By MATT McNALLY
Guest Columnist
This month, my oldest son headed off to college. It has been an interesting experience to have a child starting his higher education while our country is in the middle of a debate about student loan forgiveness.
While I think it’s fair to say that not everyone needs to attend college for their chosen career, I do believe that those who want a college education should have the opportunity. Unfortunately for many Americans, that path is resulting in a lifetime of debt. While the student loan conversation is an important one, I believe it must be part of a larger conversation addressing the extreme changes we have seen to how much college costs over time.
My son will be attending Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. – the current in-state tuition and room and board for one year is around $26,000.
By today’s standards, Ball State’s tuition is considered extremely affordable, but that tuition doesn’t tell the full story. For any college or university, the tuition students and their families pay do not represent the total cost for an individual student to attend college. Grants, research funding, federal funding, and state funding are all applied “behind the scenes” to the cost of educating a student. The tuition money an institution asks students to pay is the balance left over after all other funding is applied.
In Indiana, tuition costs usually cover about 63 percent on average of the total cost of attendance. For Ball State, if we take into consideration all the “behind the scenes” funding, the actual cost per year is closer to $41,000 per student. $41,000 per year per student would be much less affordable for the average Hoosier wanting to start their college education. To keep tuition low, Ball State and our other Hoosier higher education institutions need federal and state support.
Unfortunately, state support of higher education has been reduced significantly in the last 40 years. While tuition covers almost two-thirds of attendance costs today, in 1980, Hoosier students were only asked to cover 28 percent of the total cost of college attendance. A large part of this difference is due to a reduction in state funding. In 1980, Indiana’s state government spent the same as the national average on students at roughly $9,500 in today’s dollars. In 2023, the Hoosier State spent only $6,200 per student compared to $10,200 nationally.
Moreover, if Indiana had the same funding formula today that we did in 1980, and college cost the exact same, a student graduating from Ball State would walk away with about $46,000 of student loan debt compared to $104,000 today.[1]
The student loan debt debate has inspired a lot of discussion nationally about the costs of higher education. However, I think it is important to recognize the critical role of our state government in higher education costs. With Indiana allocating 30 percent less per college student today than it did in 1980, our state is making it more difficult for Hoosier students to achieve their higher education goals.
My family and I are very fortunate that the benefits provided for me by my military service will significantly reduce the cost of his college education, but I know the same cannot be said for all Indiana families. I believe it is past time for our state government to help alleviate the rising cost of college education by contributing more to support our excellent Indiana colleges and universities.
We owe it to all Hoosier students to show them the same support today that our state gave to students 40 years ago.
[1] https://shef.sheeo.org/state-profile/indiana
Matt McNally retired from the military in 2022 after 22 years of service. He is a veteran of Afghanistan and a formal Naval Aviator. He and his family are proud to call the city of Westfield home.