This is one report card that won’t be going on the fridge. Nebraska has earned a mixed bag of grades — including an “F” in affordability — from a national higher education study to be released today.

Only seven states didn’t flunk that category, which is evidence, education officials here say, that universities must work harder to avoid pricing out low-income families.

“We’re losing ground in affordability. We can’t ignore this,” said University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken.

“I continue to believe we need to provide affordable education to the state, and we’ve got some work to do on that.”

The study — from the California-based National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education — found the average Nebraska undergraduate borrows $3,447 a year, up from $2,665 yearly in 1992.

And an average family pours 27 percent of its annual income into a public, four-year college education, according to the study, up from 17 percent in 1992.

All that factors into Nebraska’s glaring “F,” the same grade it earned last year.

Craig Munier, director of scholarships and financial aid at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the state needs to boost its need-based financial aid offerings.

Otherwise, he said, low-income families will be shut out of higher education, eventually leaving Nebraska with an uneducated adult workforce.

“It’s better to educate people than to not,” Munier said. “It’s a good investment. It’s money well-spent.”

NU also should initiate more opportunities for high schoolers to gain college credit before ever arriving on campus, Milliken said. And once they come to college, they should be encouraged to graduate in four years, which could save them thousands of dollars.

“We need to look for ways to innovate to address these questions of affordability,” he said.

Still, Regent Charles Wilson of Lincoln bristled at the flunking grade, saying the report doesn’t fully reflect Nebraska’s efforts to keep tuition from mounting too rapidly.

“Our tuition and fees are very comparable with our peers’,” Wilson said. “We’re competitive.”

Besides, he said, the report also reflects plenty of good things happening in Nebraska. The state received a “B” in preparing high school students for college, a “B+” in graduating students in a timely manner and a glowing “A” in enrolling young people in higher education.

Three-quarters of freshmen in the state’s four-year colleges return for their sophomore year, the study found. And 55 percent of first-time, full-time students graduate in six years or less.

Furthermore, the percentage of Nebraskans ages 25 to 65 with a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 23 percent in 1992 to 29 percent last year.

“Nebraska has a long history of doing well in those areas,” Wilson said.

But gaps remain.

Among 18-to-24-year-olds, 40 percent of whites are enrolled in college, compared to just 24 percent of non-whites, the report says. And young people from affluent families are twice as likely to attend college as those from low-income families.

It’s Milliken’s hope those gaps will shrink — and soon.

“We’ve got lots of room to improve.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.

Husker report cardHere’s how Nebraska fared in a report to be released today from the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education.

 

Preparation: B (measures how well high school students are prepared for college)

Participation: A (measures enrollment in higher education among all age groups)

Affordability: F

Completion: B+ (measures retention and graduation rates)

Benefits: B (measures economic and social benefits the state reaps for having a well-educated population)