News & Events

Tuition Rising: Can The Cost of Higher Education be Contained? with Ronald G. Ehrenberg and David J. Skorton

Time & Location: The Cornell Club, 6 East 44th Street (between Madison and Fifth) in Manhattan from 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Tuition increases at American public and private colleges and universities continue to outstrip inflation. A 2008 poll conducted by the The Chronicle/Gallup Panel shows that 42 percent of those surveyed think that the top issue in higher education that the new US president will need to address is controlling the cost of going to college. Respondents, however, are equally divided over whether the federal government should take the lead in containing these costs.

Professor Ehrenberg and Cornell University President Skorton will share their thoughts on the factors contributing to the rising costs of higher education and discuss possible approaches that universities might take to slow down the rate of tuition increases without comprising the quality of students' education.

Ronald G. Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow. He also is Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute and is an elected member of the Cornell Board of Trustees. Professor Ehrenberg is the author of Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much (2000).

David J. Skorton is Cornell University's 12th president. He holds faculty appointments in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Weill-Cornell Medical College (WCMC) in New York City and in Biomedical Engineering at the College of Engineering on the Ithaca campus. He comes to Cornell after serving as president and as a long-time faculty member of the University of Iowa.