NEA Joint Statements

• Priorities for the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (April 2007)
• Priorities for the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (March 2005)
• Minority Mentoring and List of Mentoring Programs
• A Common University Economic and Social Policy
• The Financial Crisis in Higher Education
• National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education

Minority Mentoring

During the past decade, NEA leadership and staff have focused on developing both intellectual and political ties with other higher education organizations. This joint statement, "Minority Mentoring," is one result of those ties.

In June 1990 the National Education Association and the American Association of University Professors jointly sponsored a conference on minority mentoring titled, "Increasing Minority Participation in Higher Education: The Faculty's Role." Fifty people from higher education institutions around the nation attended the event and discussed concrete ways to mentor minority students and faculty. Conference participants prepared a joint statement that was adopted by the NEA Executive Committee and the AAUP in the fall of 1990.

Mentoring to Increase Minority Participation In Higher Education--The Faculty's Role¹

The number of minority faculty and students in higher education is disproportionately low. This inadequate participation, particularly by African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and to some extent Asian Americans, continues despite increases in their rates of high school completion. We anticipate that absent significant intervention, minority participation in graduate schools and on faculties will decline even further.

Both the American Association of University Professors and the National Education Association have issued policy statements supporting programs to improve the participation of minority students, teachers, and faculty at all levels of education. As faculty organizations familiar with the impact of social policy on minority access and success in higher education, AAUP and NEA will continue to work for increased financial support and expanded social programs essential to assure genuine equality of opportunity for all citizens. Recruitment of minorities to colleges and universities is only the first step. Once minority students and faculty are on campus, hurdles continue to impede their chances for success. In many instances, the minority students' pre-college educational experience has not prepared them to live independently away from the home environment or to meet the challenges at the "majority institutions." There are too few minority faculty and staff to serve as role models, there is inadequate support for minority social and cultural life, and there are recurrent instances of racially motivated conflict and violence on campus. Minority faculty often face discrimination in salary, tenure and promotion decisions. Other generic circumstances which tend to marginalize education and, thereby, minimize student involvement in a culture of learning especially impact minority students. These include, excessive reliance on part-time faculty, part-time students, and large classes. Moreover, economically disadvantaged minority students are increasingly tracked into those community college and vocational programs that less often lead to baccalaureate and graduate education.

Faculty in any college or program have a responsibility to offer minority students and colleagues support, encouragement, and mentoring. Faculty should also recognize and seek to understand the various cultures of their students. Student attitudes often reflect their cultural backgrounds and faculty can more effectively teach students whose cultures they understand. In some instances, multi-cultural understanding may prompt revisions in courses and curricula so that previously ignored voices and perspectives may be explored. As higher education leaders, we will seek to increase faculty involvement in ensuring minority academic achievement particularly through individual attention and mentoring activities. The AAUP and the NEA will prepare jointly a resource list of examples of mentoring programs currently employed in higher education. In addition, we will distribute the list to our affiliates for use as models. Our respective organizations may also apply for grants to help fund mentoring programs.

The strategies outlined below focus on the immediate and direct contributions faculty themselves can make to increase minority participation and achievement through mentoring type activities. However, this should not diminish other efforts by the faculty, as well the administrations and governing boards, to increase minority participation.

1. Bridge Programs or Activities: Ensuring that minority students enter college requires early intervention and cooperation between elementary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities. Faculty can contribute to this cooperation through their national associations and/or at their campus.

Faculty can enhance minority access to more advanced education and scholarship by seeking out their colleagues in other segments of education (including schools, two and four-year colleges, and graduate programs) in order to identify students with the desire and potential to continue their education. For example, high school teachers may be invited to identify students with academic potential and introduce them to college teachers and students who will sponsor them through the undergraduate years and then assist them with finding a mentor in graduate school. Faculty should seek to form mentoring relationships with students or teachers that provide an opportunity for encouragement, counseling, academic guidance, and facilitation.

Faculty should work with their colleagues in preparatory programs, or draw them into collaborative work in more advanced programs, in order to assure suitable standards of preparation and to minimize unnecessary barriers to entry into four-year colleges.

2. Undergraduate Activities and Programs: Undergraduate mentoring must adapt to varied circumstances from the all-encompassing small college campuses where students may need opportunities for alternatives to the prevailing campus culture, to the part-time commuter program whose students experience college only as weekly, off-campus lectures.

In large and commuter institutions, where many minority undergraduates are enrolled, faculty need to offer a level of individual academic encouragement, guidance and support not normally found; faculty should promote office visits, facilitate and assist group study sessions, participate in discussion groups workshops or laboratories, involve students in their research, participate in summer study and research programs, and work with student organizations to design peer mentoring and group support networks.

In smaller group settings and classes, faculty should provide minority students the opportunity to pursue studies and activities which reflect and enhance the dialectic between the academic culture and their own.

Faculty should identify minority students with whom they can develop sustained academic relationships including directing these students to other faculty colleagues for support.

In institutions relying on formal programs to provide the advising, instructional services, extra-curricular academic culture, counseling and career opportunities offered by faculty members in the past, faculty should work to link these programs to their academic disciplines, to demonstrate a personal academic commitment, and to provide examples of benefits or opportunities accrued from academic experiences.

Faculty should encourage minority students to consider graduate work.

3. Graduate Activities and Programs: Mentoring relationships are most characteristic of and persistent in graduate programs. Special attention to the mentoring needs of minority students is required because of the inadequate numbers of minority faculty and the presence of a "prove yourself first" attitude which discourages many students.

Faculty should be alert to the needs of those minority students who are not assigned as research assistants to specific faculty and might, therefore, not receive the socialization and support generally provided research assistants.

All students need advisers who offer broad guidance and support through a mentoring relationship. Faculty should provide career guidance and support regardless of the student's background.

4. Collegial Mentoring Relationships: In these competitive times, all new faculty need encouragement and support. But minority colleagues in particular tend to be more isolated, more burdened with the service activities we advise other junior faculty colleagues to defer, and subject to recurrent discrimination and resentment. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Faculty should create opportunities to collaborate and/or pair with minority colleagues in curricular and scholarly endeavors that provide an opportunity for professional development.

Faculty should provide a climate for minority colleagues that offers an effective opportunity for full collegiality and a respect for individuality.

Senior faculty should insure that minority faculty receive the guidance and support generally available to other new faculty, including protection from excessive service and teaching requirements.

The strategies outlined above are general and are intended to suggest a much wider range of activities, beginning even in early childhood, that could contribute toward the goal of broader participation throughout higher education. Although the immediate goal of such enhanced mentoring activity is increased minority participation and achievement in higher education, as we move toward this goal we may contribute also to a general reinvigoration of academic life in which increased diversity and community are joined in scholarly achievement.

(1) This statement represents a consensus of participants at a meeting jointly sponsored by the American Association of University Professors and the National Education Association, June 1990 in Washington, DC.

For well over a decade, the International Conference of University Teachers--an informal NEA-backed group of international faculty leaders and staff -- have been meeting to share information about higher education in different countries. These meetings began in the early 1980s and now involve two groups: the English-speaking and the Scandinavian countries.

Representatives from 13 nations attended and unanimously endorsed this statement at the 1990 meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. The statement emphasizes common economic and social issues that link faculty throughout the world. The NEA Executive Committee adopted the statement in October 1990.

Universities and other institutions of higher learning perform two major tasks: the discovery and application of new knowledge through research, and the preservation and dissemination of knowledge through teaching. The distinguishing feature of a university is this integration of teaching with research. Such integrated teaching and research activity is essential to economic and social development.

Current social and economic conditions create pressures which diminish the capacity of the university to fulfill its mission. These pressures are leading, in some instances, to reduced investment in higher education because the economic benefits are not immediate. Where investment is maintained or enhanced, it is disproportionately allocated toward vocational training, technical education and applied research at the expense of the distinctive contribution of the university to advanced education and basic research. Economic constraints and competition have further diminished the commitment to full participation of women and disadvantaged groups in the activities of the university. Fundamentally, economic and managerial criteria are replacing, rather than complementing, academic professional judgment in university decision-making.

Each of the various academic disciplines contributes to the mission of the university. For example, the physical and biological sciences contribute to economic progress and human well-being and can play a vital role in restoring ecological balance as well as increasing our basic knowledge of the world in which we live. The knowledge of society, culture and language provided through the humanities and social services makes obvious contributions to the advance of civilization, but also makes less obvious but essential contributions to productivity and the organization of work, and democratization of society and to international cooperation. Moreover, a complex and rapidly evolving society requires critical examination. The economic, social, ecological and cultural consequences of radical change must be scrutinized. Universities are central to this task.

The increasing role of knowledge in society and the increasing societal demand and need for education require that government policy towards universities and allocation of resources to the university should reflect:

• the long-term commitment of the university to basic research and advanced teaching,

• the comprehensive and balanced contribution of the university to the development of science, the social sciences, the humanities and the professors,

• the need to attract and retain scholars of the highest quality to academic positions in the university,

• the need for full participation of women and disadvantaged groups in the university,

• the need to ensure an effective participatory decision-making process consistent with the best professional judgment and integrity, and

• a commitment to protection of academic freedom.

Government must invest the increased resources necessary to implement these principles; thus, we as scholars and teachers will be able to meet our responsibilities to the university and thereby contribute to the economic and social development of our societies.

We, the participants at the International Conference of University Teachers' Organizations in Edinburgh, August 1990, have unanimously agreed on the above statement and commend it to our respective national organizations for endorsement.

In June 1991, faculty, staff, and students from the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Association of University Professors joined forces to combat the continuing erosion of federal higher education funding.

Ten teams, consisting of three representatives--one from each organization--spent one day lobbying congressional lawmakers to demand an end to the massive cuts in higher education funding. A written statement was prepared jointly and is presented below. The NEA Executive Committee endorsed the statement during the fall of 1991.

Putting Aside Differences: NEA, AAUP, and AFT Join Forces

Higher education is facing an unprecedented financial crisis. A decade of reduced federal support, combined with current severe state recessions, has put college and university budgets at risk. The massive and drastic cutbacks many state systems face this year will have consequences for a generation of Americans. Cuts to the higher education infrastructure also threaten states' future ability to rebound from the effects of an economic downturn that is only temporary.

In view of the severity of the situation, the three national organizations representing higher education faculty and staff have set aside their historical differences in an effort to combat further erosion of higher education.

The members and leadership of the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) are cooperating to reverse the steady decline of quality in higher education and to assure equality of educational opportunity. More than 200,000 higher education employees, including faculty, academic professionals, support staff, and students are members of AFT, AAUP, and NEA.

Nationally, from 1980 to 1989, total federal postsecondary student aid declined by 3 percent in constant dollars (College Board). Even more startling is a just-released report from the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, which found that total federal spending for postsecondary education plummeted by 24. 3 percent after inflation in the last decade. Middle-income families are increasingly hard-pressed to meet spiraling tuitions. According to College Board data, median family income increased by only 6. 7 percent after inflation from 1980 to 1988, while 4-year public college costs went up 33. 6 percent and private 4-year college costs increased by 44. 7 percent above inflation for this same period. In 1978, in order to meet the needs of those middle-income families, the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, allowed families earning up to $25,000 to receive a Pell Grant. This income would correspond to almost $49,000 today in constant dollars.

In the states, the financial crisis is especially severe in the public sector. As the federal government reduced its financial commitment to higher education, the states assumed a larger share of the responsibility. Now the recession has states cutting budgets and raising tuitions. Students are being priced out of an education both by increasing tuitions and shrinking student aid. Institutions are shutting down programs and cutting back staff. These cuts mean more than just temporary cutbacks, delayed admissions, and delayed completion of degrees. America's students face an inexorable path to limited access and diminished quality unless action is taken to reverse these trends. The nation's productivity, the quality and array of its products and services, and our standard of living will continue to suffer if we fail to invest in education. Nearly two-thirds of the states are coping with operating deficits that already have resulted in severe cutbacks in state education programs. Additional education cuts are certain to come as revenues continue to decline and states follow statutory requirements to balance their budgets. States that are already in fiscal crises cannot be expected to assume a greater burden of support resulting from declining federal investments in education. Mid-year budget cuts have occurred in higher education in at least 30 states this academic year and higher education analysts are predicting deeper cuts yet to come at public colleges around the country (American Association of State Colleges and Universities).

Despite the overwhelming need to invest federal resources in our nation's education system, the President's 1992 education budget request is significantly less than the projected rate of inflation. It is a classic example of a "flexible freeze" budget. Increases in some programs are offset by cuts in others, leaving a net increase for current programs of less than one percent. Further, the President's education proposal would eliminate Pell Grants for 400,000 students including both low- and middle-income families. In addition, the proposal also reduces support for college work study and the Perkins loan program. (Education Daily, 4/12/91)

Quality and Access Threatened

The overall impact on the quality of higher education includes:

• caps on enrollments and cancellation of classes, denying access to qualified students;

• overcrowded or unavailable classes and a general deterioration of campus services and facilities;

• thousands of class sections closed, depriving students of courses they need, and leaving their progress toward a degree and graduation in doubt;

• thousands of service hours cut in academic counseling, library access and computer center operations;

• cutbacks in the purchase of computer equipment, lab materials, and library books and periodicals;

• delays in routine maintenance of classrooms, laboratories and libraries;

• subjecting faculty and staff to hiring freezes, furloughs, dismissals, and salary and benefit cuts. (At the same time, institutions are faced with the need to recruit the next generation of faculty to replace thousands expected to retire in the coming years. The cutbacks could jeopardize the recruitment of female and minority faculty);

• low morale of students, staff, and faculty;

• harming those most in need of educational and training opportunities--minorities, women, those in the lower economic strata of our society, and nontraditional students.

State and national economies will also be losers in the funding crisis if we fail to prepare people for the economic realities of the 21st century. As investments in public higher education decrease, so will the dividends. Support for higher education promotes a better educated citizenry capable of earning more and paying more taxes. States with strong postsecondary institutions are more competitive at attracting corporations and businesses that require highly skilled employees. Reduced investment in public higher education will be felt by states and the nation for decades to come. At a time when the world economy is becoming increasingly competitive and when changing job skills require information processing and use of high technology, it is economic suicide to reduce the investment in higher education. Education is an anti-recession program because it provides re-training for workers laid off and education for students who cannot find jobs.

In the 1980s, a considerable gap opened up between the earning power of college graduates and those with high school diplomas. It is much harder for a male high school graduate to be in the middle class today than it was 10 years ago. In 1971, median earnings for working males with a high school diploma were $24,581 compared to $30,377 for college graduates, expressed in constant 1989 dollars. By 1979 the gap had declined with the high school graduate making $23,939 and the college graduate down to $26, 598. But by 1987, the trend reversed. College graduates' incomes rose 10 percent during the 1980s to $29,299, but high school graduates saw their real wages drop almost 16 percent to $20,210--barely two-thirds as much as the more highly educated group. (Frank Levy, University of Maryland, an expert in income distribution in the United States. )

Public Education Squeezed

The funding difficulties faced by public higher education are broad and deep and are occurring in the north and south and from coast to coast. The four states described below illustrate the dimensions of the national financial crisis.

In California, where the concept of open access to higher education has long been a priority, budget cutbacks and student fee increases are making acceptance into college far from a routine practice. The California State University (CSU) alone will lose about 600 faculty members, leading to a reduction of 4,000 classes. About 20,000 students and prospective students either will be unable to take classes they need to graduate or will not be admitted even if qualified. In the future, both CSU and the University of California systems will be turning away more and more students as university officials actively work to bring down enrollments simply to meet the realities of continually tight budgets.

As a result, enrollments in California's community colleges are growing well past their ability to accommodate them. Students flowing into the community colleges are finding overbooked or canceled classes, outdated equipment, and declining facilities. California's community colleges, already exceeding their enrollment caps for increases in state funding, currently have 88,000 students enrolled for which they receive no additional state funds. And the problems will likely multiply with a proposed cut of over $200 million for the two-year public schools for the next year. Plans to cut hundreds of classes this fall are being put in place throughout the 1. 5 million student system creating an even greater competition for classes. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 California students could be shut out of needed classes in the coming year.

In Massachusetts, where higher education is one of the state's key industries, public colleges and universities have experienced three consecutive years of massive budget cuts, the worst in the nation. The losses have already resulted in the elimination of 1,000 courses, as well as 1,200 positions. To offset the lower appropriations, student fees have been raised, making the University of Massachusetts at Amherst one of the most expensive land-grant colleges in the nation, with in-state tuition, fees, and room and board reaching $8,100 this year.

Just recently, the Governor and state legislative leaders reached agreement on yet another $88 million cut in state appropriations to public higher education in FY 1992, a 17. 4 percent reduction from FY 1991 expenditures. This brings the total three-year reduction in state appropriations to a staggering $220 million or 34. 5 percent (since the high-water mark of $638 million in FY 1989). In addition to a furlough program already in effect for faculty and staff, other proposals include regressive program adaptations such as changing some scholarships into loans and linking tuition rates to a student's family income.

In New York, the City University of New York, a higher educational institution committed to providing access to all segments of the city's population, has sustained approximately $170 million in state aid cuts in recent years and is facing an academic disaster. After years of belt-tightening, large chunks of the University's infrastructure have been chipped away and eroded. The municipal budget of New York City recommends the elimination of 900 community college positions through a cut of $60 million. The state budget plan for 1991-92 will eliminate 810 positions at CUNY's senior colleges, reduce base aid at the community colleges by $125 per student, and increase tuition by $500. That increase, coupled with reductions in aid, will deny a college education to many of the city's otherwise qualified citizens.

Similarly, the State University of New York is facing a budget that, if enacted, would cut SUNY state aid by approximately $160 million. With several years of state aid reductions already taking their toll, SUNY anticipates that hundreds of programs and course offerings will be affected, over 1500 state-funded positions will be eliminated, and students will still have to pay a tuition increase of $800. Municipal and county cutbacks will further contract admissions and programs at the 30 two-year colleges under the jurisdiction of SUNY.

In Virginia's current budget, higher education institutions face the loss of 13 percent of state funding, making faculty lay-offs, wage freezes, and increased tuition inevitable. Four Virginia state colleges and all 23 community colleges have already increased tuitions this year. At Virginia Tech, 131 faculty jobs have been eliminated, and class size has tripled.

Joint Recommendations

Today's funding crisis is primarily a product of the shift of fiscal responsibilities from the federal to the state level, and the decline of middle income government benefits such as student aid. The increased reliance on regressive taxes like general sales and property taxes at the state level and the Social Security tax and "simplified" income tax at the federal level are at the root of the funding crises.

AAUP, NEA, and AFT agree that the establishment of a fair and progressive federal income tax is essential to any long-term solution to educational funding. We must find ways to transform the tax debate from one of tax increases to one of establishing a fair system of meeting our academic and other societal obligations. We jointly urge the President and Congress to fulfill their responsibility for the overall well-being and progression of an educational system that is key to the lives of the American people and to the health of our society.

We urge state legislators and governors across the country to take a close look at the long-term ill effects their states will suffer from the so-called short-term budget cuts they are pushing onto their colleges and universities. Only a fair, equitable and dependable tax structure at both the state and federal levels will help to resolve the quality and accessibility issues we currently face.

With this year's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), we call on Congress to reaffirm its commitment to American public higher education.

To achieve the goal of improved access, we support:

• re-establishing Pell Grants as the primary vehicle to fund a college education;

• helping middle-income working people meet increasing college costs;

• restoring the value of student aid to the 1970's level in terms of current college costs;

• increasing the proportion of student grants to loans;

• clarifying language to assure that minority scholarships continue to be available and are not jeopardized by federal policy;

• increasing support for graduate studies;

• encouraging talented individuals to pursue teaching and strengthening teacher education programs;

• ensuring that nontraditional students are served; and

• simplifying the financial aid process.

Finally, we are all too well aware that, without adequate funding, the best of laws is an empty promise. It is essential that adequate funds be provided to implement this reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. This includes federal funding for programs of institutional, scholar, and student support; student financial assistance to assure access and choice for all students who wish to pursue higher education regardless of personal financial means; and support for the historically Black colleges, for American Indian and Tribal colleges, and for developing institutions. AFT, AAUP, and NEA are committed to continue working together to assure that these funds are allocated.

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