” Public Agenda survey finds deep skepticism” (with college leaders, that is)

This was forwarded to a mailing list I’m on in my field, but I thought it was really quite relevant here:  “Public Agenda survey finds deep skepticism” is from the Washington Post blog “College Inc., ” which is an interesting blog about the business of higher education. The subtitle of the piece is “An annual survey on public attitudes toward higher education finds rising skepticism about the motives of college leaders.”  Here’s the opening paragraphs:

The survey, titled “Squeeze Play 2010: Continued Public Anxiety on Cost, Harsher Judgments on How Colleges Are Run,” (PDF) finds that 60 percent of the public thinks colleges are like businesses and care mostly about the bottom line. A slightly lower share, 52 percent, agreed with that statement two years ago.

Two-thirds of respondents believe college costs are rising faster than other things. That’s true, in a literal sense, as we saw in a recent economic report. But it’s misleading, because the net price of college — what students actually pay, after discounts and grant aid — is not rising at all.

The report comes from the nonprofits Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. It’s the latest in a series of surveys going back to the early 1990s.

It shows that a growing share of the public think colleges aren’t doing all they can to hold down costs. Three-fifths of respondents believe colleges could accept more students without raising prices or reducing quality. A majority believe colleges could spend less without sacrificing quality.

This makes perfect sense to me, and while I haven’t read study/survey yet, it makes sense to me that there is skepticism with college leaders (e.g. administrators) thinking of higher education in business terms. Heck, I share that skepticism.  I realize that there are budget realities that administrators have to deal with, but I do think that sometimes the suits forget that we aren’t trying to turn a profit here.