Conference addresses access, affordability in higher education

Access to American higher education and the ability of students to afford college will be the topics of a Feb. 1 conference at UW–Madison.

Called “Affordability and Access in American Higher Education in the 21st Century,” the conference is sponsored by the UW–Madison department of educational policy studies and the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE).

The featured speaker for the daylong event will be Michael S. McPherson, president of the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation, who will give a lunch-time talk on “Low-Income Access through Different Lenses: The University, the Higher Education System, and Society.” The foundation is one of the nation’s major funding sources for educational research, sponsoring a variety of fellowship and training programs designed to strengthen research and to improve educational practice.

All conference events will be held at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. Registration is $10; all UW–Madison students are invited to attend free of charge. Pre-registration is preferred; for online registration, visit the department of educational policy studies or WISCAPE. On-site registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

In recent years, the issues of affordability and access to higher education have taken on a higher profile. Just as public aspirations for higher education are translating into increased college attendance rates, the rising costs of going to college, sharp reductions in the proportion of state budget funding devoted to higher education, and declines in the purchasing power of student grant aid have meant that educational opportunities for many families are potentially jeopardized.

Those developments also have posed concerns about a widening gap in college attendance rates between high- and low-income groups.

The conference will also feature two panel discussions. A morning panel, on the “Social Contexts of the Affordability Debate,” running from 9:15-11:45 a.m., will feature: Michael Mumper, political science professor, Ohio University; Francis Schrag, educational policy studies and philosophy professor, UW–Madison; Ruth Lopez Turley, assistant professor of sociology, UW–Madison; and Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology, UW–Madison.

Another panel, from 1:45-4:15 p.m., will be on “Policy Contexts and Future Directions.” Featured speakers will include: Alberto Cabrera, professor of educational leadership and policy analysis, UW–Madison; Sarah Turner, associate professor of education and economics, University of Virginia; Jane Hojan Clark, financial aid director, UW-Milwaukee; and Cora Marrett, senior vice president for academic affairs, UW System.

For more information, contact Michael Fultz, professor and chair of the department of educational policy studies, at (608) 265-5956; or Nik Hawkins, WISCAPE outreach program coordinator, at (608) 265-6636.