Cavazos Urges Colleges to Clarify Mission, Cut Costs to Hold Down Tuition
Education Secretary Laura F. Cavazos yesterday urged every college in the nation to clarity its educational mission and cut administrative costs in order to hold down tuition charges, which rose faster than inflation in the last decade.</br></br>ÐÊ Despite those increases, Cavazos said, a college education remains affordable to qualified students, and cost-cutting on campus could keep it that way in the 1990s. He cited a College Board finding that almost half of all college students pay less than $2,000 a year in tuition and fees.</br></br>Ûª The secretary criticized news media for focusing on tuition charges at the most expensive schools while 80 percent of students attend two-year or four-year public ÛÏWe need to' be sure... that future increases do not make college unattainable,Û Cnvnzos told reporters. "Colleges and universities need notÛÓand must notÛÓtry to do everything. Instead, each institution must determine its mission and make the necessary tradeoffs."</br></br>Cavazos, a former president of Texas Tech University, said he would even suggest that colleges eliminate entire academic departments if they are tangential to a schoolÛªs central mission and the courses are available at nearby institutions.</br></br>Another possibility for cost-cutting, he said, would be for neighboring colleges to consolidate libraries.