States Should Squeeze College Coaches to Lower Tuition and House Students

By JOEL D. JOSEPH

When I attended college in the late 1960s and early ’70s student debt was extremely low, college coaches made modest salaries and there was little homelessness on college campuses. John Wooden, one of the most revered basketball coaches of all time, made $40,500 in 1975 when he won his 10th NCAA title for UCLA.

In the last 40 years, the college world has been turned upside down. Coaches are paid astronomical salaries, even if they perform poorly. Tuition has gone out of control, and simultaneously student loans have skyrocketed. As a result of high tuition, tens of thousands of students have become homeless.

Steve Alford, UCLA’s basketball coach, was fired recently for not doing very well in NCAA tournaments. Alford made $2.6 million per year, more than the governor of the state, more than the president of the United States and more than 99% of the population. Alford was paid 15 times what John Wooden made (after adjusting for inflation), and 25 times what the top professors earn today. This craziness has got to stop.

Incredibly, Alford was paid less than 22 other college basketball coaches. Mike Krzyzewski led basketball coaches with a $9 million salary from Duke University. University of Kentucky’s John Calipari came in second at $8 million.

Football coaches are paid gobs of money also, led by Alabama’s Nick Saban at $8.3 million. Saban’s eight-year contract cost the State of Alabama $74 million, enough to fund 7,400 students with $10,000 scholarships. Alabama and Kentucky need to increase scholarships more than most states, as they are often near the bottom of states concerning higher education funding.

Wisconsin HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, recently released a survey of students at 70 community colleges in 24 states. It found that 14% were homeless. Those conclusions buttress findings of a study released last year by California State University that estimated that 8% to 12% of its students were homeless.

Tuition and Student Debt is Rising Out of Control

Since the 1970s, tuition rates have risen over 1,000%, while state funding of universities has declined by 40%. And the proportion of young Americans with education debt has more than quadrupled, from 5% to 22%.

Student loan debt has spiraled upward. In 1970, a year at Harvard University cost less than half the median family income ($4,070, including room and board, against a median $9,870 income). Tuition then cost $2,600 per year, approximately $16,650 in 2017 dollars. Today, that same education costs more than $63,000 per year, including room and board, with tuition accounting for more than $43,000 of that total. And it isn’t just the Ivy League schools that have seen astronomical increases in tuition. Between 1995 and 2015, in-state tuition at public universities rose by 300%.

Student loan debt increased dramatically, from $90 billion in 1999 to $480 billion in 2006, to $1.5 trillion in 2017. Remarkably, student loan debt now exceeds the total of all credit card debt in the United States.

What Can Be Done?

Limiting coaches’ salaries will not solve the student tuition, debt and homelessness problem. But it can help. California, for example, could and should enact a statute providing that all coaches at the University of California and California State Universities be paid no more than $500,000 per year. However, this must be done nationwide so that coaches will have no choice but to take lower salaries.

Every college in the US receives money from the federal government. A lot of money. The University of Colorado, for example, gets more money from the federal government than it does from the State of Colorado. Congress could put some strings on that money and require that all colleges receiving federal funds limit the salaries of coaches to a maximum of $500,000 per year.

In addition, Congress can reduce the interest rate charged on student loans. Students are now charged 5.05% on federally financed student loans. Congress can also vote to discharge student loans for students who take public interest jobs, like working for rural health clinics, working for the Peace Corps, teaching in public schools, AmeriCorps or other public service organizations.

The states have cut back funding to universities when they need it most. Back in 1970, California universities charged no tuition at all, only a modest registration fee of a few hundred dollars. Recently, California has gone from being a debtor state to a state with a surplus of nearly $30 billion. A large chunk of this surplus should go to state universities to lower tuition. California should lead the way to demonstrate that tuition and student debt do not have to hamstring our students. Lowering tuition and capping coaches salaries will go a long way to reducing inequality and giving the poorest a chance at a college education without being homeless.

Joel Joseph is chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting American-made products. Email joeldjoseph@gmail.com. Phone 310 MADE-USA.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2019

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