRESIDENT EMERITUS AND UNIVERSITY
PROFESSOR EMERITUS, ADELPHI UNIVERSITY
While most Americans view higher
education as a positive force in soci-ety,
an increasing share view colleges and
universities with suspicion. Their
suspicions are based in part on contro
versies about college admissions
and student debt.
College graduation is highly correlated
with higher income, lower unemploy
ment, better health, and more
civic en-gagement. There is, however,
a problem with college. The graduation
rate for students attending
public institutions is 57.6% — after
six years. At private colleges and
universities, the gradua-tion rate is
65.4% in six years. Generally, those
who enroll but do not graduate have
poorer outcomes and often are saddled
with debt they cannot repay.
A related controversy concerns
favoring family connections in admissions.
At most institutions, this
is not an issue. However, elite universities
like Harvard and Brown
fill about one-third of the freshman
class with legacies. Ad-vocates for
this policy cite fundraising as a
primary reason for the practice.
Those against legacy admissions
argue that the practice favors
those already advantaged and disadvantages
talented but low-income
students. Maybe. I think a better
argument against the practice is
to question its ethics. Is it ethical
for an institution benefiting from
a pub-lic charter, tax-exempt status
for its operations, tax-exempt
bonding, and tax-exempt donations
to reserve such a large percentage
of admission spaces to those with
family connections?
Still another cause for ethical concern
is the call to forgive college
debt. Yes, $1.7 trillion is a huge
amount. But be-fore deciding to
forgive, let us know who holds
the debt. Most undergrads finish
college with little or modest debt:
about 30% graduate with no debt
and about 25% with less than
$20,000. Only 6% of borrowers owe
more than $100,000—and they owe
about one-third of all the student
debt. Since the gov-ernment limits
federal borrowing by undergrads
to $31,000, those who owe more
likely have borrowed for graduate
school, including medicine and law.
Those with advanced degrees represent
27% of borrowers and would
get 37% of the benefit if loans were
forgiven.
Is forgiving loans fair to those
who worked hard to pay off their
debts? Is it fair to taxpayers who
did not attend college? For those
who attended proprietary schools,
why not claw back funds from the
owners and managers who took in
millions of dollars from predatory
practices?
We should advocate for ethical and
effective public policies and not be
swayed by well-intentioned rhetoric.
Good public policies require factbased
analyses. Only then will we be
able to address the ethics of college
graduation rates, legacy admissions,
and forgiving college debt.
POINT OF VIEW
"We should
advocate for ethical
and effective
public policies and
not be swayed by
well-intentioned
rhetoric."
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