Hartford Business Journal

24 Hartford Business Journal • April 15, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com Opinion & Commentary EDITOR'S TAKE Expanding free community college wrong-minded T he free college debate has heated up in Connecticut this year as lawmakers look for ways to reduce the debt burden students face after graduation. The conversation is a worthy one given that U.S. college graduates now own $1.5 trillion in student-loan debt, which serves as an anchor on the economy, preventing young adults from buying a home and making other major purchases. One of the focus areas in Connecticut has been further sub- sidizing students who attend two-year community colleges. While the policy has good intentions, it's misguided. That's not because the notion of tuition-free higher edu- cation is a bad thing. It has its merits and can be used by states as a competitive advantage in attracting and retain- ing young talent. The issue is that the community-college system itself is highly inefficient. The Hartford Business Journal recently reported that the effective drop-out rate at Connecticut's public two-year colleges is 50 percent, a staggering number. While achieving success in the batter's box half the time would make a Major League Base- ball player an all-time great, it's a failing grade for the community-college system. The high dropout rate exists despite 44 percent of community-college students in the state — or 22,000 pupils — already going to school tuition and fee-free, thanks to federal aid and other assistance targeted at low-income residents. We should not be further subsidizing such poor outcomes, or throwing more students into the system. A recent report by the Office of Fiscal Analysis said a bill that would eliminate tuition and fees for even more community-college students in the state could cost taxpayers as much as $10.6 million within the first two years. Instead, the focus — both financially and strategically — should be on getting more currently enrolled students to finish their degrees. Some progress has been made in recent years as graduation rates at some schools have been improving. But it's a major challenge given that community colleges often enroll non- traditional students who come from lower-income backgrounds and often face financial and other hardships. Many students must work and/or take care of families as they pursue their degrees. Finding the time to balance those competing interests has proven to be too big of a challenge for many pupils. Even Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system, which oversees the state's 12 two-year colleges, agrees that expand- ing free community college to more residents isn't a great idea, at least right now. Instead, he recently told HBJ that more money should be invested in things like academic and financial advisors for students. The current advisor-to-stu- dent ratio at CSCU's community colleges is a paltry 900:1. Is it any wonder why so many students have a hard time navigating and completing their studies? These are students who need more support than the average pupil, not less. At the same time, the CSCU system itself has been in financial turmoil for years, currently facing a $20 million deficit despite recently deciding to raise tuition 5 percent at the state's four regional universities. Ojakian has supported a major consolidation to wring out administrative costs from the system, but his plan has faced severe backlash from unionized faculty and others. Of course, the exorbitant costs of the higher-ed system itself — including salaries and benefits of administrators and professors — are the reason tuition at Connecticut and other U.S. schools is so high to begin with. Offering free tuition at state schools will simply embolden Connecticut col- leges to spend more — without being held accountable for student outcomes — knowing costs will be absorbed by a larger pool of taxpayers rather than cash- strapped students and their families. RULE OF LAW CT must rely more on nonprofits for service delivery By John Horak I write frequently about the sad state of Connecticut's nonprofit human-services industry. The members of this industry are "charities" as commonly understood, but "industry" is a fitting term given their operating complexity. This industry is troubled because it is trapped in a web of finan- cial, regulatory and political strands spun around it by its competitor, which happens to be our second human-services industry — the one owned by the government. Its members include the departments of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Children and Families, and Developmental Services. The competition has tax money in the bank and the high-octane power of a unionized labor force; and, to put it frankly, it has managed to hijack and rig the way human services are delivered in Connecticut to keep itself flush by keep- ing state and federal money that should be distributed to the nonprofits. I've consistently advocated for legislation to reign in government's power and to increase the autonomy and financing of the nonprofits. Nonprofit leadership has been mak- ing this same argument to the Gen- eral Assembly year after year without success. The 2019 legislative session promises more of the same, and the lack of progress is fostering frustration in the ranks and among supporters. However, frustration often leads to insight; and mine is that the system will not change absent a large-scale outside intervention (Gov. Ned Lamont please note) because the relationship of government to the nonprofits is that of an abusive co-dependent partner, and abusive/ co-dependent relationships are hard to break without an intervention. It wasn't supposed to be this way when the relationship started. Non- profit organizations had been caring for people for years before state gov- ernment jumped in significantly in the late 1960s. This was the Great Society era, and the spirit of the times was that government would bring its resources to bear and work cooperatively with the nonprofits. An apropos example is the Village for Families and Children in Hartford, which opened its doors in 1809. The Department of Children and Families opened its in 1969. At the beginning, nonprofits were thrilled with their new partner be- cause they trusted government, and because the tax revenue the govern- ment disbursed was easy money (or so it appeared) when compared with the hard work of private charitable fundraising. However, the marriage started to break down when money got tight, the state's unfunded obligations soared, and union infiltration resulted in the de facto takeover of the human-ser- vices bureaucracies. The result is a sys- tem rigged to create co-dependency among the nonprofits and a bizarrely inefficient human-services system. Co-dependency is not a pleasant word for anyone to use (especially about a loved one) because it means be- ing stuck in a dysfunctional, one-sided relationship, in which you rely on the other for your needs, and the symp- toms include people-pleasing, poor boundaries, lack of control and denial. My use of the term is based on con- versations with industry insiders, all of whom premised their statements with some variation of the admoni- tion "you didn't hear this from me, but … , " and which I paraphrase as follows: "the state divides and con- quers," "we spend more time fighting among ourselves," "no one in govern- ment understands the flow of state and federal dollars," "government may be out of compliance with Medicaid," "some nonprofits play an insider's game and do well while others don't," "if I complain too loud they'll send in auditors to make life miserable," "I fear retribution," "I can't believe how obsequiously we all act when talking with state officials," and on and on. I mean no disrespect to the nonprof- its — they did nothing wrong — it was government that broke bad, and that's why it's incumbent upon Gov. Lamont to spearhead an intervention. In his inaugural address he said Con- necticut (unlike Wisconsin) is a state where public-sector collective bar- gaining can be made to work. Human services is a good place to start. John M. Horak is the director of TANGO Nonprofit Education and Consulting. His opinions are his own. Greg Bordonaro Editor John Horak

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