he Commission appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings found that "Our higher education financing system is increasingly dysfunctional" (U.S. Department of Education [DOE], 2006, p. 10). Moreover, the Commission's findings regarding student financial aid state, "The entire financial aid system-including federal, state, institutional, and private programs-is confusing, complex, inefficient, duplicative, and frequently does not direct aid to students who truly need it" (p. 3).

Robert Zemsky (2007), acknowledged as one of America's top higher education policy researchers and a member of Spellings' Commission, was quoted as saying, "I suppose that I should have known, but I had never focused on how much federal aid was being awarded using criteria other than financial need" (¶. 35). This admission is very important to the issue of affordability because if an eminent researcher like Zemsky was not aware of the amount of non-need-based federal aid, perhaps there are many others in our federal and state governments who also are not knowledgeable of the increasing amount of federal student financial aid that is being awarded using criteria other than financial need. Higher education affordability is a very complex issue and, to their credit, the Commission did a good job of portraying its current condition in the United States.

The most noteworthy recommendation on affordability that the Commission (DOE, 2006) made was that "Public providers of student financial aid should commit to meeting the needs of students from low-income families" (p. 19). Forty-two years ago, Lyndon B. Johnson (1965) conveyed virtually the same message when he said, "Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake-but for the nation's sake. Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not military preparedness-for armed might is worthless if we lack the brain power to build a world of peace; not our productive economy-for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government-for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant" (p. 26).

What is most surprising is not what was included in the Commission's report but rather what was conspicuously absent from the report. The Commission, for whatever reason, did not address what likely is the primary cause of the low rate of higher education participation from students from low-income families-a major philosophical shift in funding American higher education that has been occurring since approximately 1985. The federal and many state governments have been slowly shifting responsibility for funding higher education away from legislative bodies to students and their families (Alexander, 1996, 1998; Breneman & Finney, 1997; Callan & Finney, 1997; Gladieux & Hauptman, 1995; Higham, 1997).

According to The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2006), students from low-income families are finding it increasingly more difficult to pay for a college education simply because an ever increasing portion of federal tax appropriations for higher education has been focused on helping students from middle- to upper-income families. Moreover, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2002) found that federal financial aid programs for students from low-income families have seen major reductions in appropriations while aid programs for students without demonstrated need have multiplied.

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (2006), in current dollars, show that from fiscal year 1985 to fiscal year 2004, federal Pell grant expenditures increased 60% whereas tax expenditures for higher education increased by 83%. During this same period of time, Perkins Loans increased by 154% and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) increased by 460%. Clearly, higher education students are taking out more loans because Pell and other federal and state grant programs have not kept pace with students' needs.

Adam Smith, perhaps the first to categorize education as an investment in human capital, pointed out some 230 years ago that one can compare the time and energy expended on acquiring an education to an expensive machine one might purchase (Woodhall, 1987). Smith was making the analogy that expenditures on education could be regarded as a form of investment because the promise of a monetary return on the investment. Nobel prize-winning economists Schultz (1961) and Becker (1964) asserted that education provides future benefits for both the individual and society as a whole.

Because low-income families have few assets with which to invest in their own human capital, it is, therefore, incumbent upon governments to see that such investments are made (Psacharopoulos, 1996). Consequently, when federal and state reductions in higher education investments force families to assume greater responsibility for investment in their own family members' higher education, many students from low-income families may simply decide that a college education is too financially risky.

Trends in financing a college education present serious problems for low- and moderate-income families (The College Board, 2001). Unfortunately, these changes in funding responsibility likely are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy because, according to Geske (1996), "Studies show that persons are more likely to complete a given level of education if their parents are (or were) highly educated" (p. 33). Thus, if parents do not participate in higher education, then it is less likely that their children will participate in higher education.

If low-income students continue to be denied access to higher education, the nation's investment in human capital will likely continue to decrease and social stratification in America will increase correspondingly. Unfortunately, current trends suggest that an increased stratification of American higher education is already underway ("How Do Costs Affect Institutional Choice?", 1998). However, one way to reverse the existing stratification of American higher education is for federal and state governments to do as recommended by the Commission (DOE, 2006)-put increasingly larger shares of postsecondary student financial aid dollars into need-based grant programs. Although the recommendation of the Commission that public providers of higher education should commit themselves to improving affordability by meeting the needs of students from low-income families is laudable, it is important to remember that funding in the "real" world is a zero-sum proposition.

If the federal government were to put more funds into need-based student financial aid grant programs for higher education, absent a national income tax increase, it would first have to take the money from other programs. Perhaps significant revisions to federal legislation which created the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit program, Lifetime Learning Tax Credit program, and other tax expenditures would be a place to start. Federal tax expenditures for 2004 totaled $730 billion dollars-approximately $45 billion of federal tax expenditures in 2004 were for non-need-based higher education support (United States Governmental Accountability Office, 2006).

Now that the problem of higher education affordability is known on a national scale, it is up to the federal government, state governments, and higher education to muster the fortitude to implement the Commission's recommendations on affordability and significantly increase federal and state need-based student financial aid. Because funding tax-based higher education programs will likely continue to be a zero-sum proposition, reality dictates that federal and state legislative bodies, as well as private tax-paying citizens, eventually ask the difficult questions: (1) are we prepared to give up some other tax-funded program to better support higher education or (2) are we prepared to be taxed more heavily in order to better support higher education?

In summary, American higher education does need to change several things to become more efficient and responsive to multiple customers. However, American higher education itself is not the problem. The deterioration of our nation's human capital happened because of the shift made by our federal and state governments during the past fifteen years where they have clearly favored choice over affordability of higher education.

At the federal as well as at state levels, funding of budgets is based upon complicated priorities established by elected officials with input from their staffs, constituents, and lobbyists. Because low-income families have little political clout with the federal and state legislatures, their needs are often overlooked because of the louder voice of those with money. It is critically important that elected officials in the federal and state legislatures come to realize that increased affordability of higher education is crucial to growing the human capital necessary for America to remain economically secure. Unless the federal and state governments make higher education affordability for all Americans a top priority, our nation's human capital will surely continue to dwindle and our economic security will remain threatened.

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Dr. Jackie Davis is President of Olney Central College. The college is part of the Illinois Eastern Community Colleges (IECC) system, a multi-college District in southeastern Illinois . IECC institutions have a reputation for being some of the most affordable colleges in the neighboring tri-state area. Jackie Davis holds an Ed.D. in community college leadership from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Davis can be reached at davisj@iecc.edu.

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