Tuesday, August 26, 1997

Book: Richer students choosing public schools over private colleges

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - More affluent students - or maybe their price-conscious parents - are abandoning private colleges in favor of their cheaper, public counterparts, researchers said.

The big, brand-name schools such as Harvard and Princeton still pack in the well-to-do. But smaller, four-year private liberal arts schools are increasingly losing their full-paying customers to public universities, according to The Student Aid Game, a book to be published in November.

Its authors said private colleges will adapt, but poorer students at public schools may not fare as well.

"The idea was always that you would create these great institutions that would then be accessible to anybody who had the motivation and talent to go. That kind of fundamental promise of higher education is really being thrown into question," said co-author Michael McPherson, president of the private Macalester College in St. Paul.

McPherson and co-author Morton Schapiro found that about 38 percent of college freshman from the richest families enrolled in public institutions in 1994, compared with 31 percent in 1980. The richest families were those making more than $200,000 a year.

For upper-middle income families - those who earned between $100,000 and $200,000 - freshman enrollment at public schools rose to 48 percent in 1994 from 42 percent in 1980, they found.

Part of the draw of public schools is the cheaper cost. Consumers also are making less of a distinction in the relative quality of public and private educations, partly because of the acceptance of well-publicized "best-buy" guides, McPherson said.

Money magazine's annual college ratings due out in September, for example, rank the University of Florida 80 notches above Dartmouth as a best buy.

But as more affluent families flock toward public universities, states end up subsidizing wealthier students. On average, a state subsidizes each student by about $12,000 a year, no matter how much their parents earn.

David and Linda Mona, an Edina, Minn., couple who own a public relations firm and several other businesses, let their two sons decide whether to go to public or private schools.

Kirk Mona chose the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, while his older brother, Erik, chose Emerson College, a private school in Boston that cost $15,000 more a year.

"We wanted to work with the kids to make sure that they got what they wanted out of a college education," Mona said.

Price was a consideration, the Monas said, but the biggest factor was what the schools offered for majors. Erik, who graduated last year, wanted an emphasis on creative writing and publishing. Kirk, entering his junior year this fall, wanted to major in social environmental education.

Private colleges will be able to adapt to fewer admissions by either lowering tuition or increasing course offerings, said Schapiro, an economist at the University of Southern California.

But as wealthier students take up seats and tuition rates go up, many poorer students are heading to cheaper community colleges where their chances of moving on to graduate with a four-year degree drop significantly, he said.