^ Purple we keep having this same discussion. It is cheaper for my kid to go abroad than it is going to the local state flagship. If it means commuting to the local satellite instead of mixing with a cohort from all over the world and the ability visit 10 countries in Europe and the Middle East( and counting) in order to equalize cost you are not going to win that argument in anybodies universe.
@PurpleTitan I live in a suburban Houston it takes approximately 1.25 hour to “commute” to U of H, that is on a good day…no accidents, which is well…never. So no commuting is not really an option. But let’s just add the cost of a car, maintenance, insurance, parking fees and gas to the equation. How much money are you saving living at home? Still have to provide room and board at home too, it is not free, whether I am paying it directly to Kroger and my mortgage company or U of H. You and I are splitting hairs. The fact is that to attend college, in the traditional sense, it will cost, on average, at least $20k per year.
And why shouldn’t I take notice that I am paying more for my kid’s tuition than I earned at my first job? Do you or have you ever had kids? And BTW my $20k salary in 1986 would be $44k today. My DD’16 's tuition to a mid tier school, with a bit a merit is $38k per year. She could have stayed in state and we would be paying $25kish. Only there are no in state schools in Texas that offer a direct entry DPT program which cut out a year of graduate school at $40k, so in state was not really an option.
I saw some shocking data just yesterday evening. At my alma mater there are 2.8 times as many administrative and professional staff as there are tenured, clinical, research, and associate faculty. Now the university does include a large medical college and multiple hospitals. And perhaps the admin number does include lower level employees such as dining facility staff, janitorial staff, etc… But…
I admit that I disdain the option. I think my kid should be able to have the same or similar collegiate experience that I had, ie. live on campus at a state university (not even a flagship) and that is going to cost about $25k per year.
@labegg: Because you should compare apples with apples if you want to be honest. 2017 dollars are not 1986 dollars. In real terms, you still earned more than COA for your D.
BTW, Google maps says it takes 38 minutes to get from the Woodlands to UH. Granted, that is without traffic, but students can schedule classes to avoid rush hour. So if you need 85 minutes to get to UH, you’re so far out in the exurbs that you’re probably only an hour away from A&M.
@labegg: “I admit that I disdain the option.”
And that’s all fine. I would spring for that too for my kids if I have the money to do so. But that’s paying up for a lifestyle choice. The vast majority of Germans to attend uni commute, and that country seems to be doing fine.
I am SE of Houston. Not in the Woodlands. It really really does take an hour to get to U of H from most a suburban Houston locations. Unless of course you can schedule class at midnight. Yes I earned $6k more than my DD’s tuition, go me!
@PurpleTitan…the German exchange student I hosted back in the mid 90’s did not commute to his German uni nor did his 3 brothers and sisters…and the family I lived with her Germany as an exchange student in the mid 1980’s two kids did not commute to their German uni either. Granted it is not the vast majority, but there are German’s out there accruing room and board fees too, lol.
“It is cheaper for my kid to go abroad than it is going to the local state flagship.”
This is true for my family also. The difference is very small however once travel costs are added in.
Perhaps high income parents expect nice living quarters more often bc they are writing checks for full price.
It seems those who pay full price are frustrated, those who get plenty of aid don’t care about cost, and everyone else gets frozen out of the whole thing. A shame.
PS the driving nav time estimates in a city are useless. Mine says 53 minutes when I leave. I get there an hour and 20 later…
To (1) above, the most frequently referenced country with free universities is Germany. But context is everything. According to the OECD, an average earner in Germany with no children pays about 40% of their income in taxes…they are not just taxing the “rich”, they are taxing everyone, in order to provider a free commuter-college experience. And even that isn’t enough. The German states are borrowing heavily to fund overspending, and education is one of the major factors in that spending. Proposed fiscal responsibility laws will likely put and end to out of control government debt, and that will bring the era of free college for everyone to a close. Ironically, locals admit that free university has little to do with a social ideal or belief that is the best thing for a society; rather, it is about the voting power of university-aged Germans who can make or break elections for a politician based on the single factor of free education.
For (2), this conversation is primarily about undergraduates (I think about 6500/yr at Harvard). The vast majority of that $4.463 B operating budget is spent on things that have nothing to do with educating undergraduates. To take a diverse institution like Harvard (which does much more than just educate students) and simply divide its operating budget by its student enrollment (covering undergraduate, graduate, professional school, and executive programs) and assume a cost/student for education is such an over-simplification of “basic economics” that it renders any conclusions useless. Plenty of studies have shown that the escalation of university budgets in the last 20 years is from salaries to non-teaching employees and expanding facilities, not to direct expenses associated with educating undergraduates.
I’d say there are only a handful of states where the student can’t find a good public school for under $25K all in, most below $20k. It may not be a flagship, but then again it may be. In Florida, that’s full pay at UF, FSU, UCF, and most students pay less than that because of bright futures or some other discount. U of South Florida and FIU are beautiful and cheaper. University of Colorado Boulder is more like $28k full pay, nice dorm, but there are a lot of other options incling Metro where anyone in the Denver area can commute, cost of commuting included in student fees. Tuition is less than $6000, and it is likely the resident would get about $1800 off as a tuition rebate from the state.
But @elguapo1 did what the title of this thread said to do, told US schools ‘enough’ . That won’t work for the OP who is limiting his search to the west coast.
@DadTwoGirls: Certainly, for a Canadian citizen, Canadian Unis cost less than American ones. Even for Americans, some Canadian programs are comparable to in-state American costs.
“I saw some shocking data just yesterday evening. At my alma mater there are 2.8 times as many administrative and professional staff as there are tenured, clinical, research, and associate faculty. Now the university does include a large medical college and multiple hospitals. And perhaps the admin number does include lower level employees such as dining facility staff, janitorial staff, etc… But…”
The data from universities that run hospital systems have to be seriously filtered. If you don’t back out or adjust for the health care operations, you can get a very distorted picture of the higher ed operations.
Having said that, the university/higher ed enterprise is a LOT more complicated than it was back in the days of the dinosaurs. Just think about admissions. Takes a lot more people to read 30,000 applications than 3,000. Even if the enrolled class size (and the number of teachers) stays the same.
My alma mater has about the same enrollment as it did when I attended. But it is a completely different animal than the local/regional commuter college it was back in the day. I’m sure they employ tons more people in IT, admissions, marketing, finance, facilities, career services, fund raising etc. etc. etc. Today’s student experience there is undoubtedly plusher than it was when I attended. Just like today’s average house or average car is much nicer than the typical houses and cars of 25-50 years ago.
There’s plenty of available options for stripped down, bare bones, low cost higher education (which is the predominant model in Europe fyi) here in the U.S. Such as the growing trend of free community college in many places. Or online options.
Problem is that many middle class U.S. families (as labegg admits above) “disdain” those low cost options. They want the traditional residential “college experience” for their kids. Even though that experience is inherently expensive (room and board costs more than tuition at most publics) and historically has only been experienced by a small percentage of HS grads.
You want “cheap” higher ed? Two years of commuter community college followed by two years of commuter or residential State U has a low sticker price. It can provide you a great education (it did for me). But the “experience” is pretty yucky.
^ Heck, Harvard (Extension School) is fairly reasonable in costs and can mostly be done online.
Nice to find reports of, eg, admin overload. But you can’t view it historically/back 20 years. 2008 did a number on the fluff. It may be growing again. Dunno. But I work for a wealthy private U, saw the drastic staff and other reductions in 2008 and 09 and since. Some were long critically needed, others tighten belts/reduce some icing in dept budgets, but others took away justifiable staffing, in a number of ways. Facilities repairs were set on the back burners, some resource hours cut back (eg, library hours)
I love the stats search as much as anyone. But you need to get behind the simple numbers.
Ahemm, guys? OP here. Sounds like an old argument resurfacing to kind of hijack this thread, with all due respect.
@lookingforward seems to be in the know. Agree that too much cutting happens and not good for anyone involved. We are willing to pay a fair price for these middle tier universities. They earn it. Also agree that they seem to ease some of the pain w/ merit money and otherwise. So, to negotiate, I have only the ability to apply to multiple similarly situated schools and let them figure out which wants him more, it seems.
I don’t for a moment buy that these schools are loosing money. However, like everything else in the States, the profit margin varies between them. Hopefully one of them sees fit to offer up some token to set themselves apart. There are other alternatives out there as has been thoroughly discussed.
AND, hopefully my son likes UC Santa Cruz as much as he did Sonoma State yesterday (I wasn’t as impressed.) So, we have NOT ruled out the state options as UC Merced is indeed a safety but on a lower tier for his list.
Once the admission offers come in we’ll be able to figure out which of these terrific schools is best for him (including consideration to the finances.)
Was a little busy at work w/ last post and looks like I need to add a little and I can’t recall if I placed it elsewhere.
Son completely likes several of the options exactly equally. He has a single reach school above them, but UW-Seattle is actually about $10k less expensive, so no complaint from me. Assuming he’s not admitted to UW, then each of the other several+ 2nd tier schools are of equal desirability to him. I am NOT forcing him to go to the cheapest just to save money. He has agreed that money offers can be the tie-breaker. I don’t think that’d make me a bad dad if I did force the issue, but just wanted it out there since it’s our family’s way to attempt consensus on these types of major decisions.
“Even for Americans, some Canadian programs are comparable to in-state American costs.”
Exactly right. The school where my youngest is going in Canada is less expensive for us than in-state schools because we have dual citizenship. If we were US citizens only, then given current exchange rates the cost of the same school in Canada would be almost identical to the cost of our in-state universities in the US.