Please direct comments to:
Steven R. Van Luchene, Dean [The text of Dean Van Luchene's far-reaching, October '94 statement appears below. Currently it is not possible to include the graphs, of which there are two, or the appendices, of which there are three. These will be included as soon as possible.
St. John's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, NM 87501-4599Hopefully your browser will allow you to copy the statement, or the page in its entirety, and print it out, if you so desire. An alternative is to disconnect from your access provider and read the statement offline, if you are concerned about the cost of connect time. Please send error reports to bfant@charm.net]
St. John's, Santa Fe: The Future
Statement of Educational Policy and Program
(Footnote 1)
October 26, 1994
Stephen R. Van Luchene
Dean, Santa Fe Campus
I. Introduction
The deans in Santa Fe and Annapolis alternate each year in presenting a Statement of Educational Policy to the college as a whole. This statement has taken many forms over the years. At times it bas been dedicated to a single pressing college-wide issue such as writing at the college or the question of flexibility in the program: at other times, it has been the occasion for describing some dimension of life at the college--the role of the tutor or the intellectual life of the students. This year, the thirtieth anniversary of the Santa Fe campus, I will depart from the usual and appropriate distinction we make between "educational policy" on the one hand and "practical matters" on the other to discuss the condition of the Santa Fe campus and its prospects for the future as fully as possible from both perspectives since they are mutually implied. It is a tall order to undertake a full discussion of the serious practical difficulties, to inquire deeply into the connection between the practical difficulties and the quality of instructional life, and finally to ask if there are ways of rethinking our work here that in addressing the practical difficulties will help us to succeed even more fully with our kind of learning. To set our sights any lower than this would be unworthy of us as we begin our fourth decade in Santa Fe. I hope with this paper at least to make a real beginning with this much needed project.
In focusing on the Santa Fe campus, I intend no slight on our sister campus in Annapolis. In plain fact, the problems Annapolis faces just now are manageable matters of strengthening a college that rests on a firm, if not large, financial and demographic base. Santa Fe, on the other hand, faces issues that begin with material well being and reach beyond to the very heart of our essential work.
It is appropriate to begin by noticing how far the Santa Fe campus has come since its beginning in rented rooms at La Posada thirty years ago. Today, the Santa Fe campus, like the Annapolis campus, can point proudly to traditions of scholarship and learning that constitute the soul of the college. This campus has grown from the seed planted here thirty years ago into a vital organism with a dedicated and mature faculty, seasoned officers and a talented support staff, a growing body of distinguished alumni, enrollment virtually at capacity for the last several years, and a magnificent campus equipped with nearly all the buildings we might need or want. These buildings, moreover, are beautifully tailored to suit our educational program. Our financial condition, if it is not all we might wish, is a far cry from what it was in those days even fifteen years ago when (as was reported by an accrediting agency) we regularly needed to be saved. and usually at the last minute before the books were closed, by the US cavalry in the form of a beloved supporter from Texas.
Much more could be said in praise of our accomplishments. but this occasion can better be used to look hard at the problems we face, both old and new, as the college prepares for its next generation of students.
For the past several years we have operated in what might be described as the "hopeful" mode. Our hope was focused on 1) expectations of rapid receipt of the first $7.8 million from the capital campaign proceeds, 2) the seeming success of sharp increases in tuition and fees over the past five years, and 3) stability or slight growth in enrollment, even with higher tuition. As I will show, these grounds for hope have diminished. and two particularly ominous financial trends suggest that, while we are not in critical danger, we easily could be within a year or two if these trends are not broken. I will make the case for replacing "hopefulness" with a new mode that might be dubbed "self-reliant forethought" and suggest some new ways of thinking about Santa Fe.
We always have been an institution committed to conservative action and change only and after painstaking deliberation. But we have also traditionally prided ourselves on not one our willingness but our insistence on exploring even the most troublesome of serious issues to their very roots. With the future of the college at stake. we must muster our collective powers of intellect: and imagination to explore every possibility that offers some promise for our future.
II. Dimensions of the Problem
A. Summary of Issues Though there are any number of issues looming Just over the horizon with respect to encroachment by outside agencies. demands for accountability. urgings toward multiculturalism, attacks on the "canon," and so on, the two issues that press hardest now are first our problem of regularly spending more money than we take in, and, not completely independent of it, an alarming trend that has emerged over the last few years in financial aid, though its effects go further. The causes of these difficulties are largely national conditions of education and of the economy, though they manifest themselves in a peculiar way here. That the causes are larger than little St. John's should give us small comfort; it is up to us to solve them for ourselves if we can, for no one else is going to, and there is much in our favor. While large universities may be compelled to follow out the course on which they are determined, it should be possible for a small, dynamic, thoughtful college like St. John's to take greater charge in shaping its own future. The rest of this section will describe the nature of these two problem areas, show how they emerged, and estimate their impact on this campus.
B. A Brief Financial History
1. How the budget fell out of balance: First of all it is necessary to say that technically our operating budget is in balance: that is, we have been working under conditions that have necessitated a plan that allows us to fund operations from "quasi-endowment," that portion of the endowment over which the board has full discretion, as contrasted with ordinary endowment, the use of which is restricted. But technicalities aside, it is a fact that our. expenditures chronically exceed our income.
We began to head in this direction in April 1990 when the board approved roughly a 30% increase in faculty salaries. This was viewed by some as substantial fulfillment of the board's long-standing commitment to bring faculty compensation close to the median of its comparison group. In the 1980s faculty compensation had dropped dangerously close to the national median for high schools. The decision to raise faculty salaries was made on the hope that within the first few years of the capital campaign some $7.8 million would be added to the Santa Fe endowment, enough to fund the faculty salary permanently. The shortfall for only one of these three years was covered by extraordinary gifts from benefactors.
The campaign has been under way now for three years. It has succeeded with pledges on a large scale, and it has increased our cash receipts both for annual operation and for endowment capital. But the $7.8 million necessary for us to operate as we do at present has not materialized. On June 30. 1990. the market value of the Santa Fe endowment stood at $8,899,400. On June 30. 1994, it amounted to $9,201,287. Several factors have contributed to its relative standstill. While there have been significant additions to endowment ($1.5 million), its value was negatively affected by 1) a downturn in bond values, 2) the costs of running the campaign, and 3) scheduled withdrawals of 'quasi endowment.'
Moreover, in 1992 the board re-examined the portion we were drawing from our endowment each year and decided the nearly 14% we were taking (including all the income from our bond portfolio) was imprudent at a time when yields were falling. A five percent spending rate of endowment principal was established as an appropriate target for us to reach over five years.
This decision was a prudent one, but it multiplied the difficulties of the Santa Fe campus: At a 5% spending rate even a $7.8 million addition to endowment would not fund our ordinary level of operations, and a decrease in the spending rate with no substantial increase in endowment capital meant that the endowment would contribute even less to our operations than it had before the salary increase.
2. Efforts to achieve budgetary balance: With the understanding that all was being done that could be done to find more private gifts, that the governmental contributions either state and federal would not increase significantly, and that our enrollment was near its maximum, we turned to the only remaining areas where it seemed we had discretion: raising tuition and decreasing expenditures.
a. Higher tuition. (Footnote 2) Tuition over the last four years has increased from $14,262 (91-92) to $17,430 (94-95), or more than 22%. St. John's in Santa Fe is now the most expensive college in a radius of 800 miles, It seemed a reasonable approach to charge those who could afford it as much as possible and to make up the difference for those who could not with financial aid. As this argument goes, if tuition is not high enough, the college loses what well-to-do families can pay and are willing to pay.
What has happened, however, as a result of following this policy is that 1) we are enrolling fewer students who are able to pay the full price; 2) we are enrolling fewer middle income families than we should (see Appendix 1); and, 3) we have enrolled an ever increasing number of students who qualify for very large financial aid packages. Even with college grants reaching an average of $11,870 for freshmen in 1994-95, these students must still borrow or work to provide $4,325 themselves. This amount is in addition to expected student contribution (from prior earnings) and the family contribution which averages $6,900. The combination of high cost and inadequate financing have put a significant burden on freshmen who have elected to attend St. John's and upperclassmen who continue to attend. High tuition has driven away many qualified applicants who should be St. John's students and it has put tremendous stress on the operating budget.
There are several places to note the intensity of this stress. The financial worksheet (Appendix 2) shows the ratio of institutional aid to gross tuition rising sharply, the percentage of students receiving aid rising sharply, the NACUBO "discount" number rising sharply (especially for incoming freshman classes), and the annual percentage increase in net tuition revenue correlating negatively with the annual percentage increases in tuition. We see, that is, that the tuition increases are almost completely eaten up by increased financial aid costs. The operating deficit itself may be seen as a symptom of high college grant expenditure, but I will attempt to show later why that is not a useful way to construe it.
b. Expenditure cuts: In the last three years extensive efforts have been made to reduce expenditures on the Santa Fe campus. Every office has worked to operate as economically as possible. Ten percent of the non-faculty staff were laid off this year. Further reductions of this sort would seem unwise if we intend to continue to parallel the structure and approach of our sister campus.
With respect to Instruction, we have worked to keep class sections as large as we can while remaining within our guidelines. Virtually no money has been made available in the operating budget for faculty development. And, finally, the base of the faculty compensation system has remained frozen for three years (small annual step increments have been retained which are necessary for the compensation system to remain credible as a long-term distribution plan). If we continue this practice, the average faculty salary will fall within three or four years to its level in 1990 as compared to our peer group.
c. Finally, because this campus is so heavily tuition driven (80% of our educational and general revenue is provided by tuition; 60% would be an appropriate target level), even a small enrollment shortfall plays havoc with our operating budget. And, instead of allowing some excess earning on endowment to build up and augment the endowment as a cushion against hard times, at present we are compelled to spend it all, which leaves us no margin whatever. We have enjoyed our largest enrollments ever in the past few years, but inevitably there will be some fluctuation, and a variance of even ten or fifteen students brings very serious financial consequences.
These, as I see it, are the major financial difficulties facing the Santa Fe campus at present. Though no easy solution promises to be effective, I will raise some possibilities further on that taken together may help us with them.
C. A Financial Aid Primer -- nothing is simple in the world of financial aid. For the sake of the argument, I will give a thumbnail version that, though incomplete, will show the dimensions of the problem.
1. How financial need is determined: Students wishing to apply for financial aid must file both the Financial Aid Form (FAF) and the Free Application for Student Financial Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA is the form required by the Department of Education in determining need for all federal programs. The FAF is considered a supplemental form which provides more information regarding such things as medical or dental expenses, home equity, and expected yearly income. The forms taken together are the basis of the standardized methodology aimed at awarding institutional funds equitably.
Because so many factors are significant in determining need, such as household size, number in college, and age of the oldest parent, it is impossible to say in general which families will be eligible at a given income level. Institutions may make adjustments, within limits, based on extenuating circumstances such as loss of employment, divorce or separation, or high medical or dental expenses not covered by insurance. The system serves families at the lower income levels well, but for those in the middle income range, small variations In the determining factors can often leave students technically ineligible for any financial help.
2. Who pays for it: A typical financial plan for a freshman with average need would be structured as follows:
Cost of education: Tuition $7430 Fees 200 Room and Board 5720 Personal expenses 750 Books 275 Travel 600
Total $24975
Sources: Expected family contribution $8780 Financial Aid Govt. subsidized loan 2625 Work/study 1700 College-funded grant 11870
Total $24975
(college pays 50%, government pays 50%)
It has been the policy of St. John's College for at least the last two decades to meet the full need of every student. It was easier to do this years ago when costs were lower and when the federal government was paying a larger part of the bill. At present, meeting full need means that the college must pay whatever cannot be covered in some other way with college-funded grant, in effect a discount on the price of tuition. Thus it often turns out that the college provides grants as large as $15,000 for students whose high need cannot be covered by other sources.
In 1994-95 the aid packages taken in the aggregate resulted in the following proportions: Grant 67% Loans 27% Work 6%
It is a plain fact that such heavy reliance on college grant and the increasing trend in that direction cannot be sustained by the college indefinitely.
3. The student's financial problem The last section showed financial aid as it appears to the college and summarized the problems it presents. This section shows the financial discussion of attending St. John's as it appears to students and their parents. Students and their families are expected to pay the "family contribution out of current earnings, savings and loans. In addition, the "self-help" portion of the financial aid package requires additional loans and a work component.
First, our total of tuition and fees makes St. John's higher priced than nearly all the institutions that enroll students who also applied to St. John's (see Appendix 3).
Second, the needs analysis system described above keeps us from working out viable financial plans for highly qualified students who need some financial assistance to attend college but find themselves denied any help at all. What began as a high-minded system that equalized the opportunity for all students to attend the college of their choice has in the present climate limited access to only the very wealthy and the destitute. The government has greatly decreased the financial backing of the system over the years but has left us with a weighty burden of regulations and reporting requirements, and worst of all, a needs analysis system that prohibits us from helping a large category of students who should be able to attend the college but, as matters stand, cannot.
Finally, while the loan burden we expect of students is not a major problem, the work component is. Student aid jobs pay $5.25 per hour for a maximum of 10 hours per week. Over the 28 weeks that students may work during the school year, this yields a maximum of $1700, The cost of attending St. John's for one year is approaching $25000. What students can earn at this rate bears virtually no relation to the costs they face.
D. The Faculty
The principle governing faculty salaries may seem strange to those from industry who may be tempted to think of the faculty as an "input of labor" to be purchased for a certain wage. Astonishingly, the tutors of this college were persuaded long ago and continue to believe that their work is the fulfillment of a vocation, that they are not paid for what they do, but rather, they are provided with a stipend that makes their work possible by freeing them from practical obligations like paying the bills. All tutors are paid according to a single scale. The only significant variable in determining salaries is the amount of time a tutor has taught at St. John's. We continue, and rightly, to speak of tutors as being appointed, of serving appointments, and of completing their appointments. It sometimes takes some doing to keep up the fight against such terms as "hiring" and "firing" or "terminating" that may be appropriate to industry. These ways of speaking may sound archaic, Quixotic, or at worst self-serving, but in fact they are not mere niceties of language. It is essential to the spirit of the college that tutors see themselves as serving the ends of the college as learners and teachers dedicated to our plan or instruction, not as instruments serving the will of another. Colleges are mistaken and lose the tremendous power of vocational dedication that grows from this concept when they too easily nod to the business metaphor.
Because faculty salaries are structured as they are, the easiest way to save in the operating budget is to hold fast or reduce faculty compensation. It requires no negotiation with individuals and appeals to the lifetime of commitment tutors generally make to the college. For emergencies it is right to ask the faculty to make sacrifices. To constrain them to do so routinely, year after year, however, is wrong. Beyond what it does to them and their families, it threatens the quality of instruction and the well-being of the college.
The education of tutors who are broadly accomplished in virtually all parts of the program requires decades. Moreover, those who commit themselves to the path of becoming tutors for the most part give up their mobility in the academic world. For them to do their work well in teaching every part or the program from ancient Greek to modern physics, and to make the long term commitment, adequate pay and the prospect of an orderly financial future are necessary.
Second, the sabbatical program in its present form or something very much like it is absolutely necessary for study and renewal. In a work environment that requires non-stop commitment for the other six years in the cycle, it would be foolish to claim that tutors work harder than professors at other institutions. At other colleges, however, people teach in a department or area of their own choosing. At St. John's tutors work hard throughout the year, summer included, to learn new disciplines prescribed by the program. For the college to progress and not merely to survive, tutors need frequent opportunities for professional development, to go beyond what is possible while teaching the program, and to follow their personal intellectual interests that bear often in unpredictable ways on the quality of the intellectual life of the college.
E. A Fact
Even though St. John's boasts the highest faculty to student ratio and the smallest classes of most any undergraduate college in the country, the cost of instruction at St. John's fails only in the middle range for our comparison group (see Appendix 3). This occurs for several reasons: Since there are no academic departments here, we avoid altogether the costs of departmental structures, department heads, secretaries, computers and copy machines. Moreover, the versatility of our faculty is enormous. Because in theory every tutor can teach every class (in practice everyone can do quite a number of classes well), we can staff our classes in all areas using the faculty we have. We are never in the position of bidding for a high-priced physicist or law professor. The academic overhead too is lean. One dean and one assistant dean serve the entire faculty and student body.
Our total cost per student rises some because, even with a small student body, we still need a full complement in the areas of institutional support, though, here too, a small number of people perform multiple and varied tasks.
F. One College, Two Campuses, Three Problems
Unity: Last year (1993-94) the two presidents and the two deans drafted a paper on the unity of the college that spells out a delicate compromise between serving the legitimate individual interests of the two campus and maintaining a unified core. We all agree that the unity of the program in spirit, if not in all the details, is of central importance. The three practical elements we have traditionally aimed to keep the same are (1) faculty salaries, (2) tuition and financial aid, and (3) the transferability of students between the campuses.
1. For the first time In many years, the faculty on the two campuses will receive salaries at different rates, and for the first time ever the divergence has come without a firm commitment to restore parity as soon as possible. The difference is small (3% including a 1.5% bonus) and the pay scale or distribution scheme is identical on both campuses, but the tendency toward greater divergence is much stronger than it has ever been and conversely the reasons to hope that parity can be restored are much dimmer. While we can live with a small disparity for a long time or even a large one briefly, in the long run this will contribute greatly to unknitting the unity of the college as it creates distinctions, complicates the transfer of tutors between the campuses, and strains the meaning of a single faculty on two campuses.
2. Our respective locations imply much about the students we serve and the competition we face. Within a 500 mile radius of Annapolis, there are dozens of good independent colleges and a strong tradition of supporting independent colleges. Our tuition In 1994-95 fell comfortably in the middle of a rather high bracket compared to these schools.
Santa Fe, by contrast, (as I've said before, but it's worth repeating) is the most expensive college in an 800-mile radius, and by a considerable margin. In New Mexico and the four neighboring states there are only a handful or independent colleges with national student bodies. (Footnote 3) Though we draw a number of students from distant states, it is still true that the greatest number of students will attend a college within 500 miles of their home. Clearly, we should be drawing an increasing number from our own region. We must realize, however, that native New Mexicans have no tradition of supporting expensive private colleges.
The ironic conclusion to be drawn here is that the Santa Fe campus, the one that most needs the money, has either reached or exceeded the level of tuition that is appropriate for the Southwest, while the Annapolis campus can probably benefit further by substantial increases in tuition.
3, Should our tuition levels diverge, the transfer of students wilt also become somewhat vexed. In some sense the two campuses would find themselves in greater competition with each other. There is some danger that students would choose the Santa Fe campus over Annapolis to receive the same education cheaper. On the other hand, students might flee in the opposite direction on the claim that what is cheaper must be inferior. Both of these fears would be mitigated by the fact that the undergraduate enrollment on the two campuses has been at or near capacity for the last several years and by the rules we have established governing the maximum number of students allowed to imbalance the transfers between campuses.
III. Beginning to Talk Solutions
The first solution that comes to mind for everyone is to increase endowment capital. It is a fact that the Santa Fe campus is undercapitalized, but then so is Annapolis. Annapolis, however, is better off than Santa We by a factor of more than two and a half. Topping up Santa Fe's endowment by some $15 million roughly to match Annapolis would solve most of our problems and dwarf the rest of them. But this is not a very helpful way of thinking. It belongs to the "hopeful" mode that I would claim is too passive an attitude for us to hold at this moment in our development. What I would suggest is that we open ourselves to consider whole realms of possibility to which we are closed when we function in the hopeful mode and when we are sufficiently insulated financially. We must be willing to make a virtue of necessity and find opportunity in constraint.
These considerations can only begin with the firm conviction that the work we do at St. John's is extremely valuable both to our students and as a model for education in this country. It deserves not only to survive, but should exert a much greater influence on education at all levels in America than it has managed so far. This is not mere self-serving hyperbole. American education is at sea in a high wind and the islands of sanity and thoughtfulness like St. John's are scarce, necessarily small, and difficult to notice above the din.
The next step is harder, but every bit as important: We must carefully and honestly distinguish the essence of what we do from its accidents, and we must be clear about the conditions necessary for the college to do its work
What follows will be a collection of thoughts, some of them practical, some having to do with our program of instruction, but taken together all bearing on the nature and quality of learning and the life of the mind at this college.
A. A Financial Model In his recent book, "Liberal Arts Colleges: Thriving, Surviving, or Endangered," (Washington: Brookings Institute, 1994), David Breneman describes a financial model and a typical course of development for small colleges. His analysis is presented in the uncollegial jargon of economics, but in substance it could easily have been written with St. John's in Santa Fe as its paradigm case. The faculty of St. John's have planned and established an educational program with a fixed set of required features for a set number of students, designed to operate under the constraint of a balanced budget. This is what Breneman calls the "first stage optimization" for a private college. We are now poised to go on to the next level of "optimizing the quality" of our educational system. We are finding, however, that there is not sufficient demand for what we offer at the price we are offering It.
The following graph illustrates the demand curve for our freshman class. Tuition is plotted against the number of students. Students receiving college grants are plotted one by one beginning with those receiving the smallest grants, The resulting rectangle represents total tuition revenue; the shaded area. "college grant" or "tuition discount"; the line AB, the "demand curve."
[Graph omitted]
A better picture for the Santa Fe campus would look like this:
[Graph omitted] [Note: The two graphs omitted (this one and the previous one) are x and y axes, with tuition expense on the y axis and individual students making up a class on the x axis. The first graph -- using "real" numbers -- shows that more than half of the students receive financial aid, very few students receive either small grants or very large grants. But the "middle class" of this population is very large -- a lot of students, apparently more than 40%, receive 50% or more of their tuition directly from the college.
The second graph is a picture of a better hypothetical financial situation, described below by Dean Van Luchene.]
It has the following features: More of the grants are smaller with only a few students receiving very large awards, and the net revenue is increased.
In brief, Bremen's thesis is that institutionally funded aid, that portion the college funds itself, should not be construed as a 'discretionary' expenditure. In fact, it is a discounting of our price that we are constrained to make in order to draw the number of students we are equipped to serve.
When institutional aid is construed as a discretionary expenditure, the solutions that suggest themselves are virtually all wrong. To cap the budget on financial aid, to underfund student aid packages, to limit the percentage of students on aid can have only one result in an environment of insufficient demand, and that is to shrink enrollment. And, as all college presidents, deans, treasurers and admission directors know, a college only hurts itself letting places in the freshman class go empty by trying to control aid in this way. Every additional student, no matter what the cost in financial aid, produces some marginal revenue.
We have learned this lesson from experience, the hardest of teachers. Possibilities that show more promise include 1) decreasing the net cost of providing the education and 2) rethinking the nature of our "demand curve." Puzzling over the nature of the demand curve is one of our first tasks: What elements contribute to its shape? Over which of them do we have any control? Can we find ways of structuring and describing our program that will cause sufficient demand for it at a price we need to ask in order to break even?
What we have done so far in Santa Fe is to wring out of our instructional program every bit of shoulder room we could find. We have not crossed the line that marks serious compromise of our principles, but we are close. It is clear that this problem impinges directly on the quality of our program. Merely economizing on our educational practices--increasing class sizes, pinching on faculty salaries, financial aid, student services, academic and institutional support, and deferring building maintenance may be effective if done briefly to address a short-term problem. But ours is a serious long-term problem which strategies of this kind can only make worse, even in the short run.
B. The Instructional Program
In considering expenses our challenge is to rethink some of our educational practices in such a way that we not only save money, but at the same time we actually improve the effectiveness of the education we provide. Though as seen from the outside, the program may appear to have changed very little in thirty years, the tutors are constantly assessing its parts and improving them when it seems right. It is also true that, because of our conservative structure of internal governance and our close relationship with the Annapolis campus, It has been difficult to look objectively at the whole sweep of the program with the possibility of far-reaching change. The program in many ways still bears the personal stamp of those who founded it in 1937. To a large extent its preoccupations remain the concerns of that time. We must take a fresh look to be sure that the central concerns of the program provide a suitable body of matter for the young men and women of our own day. While it is not possible or perhaps even appropriate to conceive a single best curriculum, given the enormous work in the last fifty years In mathematics and science. literature, philosophy and the study of language, we must be open to asking whether we have made a judicious selection and have formed a suitably cohesive and exemplary course of study.
We might well consider whether we can find better ways of teaching the parts of the program that involve rote learning. Quite a bit of valuable faculty time may be going into work that can be managed better and more cheaply by programmed computer study or by drill sessions led by student assistants.
While we all acknowledge the importance of there being two tutors in each seminar, we may wish to restructure in such a way that we treat books that cannot be well done in a seminar format in some other way, perhaps reduce the total number of seminars and provide the kind of tutorial help that may work better for such writers as Aristotle, Kant and Hegel. Other, even more far- reaching possibilities will be raised in the next section It is unlikely that we will be able to find a large number of measures that will both improve the quality of instruction and at the same time save money, but it is worth finding those we can.
We must continue to do our best to fulfill our promise to provide students with an undergraduate education that will equip them to succeed in the world they will face. Does our program do all it should to prepare them to become responsible citizens, to become learners in their own right, to make a difference in the world they will enter? We need to be relentless in asking ourselves these questions, and wary of falling into the pattern of adding or clinging to elements in our program just because we are comfortable with them.
C. Making Sense to Students and Their Parents
It is important that students should want to come to the college, but they and their parents must also see St. John's as a reasonable financial proposition. For that to be so, we must be able to present a reasonable case. Students and their parents must be shown that with a combination of loans, work, and modest college grants they will be able to pay off the cost of this education in a reasonable time. For them to be convinced, it must be true. At present in many cases it is not. Establishing "reasonableness" in this context is difficult to do with much precision. But as is the case with faculty salaries, a rough yardstick is better than none at all. The following notions should be explored:
1. Tuition rate: Set the tuition rate near the middle of the range for our. western competitors. Move toward lower tuition and lower unfunded aid. If we present these elements as part of a thought-out and appropriate strategy, it should bring us favorable recognition in the press, inasmuch as it represents radical new thinking about the cost of college and would be a departure from the business-as-usual approach that has, by inertia, gotten us into our present fix. Again, wealthy parents who recognize the appropriateness of a lower tuition rate may also be more willing to help the college with charitable contributions.
2. Financial aid balance: The aggregate balance financial aid should be something like 50% grant, 25% work, and 25% loan, in place of the very high grant levels that are current.
3. Student jobs: Restore meaning to the once significant but now empty phrase. "working my way through college." Increase the hourly rate we pay students for student labor on campus to at least what the local market pays. Restore a meaningful relationship between what a diligent student can earn and the cost of education at St. John's. Give every student who wants to work an opportunity to work regardless of the FAF. Make it possible for students to earn say 25% of the cost of their education through employment during the academic year and during vacations. Call on students to do as much as possible of the work that we presently cover by hiring full-time employees. This, of course, would require our providing expert supervision and training and for the students to develop a strong commitment to this approach. We have actually begun to move student employment in this direction on the Santa Fe campus. Student jobs are now structured in such a way that every student worker is likely to gain positive work experience doing work that the college really needs to have done and under supervisors who will train, correct, reward or dismiss students as is appropriate. By using student labor in this way, the college would be able to pay students at a higher rate while avoiding the cost of benefits and at the same time strengthening our sense of community.
We may wish to increase slightly the number of hours we allow students to work in order to discourage them from taking second, off campus jobs as many of them now must do.
Financially everyone would benefit: the students offset a significant part of their educational cost; the college gets work done that needs to be done and at lower cost than it incurs at present by employing a large number of full- time employees with benefits. Also, a significant portion of college grant would be converted into student wages,
In addition, we should help students to find good summer and vacation employment even more aggressively than we have done and teach them more completely how to make their way in the world of work.
4. Loans: the loan burden for students is not at present unreasonable. Students borrow no more than $17,125 at present over the four years. The rough gauge for many colleges is that the equivalent of one year's cost of education constitutes an appropriate loan maximum. We should establish an institutionally based loan fund to replace part of college grant. This fund would provide greater flexibility in building financial aid packages, particularly for middle income families. Unlike college grant, this revolving fund would then be available to help students not only of the present but also of the future.
5. Need guidelines: We should establish our own financial aid guidelines that will allow us to offer modest assistance to middle class families who need the help but who do not qualify under the FAF/FAFSA system. We must remain committed to tuition discounting; but we should stop being blind about it. Twenty years ago when the Federal government provided generous assistance, we could afford to offer assistance to everyone in need. In the absence of substantial federal money, the system has stopped providing equal access and freedom of choice. As matters stand now, it provides access mostly to the very wealthy and the very poor.
We should use tuition discounting to bring in the best class of freshmen each year we can and do it in such a way that we make a St. John's education possible for students from the whole financial and social spectrum. This means offering something more to students we believe are likely to do very well with our program. Though we would depart from our traditional need-blind approach in admission and aid, we would maintain the most important part of our non-merit principle: We would continue religiously to make sure that students in our co-operative classrooms are not pitted against each other to maintain grade levels or other artificial "merit" standards.
The two sides then, as I see it, of improving the shape of our demand curve are: 1) making sure that our educational program really does what it is meant to do and that students and their parents can see that it is doing so and 2) making the education here financially reasonable.
IV. Going Farther Afield
What follow are not proposals, but notions of the kind we need to consider and work through if we mean to address the issue of our future. In its larger terms, it may turn out that there are overwhelming arguments against every one of these notions; in that case, I hope that they will help give rise to more promising thoughts.
A. Rethink the program from the ground up. If we were to create a college "in speech," the model of colleges, without regard to the determining hand of history or present political or financial realities, what shape would it have? I am tempted to take up this project In a full-blown way, but in the interest of space will save it for another occasion. There are, or course, many versions of the dream. At any time some particular version dominates, but it serves the college's vitality to hear the other voices.
Issues that might be considered under this heading include what the length of the program should be and how the elements might be configured. One can imagine a three-year unified program from Homer to Nietzsche followed by a fourth year that would branch in several directions chosen more at the discretion of individual tutors. A complete three-year program is not inconceivable. It could be structured in many ways either with or without summer work.
We might also reconsider our admission requirements, With a three-year program, we might raise our expectations: Students might be required to pass qualifying examinations in algebra and calculus, in English grammar, and to show basic knowledge in whatever modern language we might include before coming to the college. Under such a scheme we might consider providing a preliminary year to prepare students who need it to undertake the work of the program.
Once these flood gates have been opened, it is easy to be carried away. To be constantly working, however, at constructing the ideal college "in speech" is the only way we can avoid a future that results from mere compromised compromises.
B. Change our relationship with Annapolis from that of twins to something more like cousins. It should be possible to retain a sense of the unity of our animating spirit without clinging to a moribund conception of parity in all ways. We are clearly moving in this direction: we should proceed thoughtfully and not merely by inertial drift.
C. Strengthen our relationship with other colleges and universities interested in our kind of education. Form a consortium with them. Find ways of facilitating transfer from or to them after the first or second year. Such a consortium would give us a larger platform from which to have a greater voice in the national debate over the nature of undergraduate education. With yearly conferences rotating among the institutions, we would have much greater opportunities to learn from one another.
D. Establish a center at the college for helping other colleges and school systems adopt modified versions of our approach in their own institutions. Though I do not believe that our program can be simply replicated successfully at other schools, the ideas that govern it surely can be used to advantage by others to build good programs of their own. Such a center would also serve for teachers who might profit from a greater involvement with the college. We could offer more scholarships to the Graduate Institute for teachers and particularly those in our local area. We might help with liberal arts projects and involve our undergraduates more fully in the work of our community schools.
E. Sink our roots more deeply in Santa Fe. Even after thirty years St. John's in Santa Fe remains and is largely seen as an uprooted and transplanted Eastern college. The Annapolis campus draws much of its strength and support from local benefactors and local alumni, those for whom St. John's is a neighbor.
The Santa Fe campus, if it hopes to enjoy anything like the 300-year history Annapolis is about to complete, must strengthen its ties in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Southwest. These ties must be more than merely cosmetic.
We need to pursue actively activities in which the college can make a real contribution to our state. As it stands, we play little or no part in the statewide conversation about education, even liberal education. We have worked in the last few years to enroll students from New Mexico and we need to do even more. The faculty needs to be more fully engaged in community activities in areas where our particular abilities can be of use.
F. Build youth leadership programs here to introduce promising students to St. John's and our work, both during the summer and during the academic year. These programs should be structured as the prestigious recognition that they truly would be. We should work to build local appreciation in the cities and towns of New Mexico and solicit local support for local students in community organizations.
V. Conclusion
Perhaps a brief palinode is in order. What we surely do not want is to move quickly in a dozen different directions. Our strength has resided in the power of our educational idea, in the simplicity, stability and unity of the program that relies on reading. The best books we can find that can be organized as a cohesive program with small classes conducted through conversation and with profound respect for the mystery of learning as intimated in the Meno. We must also be careful to remember that doing our work well depends on adequate leisure. The word "school" of course is the Greek equivalent for "leisure." It is not possible to sweat-out a solution to this problem by overburdening and underpaying the faculty and staff or by overcharging and underserving the students.
Over the years we have valiantly resisted inappropriate outside pressures to change. Change here has come slowly in small increments, and that is as it should be. In the next few years, however, greater measures may be necessary, and it would be a serious error for us not to have given them some forethought. I have little fear that we will act precipitously; I do hope we will indeed be able to act and not just quietly await our fate without putting up a struggle. I suspect that the solution for us will take the form of a number of small and medium-sized steps including a number of those sketched above. We should be clear about where those steps lead, and we should choose their direction.
In conclusion, the situation we face in Santa Fe is indeed serious,
and the ways we choose to address it will set the course of this
campus for some time to come. I hope that this paper will serve
as a springboard to further possibilities and that it will not
invite merely reactionary criticism of its smaller points. None
of the ideas it includes about instruction is intended as a proposal.
They are all meant to illustrate possibilities and to encourage
conversation about our situation. Whatever instructional proposals
eventually emerge, in my view, must serve the two objectives of
improving our program and of making our work financially viable.
I hope to have shown that serving both these objectives may really
be possible.
(Edited: 12/21/94)
*****
Footnotes
Footnote 1. Article V(l)(c): "Each year the Chairman of the Instruction Committee shall after consultation with the Instruction Committee on his campus. and after discussion with the Instruction Committee of the College. submit a Statement of Educational Policy and Program to the Faculty as a whole for discussion. The President shall present the Statement, together with an account of the Faculty discussion of it and his response to It. as a report to the Board of visitors and Governors for its consideration." What follows is the Statement for 1994-95.
I am grateful to Messrs. Agresto, Valentine, Clendenin, and Rodriguez for their help with this paper and for supplying the financial and statistical information it includes. Back to text
Footnote 2. The number of students who have been accepted for admission but have then withdrawn has grown over the last four years: 89 in Aug. 1991; 115 in Aug. 1992; 120 in Aug. 1993; 139 in Aug. 1994. A full account of the problems encountered by the Admission Office and suggestions for solutions can be found, well and succinctly put, in Larry Clendenin's 1993-94 Annual Report . Back to text
Footnote 3. Including Bible colleges and private junior
colleges there are a total of 21 in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma,
Colorado. and Texas, and only 12 independent colleges with national
student bodies. Back to text