College Admissions Counseling Blog

For most students the question of how a college spends the money you send each term is never considered. But it should be a consideration because the quality of education you receive may depend on the answer. A new report from the Lumina Foundation examines the question of college spending in detail and

the findings of the report, at least in general, is an issue that families should be aware of before choosing a particular type of college. For people who are interested in all of the numbers the report makes fascinating reading. For those of you less inclined to look at charts, InsideHigherEd has a nice summary of some of the key data.

Want the Cliff Notes version? Spending per student at public community colleges and master's level institutions is going down while these very institutions are the one's most likely to educate first generation and minority students. In other words, the amount of money the college spends to educate you depends on whether you are new to the college scene or whether you family has a better understanding of how colleges work. Generally, the higher your economic status the more likely you are to get a better college education.

We all want to believe that if you are motivated and work hard that the dream of a great college education is possible. And for some that is true. But for many students new to the process of finding a college, the easy choices, the community colleges and other public schools, are becoming less attractive as educational institutions because of the problems with financing public education that has been ongoing for some time in this country. Students and their families need to educate themselves about how a college spends its money and ask the tough question of whether the public or for profit college really is the best choice. More money may or may not be the answer for the public colleges, but if this country wants to continue to have a strong public higher education system, legislatures and the colleges themselves, need to take a look at changing the way they finance their operations.