Minnis also added some clarity to the issue of debt. He began by reading headlines from the 1950s and 1960s that sounded as if they could have been written yesterday, like this one from 1966: “Relatively few people can accept or cope with the spiraling cost of college education.” As he noted, the average student debt today is $29,000. A college degree, however, is worth $2 million in added income over a lifetime. Student loan payment on a $29,000 dollar debt is roughly $280 a month—a little more than half of the average car payment.
“We talk about this crisis,” said Minnis, “but in comparison to what you get from your college education, it is actually a better deal today than it was a generation ago.”
Dale Cushinberry, a retired educator, is concerned “that a nation like ours puts such a low priority on funding education.” Cushinberry worried, too, that academic institutions at all levels have moved away from teaching the basics. One result is that kids leave school with no skills. Another is that they leave with little knowledge.
At Avila University, Sister Marie Joan Harris, provost and vice-president for academic affairs, concerns herself with making the opportunity for an education available to the students and helping them take advantage of new delivery systems. “Their future is not the future that we faced,” said Sister Marie.
Linda Endecott, with Olin School of Business at Washington University, faces challenge of finding a place for the St. Louis-based university in a new and competitive market. Her goal is to make the university an “integral part of the KC community.”
