As I am writing this post, campuses all across the country are deciding – some already have decided – how to respond to various directives and threats of withholding funding from the federal government. In perhaps the largest financial threat, Harvard University has been met with multiple rounds of demands with almost $9 billion at stake–and has decided to fight back.. (I have to double check that figure every time I think of it…that’s a lot of money!)
Those who don’t spend their days thinking about higher education could be forgiven if what they picture when they think of college is Harvard Yard. After all, Harvard, Columbia, and their counterparts are the focus of nearly all coverage of higher education in the national media. And while the targeted attacks on these institutions are clearly wrong, they’re also incredibly misguided as the focus of higher education policy. The real problems of higher education, while in serious need of addressing, are miles away from these headlines.
For one: most higher education institutions look nothing like the Ivy League. When you look at the top twenty or so institutions in the country—which includes large public schools like UCLA—less than 5% of students attend these schools. Nearly half of all undergraduates are studying at community colleges, and about another quarter of those students attend regional public colleges and universities that are fairly accessible, with moderate financial resources at best.
While Harvard can rely on their $53 billion endowment to help weather today’s storms, the median endowment is closer to $250 million—and if you’re like me and you get a little lost in numbers that large, it means Harvard’s endowment is more than 200 times the average size. The vast majority of faculty today (close to 70%) are not in tenure-track positions; many adjunct faculty who make up the majority of instructors at community colleges are not guaranteed a job beyond the current semester, and often have to teach classes at multiple institutions to cobble together full-time work. About a quarter make poverty-level wages.
And just as most institutions don’t look like Harvard, most students don’t look like those filling the green space at Penn or Columbia to protest university or government policies. In fact, only about 16% of undergraduate students live in on-campus housing. Most students are working while in school, many of them full-time. About one in five are parents. About a third of college students live at or below the poverty line. For the average college student today, time poverty is a serious threat to their ability to succeed. They definitely are not the “pro-genocidal campus quad glampers” the right wing is trying to scare people about.
In reality, most educators and students are exhausted, scared, and spending their days trying to accomplish the most basic tasks of teaching and learning while meeting their basic needs. They are batted around daily by the attacks on a luxurious campus experience that most people could only dream of. For years, we have done a huge disservice to the enterprise of higher education by centering the tiny number of Harvards over the large number of institutions doing the work of educating America’s college majority. Today, that failure threatens the entire sector as the federal government builds its entire policy approach in response to that tiny minority.
In reality, most educators and students are exhausted, scared, and spending their days trying to accomplish the most basic tasks of teaching and learning while meeting their basic needs.
I think about this constantly as we work with the amazing faculty and staff members who lead our FAST Funds all across the country. Earlier this month, we met with about a dozen of these leaders, as we do every single month, to talk about the basic needs challenges students are facing on their campus, and the work they are doing to support them. Our April discussion centered around various efforts to raise money to support the FAST Fund, a faculty-led effort to pool local resources to create small-dollar emergency grants that can help students meet the kinds of immediate needs that can spiral out of control without quick intervention. We also talked about efforts to support immigrant students, trans students, and other uniquely vulnerable populations on campus.
I’m constantly amazed by this group’s dedication to working together to meet student needs.
What keeps bringing them to the table to do this important work in the wake of all the other pressures on their jobs and livelihoods? It’s two-fold. First, an incredible dedication to their students, and a willingness that is far more common in higher ed than people think, to go above and beyond to help their students succeed. But I think it is also the opportunity to do this work in community with others who share their commitment. A lot has been said in the past few months about the importance of leaning into community, and I think our FAST Fund network provides each other with that community. As one faculty member said, “Higher education gets harder each year, but this work is the best thing I get to do.”
Student basic needs shouldn’t have to be met by faculty and staff pooling their dollars together for $50 gift cards or a $200 car repair. And faculty members should be able to focus their time on teaching rather than worrying about whether their students have eaten in the past 24 hours or can find adequate child care. But until we turn our policy attention away from the problems of the Ivy League and toward the challenges faced by the vast majority of the actual humans in higher education today, we’ll have to keep working to meet the needs of today while we push for a better approach in the future.