<p>More for online classes? Why is that?</p>
<p>There’s additional infrastructure for online courses - technical charges - and you pay for convenience.</p>
<p>Many public schools with online courses/programs charge one fee for online courses…instate and OOS pay the same. </p>
<p>Instate students will end up paying more for online courses, OOS students less than regular tuition.</p>
<p>I would think the cost of supporting the infrastructure ( brick and mortar) is more expensive to maintain</p>
<p>I can understand the rationale for varying tuition and fees. However, colleges and other information sources are not adequately publicizing the information. On many college websites, it takes some effort to even find the tuition and then they may not make it clear about the varying costs. Most guidebooks and websites that compare colleges only list a flat tuition and fee (which is often out of date anyway) and don’t make any mention of the variation. I’m not concerned about a couple hundred dollars worth of fees, but when it is $4000 more a year, that should be clearly publicized when a student is applying.</p>
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<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I don’t know IF U-Michigan charges Math majors extra tuition, but after looking at the Math and CS programs, I can select the Math major with the “Discrete and Algorithmic Methods” option (with a few more CS electives) and get hired just as easily for the same software positions.</p>
<p>I am glad I learned a LONG time ago about 1) how college is a business 2) how much WE get so caught up in so much extra details like AP credits, school name, exact name of major, etc and 3) how the employers seem to care less and less about #2. </p>
<p>When I did not get admitted to the undergraduate CS program (because I did not have a 3.4), I switched to Math and kept it moving. I delayed grad school initially because I thought that 3.0 was the “no exceptions cut-off” only to find out that an employer relationship with a given school and an employer “voucher of payment” can get you out of the 3.0 and even the GRE. I also found out that if a certain school allowed more than the usual 6 transfer graduate courses (my grad school allowed 15), you could basically do a similar “community college/4-year/2+2” route in grad school using grad credits.</p>
<p>After all of that, you have to sometimes correct the profs because their theoretical approach would not work in the working world (after you have already designed/developed systems). Of course, you would correct them in a nice way :-)</p>
<p>OK, I am ranting but college is a business and sometimes a borderline “racket”.</p>
<p>It’s a common practice. Some majors are more expensive to have (labs, computer labs, higher professors’ salaries, etc.), and with many states facing dramatic funding cuts from state legislators, they have to find money somehow.</p>
<p>It’s a similar rationale in graduate schools. PhD programs are almost always fully funded by the universities, while medical and law school are not because of higher expected future income. But with the current abysmal job market for lawyers that might not me sustainable.</p>
<p>If you don’t like paying baggage fees fly Southwest Airlines. If you don’t like paying college major up-charges don’t go to one of the 140+ colleges charging them.</p>
<p>I get the idea that Engineering is really expensive to offer, but I’d love to see if Gen Chem or Gen Bio is all that more expensive than say, Frosh Writing/English. Sure, Gen Chem has a lab, which requires a few chemical and (cheap) glassware, but Gen Chem/Bio has ONE prof teaching hundreds of kids in a lecture hall (TA’s are relatively cheap labor). In contrast, some Lit courses can be capped at a Prof/student ratio of 15:1…</p>
<p>As a parent of students enrolled in our flagship state university, which charges different tuition rates for different majors, it never crossed my mind that this would be considered controversial. I think the differences in cost are related to the relative expense of running one program than another and not so much about expectations of future earnings of graduates who had different majors. At our flagship u, there are several tuition price levels, and for example the tuition for studio art or music performance is higher than history or english. More expensive to teach the fine arts, but i doubt the small price differential is based on expectations of higher incomes for the artists and musicians. I do not think the higher tuition for engineering is dampening interest in top state university programs. And btw, at our flagship, the tuition rate list the student enters with stays the same for four years of attendance, tuition increases affect only entering freshman class.</p>
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<p>At schools other than LAC-model schools, those small freshmen English composition (and beginning foreign language) courses often use graduate student instructors as the primary instructors. It is the more advanced literature courses that are small courses run by faculty members. But that is true of more advanced courses in other subjects.</p>
<p>So freshman English composition needs one GSI per 15 students. In contrast, freshman general chemistry needs one GSI per 15 student lab, plus the lab facilities and consumables, plus a small share of the faculty member doing the lecture.</p>
<p>In a LAC-model school where freshman classes are small ones run by faculty, you have one faculty member per 15 students in freshman English composition, compared to one faculty member per 15 students plus the lab facilities and consumables for freshman general chemistry.</p>
<p>^^My D attends a medium-sized private Uni, and all of her English/Writing/lit/language courses were taught by regular faculty; many of the courses have had fewer than 25 students; think of all the classroom space needed. In contrast, Organic Chem is one tenured prof for 250 students in one lecture hall. Do the math: Let’s assume $4,000 tuition per course ($40k tuition divided by 10 courses for the year): one lit class earns 25 x 4k = $100k; one chem course earns ten times that amount, or a cool $1M. And this is a college that charges a “lab” fee on top of tuition.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the lab & TA is an extra cost, but that much more? So still, I’d like to see the real numbers on a cost accounting basis. It just doesn’t pass the smell test.</p>
<p>Those weeder savings may be offset by the small, upper-level courses.</p>
<p>Most colleges have spent huge sums on new science buildings. The humanities get stuck in the old buildings that aren’t suitable for other majors.</p>
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<p>If there are 2,500 freshmen who need to take freshman English composition, that is 100 sections of 25 student classes. If each instructor has a high-school-like teaching load of 5 sections (probably higher than typical teaching loads), then that would still mean 20 instructors’ time consumed just to teach freshman English composition. Does the school in question really have that much regular faculty (as opposed to GSI or adjunct faculty) time devoted to freshman English composition?</p>
<p>Of course, some students may be exempt with AP credit. But at all except the most selective schools, those students are probably outnumbered by those who need to take additional remedial English composition courses before taking regular freshman English composition courses.</p>
<p>Also, when tenure track faculty in engineering and some sciences are hired, they have HUGE start-up packages (research money to set up a lab, computer equipment, etc.). In the university where I work the start-up package for the natural and physical sciences/engineering were six number figures, mine in a social sciences department was less than 2000 (mainly office furniture and a computer), and a friend in the English department got about 1000. The $$ for that, the newer buildings (engineering and sciences are always in newer buidlings), etc. might explain the tuition differences.</p>
<p>BTW, the provost confided to me that still, humanities and social science majors still partly subsidize the sciences (it is way cheaper to find 1 person to teach the same 4 sections of Enlgish 101).</p>
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<p>I like to go a few different public beaches. At a NH beach that we go
to sometimes, they charge $2/hour for parking. At another beach along
the Maine coast, they charge $1/hour for parking. I do enjoy the
public service of parking at both beaches but they charge different
prices for various reasons. Or maybe that’s what the market will bear.</p>
<p>State universities do provide a public service. They provide education
at a discount to in-state students. That discount can vary, of course.
And it might vary in a market-based manner.</p>
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<p>Public high schools do charge what the market will bear. They just
charge in the aggregate for all students. Take a look at average
student expenditures in wealthy districts compared to middle-class
districts. Why are they different? Because the locals can afford
much higher property taxes for their local schools.</p>
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<p>That’s a slogan. We really don’t believe that. At least we don’t raise
our kids as if we believe that.</p>
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<p>Change “art” to “biology” to get a better comparison – each year, the number of biology graduates is similar to the number of engineering graduates (combined for the various types of engineering).</p>
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<p>I have a friend who was an art major. I’d guess that he makes several hundred thousand a year. He’s a world-famous guy in his specialty. He’s delighted the world with his creations. Should he have been pushed into engineering?</p>
<p>How would you like to spend your entire life doing something that you hated?</p>
<p>When I was in college, we paid $30 per credit hour more for our athletic training-specific classes. They started that my senior year. I was so glad I was out of there after one semester! It has nothing to do with how much one makes when they get out… I make around $30k, I have three friends who make similar, and I have a buddy who makes $7500 a year as a GA all coming from that program…</p>