"Make Their Voices Heard." Behind a Funder's Efforts to Boost College Student Civic Engagement

April 5, 2022

By: Mike Scutari

After years of covering higher ed philanthropy and funders’ efforts to address financial barriers to entry, I consider myself fortunate to have attended a four-year university at a reasonable cost. I suspect many readers over the age of 40 feel the same way. But something dramatically changed over the past two decades. For William Moses, the managing director of the Kresge Foundation’s education program, the policy- related factors underlying the fraught state of higher ed can be traced to an inter-generational redefinition

of the social compact.

“We have been moving the cost of higher education

away from the institution and the government and

toward the person and the family,” he said. Preceding generations that viewed higher ed as a public good have ceded the stage to those who believe that “individuals have to pay for it — and that’s a huge shift.”

Read more here.