VICKSBURG - If Father's Day this month or Mother's Day last month found you with a new bundle of joy to nurture, be advised the state College Board had a gift for you, too.
On June 16, without discussion or comment, the managers of Mississippi's eight comprehensive universities OK'd yet another round of tuition increases. This time the average was nearly 5 percent. In-state tuition is now higher for Mississippi students than it is for students in Louisiana and Florida and perhaps other places.
Even for less-than-brand-new parents, the news is sobering: Sallie Mae, the institution that administers most student loan programs, projects that by 2017, the cost of a four-year degree at a public university will be $109,642 and at a private university will be $236,236.
True enough, there are ample scholarships and financial aid programs to ease the sting for some, but we're talking about serious money - especially for middle-income families whose income disqualifies them from federal grant programs.
And let's say a student borrows just half the money Sallie Mae says will be needed for a bachelor's degree at a private school. Paying off $118,000 over the traditional 10-year plan at 5 percent interest tallies to $1,251 per month.
That's hard to fathom. Imagine, the first $15,000 of a graduate's annual income for a decade - just to pay for a degree that will provide entry-level employment as a teacher, banker or in some other field recruiting college grads.
In defense of the College Board, this year's increase follows on the heels of reductions in general allocations from state taxpayers. That amount is to fall another 1.8 percent in the coming year.
But the question needs to be asked: Is there a price at which a college education will no longer be worth the cost?
Already, some numbers crunchers are saying, "yes." To use a simple example, say a person with a high-school diploma earns $30,000 a year and say another with a college degree makes $45,000 a year. If, in fact, the degreed person is paying $15,000 a year in student loan debt, then his or her net spending power is the same.
Another factor to consider, as Gov. Haley Barbour and his predecessors have been saying, is that the American job market is changing.
Indeed, while overall two- and four-year college enrollment in Mississippi continues to climb, the greatest focus has been on the technical education that community colleges can provide.
The two-year schools have seen cuts in state allocations and increases in tuition, too - but they are the focus of massive infusions of state and federal dollars for "work force training" programs because that's where the jobs are these days.
No state is ramping up its programs for history, accounting, science, English or liberal arts students. All states are investing in courses that lead people to licensure as nurses or other health-care practitioners, welders, assemblers, electronics technicians and in other fields that pay starting wages, even in Mississippi, of $10 to $25 per hour.
Chancellor Robert Khayat of the University of Mississippi is one of very few university administrators who doesn't run for cover every time the rising cost of a four-year degree is mentioned. He makes the point that individuals and families will never go wrong by investing in education, especially in this state where so many earning degrees are the first in their lineage to do so. Because a university education has so much intrinsic value, Khayat says, people shouldn't expect to get one on the cheap.
It's true. There are considerations other than economics to consider. Personal fulfillment is certainly one. A person with a doctorate in medieval poetry may take home a paycheck far smaller than a foreman at Nissan - but the foreman wouldn't be happy contemplating Chaucer and the person with the Ph.D. would get little satisfaction out of pondering the finer points of clutch assemblies.
Too, overall, the U.S. Census Bureau still reports average income for employed college graduates is $51,206 a year while the national average for high school-only grads is $28,000. (No source was found to support this, but it's a fair assumption that college grads earn less early in their careers and rise steadily while pay for high school grads remains fairly even.)
So, enjoy the little bundles - but remember there are decisions to be made. If today's toddlers opt for a university education, somebody had better be starting a serious savings plan - now.
