A generational imperative

When we were at Ivy League schools 40 years ago, lofty ideals were affordable. Back in the '70s, the average annual tuition and fees for a private college were around $7,000, inflation-adjusted to today's dollars. Four-fifths of U.S. households had annual incomes in excess of that. Beyond help with the direct cost of college, very few students counted on parents for help with housing or income. Student loans were small, seldom more than $2,000 total, and most of those who took them out paid them off quickly.

As a result, regardless of family circumstances, we were free to buy into the Beatles' credo, "I don't care so much for money. Money can't buy me love." If we wanted to go into teaching, public service or the arts, we did. How unlike now, when so many young people-especially those whose families are not affluent-have no choice but to rivet their ambitions, their careers and their very lives in pursuit of the highest monetary return.

In 2006, the average annual tuition and fees for a private college exceeded $22,000-a 200 percent rise over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, the real income of the median U.S. household has only risen 30 percent, and today only half of all households have incomes that exceed the average private tuition. Entry-level pay in many fields (including public service) has declined since the early 1970s, while housing costs have escalated sharply-especially in major cities, where many of the public service jobs are located.

Not long from now, most likely in February or March, Duke University will announce its tuition and fee increases for the 2007-08 academic year. If past practice holds, this year's hike will again be above inflation. There will be an official explanation pointing to rising costs, the improved quality of education and increases in financial aid-after which there will be little controversy, since students and their families will figure that, in the long run, the price of a Duke education will more than pay for itself.

For most of you, it will indeed do that. You'll get good jobs, pay off your loans, buy houses (in most places, anyway) and start families. But for those of you who want to pursue an unconventional or public-service career, that price might get seriously in your way. And many of your peers who go to less elite colleges will be saddled with even more debt and with a far dimmer prospect of ever matching your earning power. For them, the price of their higher education will be a lifelong burden.

What concerns us is that not enough of you, at Duke and elsewhere, will spend your twenties and thirties doing the vibrant and vital work required of every rising generation to advance civilization, be it teaching, fashioning great works of art, challenging injustice or defending our nation mainly because the job does not pay enough.

Across America, college graduates often leave school with $20,000 to $50,000 in debt-and for dropouts to leave with $10,000 in debt and nothing to show for it. For graduates of business and public policy schools, add another $75,000 to $100,000. For law or medical school, make that $125,000 to $150,000. Compare that to the experience of people today in their late sixties on up (including many of the trustees and overseers of institutions like Duke). The great majority of them had no debt at all when they graduated from college.

There are colleges with few assets and tight budgets that have no other choice but to raise tuitions. But what can be the excuse of those with vast endowments? The Duke endowment, recently measured at roughly $4.5 billion, has shown outstanding growth over the past 20 years, the same 20 years Duke has been jacking up tuitions faster than inflation.

Not long ago, Princeton eliminated undergraduate student loans. In January, Princeton announced a tuition freeze, albeit with a rise in room and board charges that will result in an above-inflation total net increase in student costs. Duke can afford to do Princeton one better, by holding the line on both tuition and fees.

Make no mistake: Duke, Ivy League institutions, and other top-ranked institutions set the standard for the cost of higher education at hundreds of other colleges and universities across America. Were Duke to freeze tuition and eliminate student loans, it would then not be so easy for other colleges to keep pushing up tuition, fees, and student debt. This would be of considerable benefit to an entire generation of students who are now, or who soon will be, of college age.

Like nearly every large university, Duke receives enormous tax, spending and subsidy favors from every level of our national community-federal, state and local. It must begin to consider what it owes the community in return.

Were Duke to take these steps, it would be using its great wealth to serve not only the Millennial Generation, but also the highest ideals of our society, culture and nation.

William Strauss and Neil Howe are co-authors of six books about American generations, including Generations and Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation.