Higher education in Utah may have received failing grades for affordability, according to a recent report, but the state ranks above the national average in all other categories.

Turns out all but one of the 50 states surveyed received low and failing grades in the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's Measuring Up 2008 report card on affordability, making college less accessible for poor and working-class families.

Utah fell from an A grade in affordability in a 2006 report, and Utah Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg said he disagrees with the F grade this year.

"While tuition seems high, it is fundamentally true that it is the best investment you'll ever make in your life," he said. "The payoff is huge."

Measurement criteria changed some this year, dealing more with financial aid numbers than just tuition and access, according to Sederburg's office. Tuition for Utah's community colleges remains higher than most states because other states impose a tax levy which helps fund community institutions.

Statewide, financial aid dollars are increasingly unavailable, while the report card states that Utah spends only 8 cents to every federal Pell grant dollar. The discrepancy creates a large gap in the number of Hispanic and other minority students who attend college and get degrees.

"The starkness of it hit me hard," Sederburg said, adding that he knew about the ethnicity gap, but didn't realize how it fared in national comparisons.

The gap, he said, is probably due to the high costs for community college tuition and the low percentage of need-based aid available. Programmatic support is also lacking, failing to give minority students the mechanism and resources they need to succeed in college.

Utah dropped in three of the six categories ranked by the report, which was released early Wednesday. The state turns out a high percentage of high school graduates but fails to get many of those students through college.

"It's a mystery to me," Sederburg said. "I think it's a broad societal issue that we need to look at." He believes that over the years, expectations have dropped, lessening the social pressure students face to go to college.

"The public isn't as committed to a vigorous high school curriculum leading into college and post-secondary education as it needs to be," he said.

Utah also dropped in its preparation ranking, meaning more students need remedial classes upon entering higher education. Sederburg says too many high school students are wasting their senior year and not seeing it as an opportunity to prepare for college.

Overall, Utah earned B grades, which "confirms what we know," Sederburg said. He said findings are drawn out of national databases that are consistent and credible. Complete grades can be found online at highereducation.org.

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E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com