@spayurpets: Except that it isn’t an arbitrary list. While other private elites are top-notch in certain fields, it’s hard to find a elite private RU outside HPSM (besides Caltech) who are among the best in all the areas they care about (Yale, despite its wealth and history, isn’t strong in all areas).
And while one of HYPSM isn’t the top destination of all of the very strongest high schoolers, they do get a greater proportion of them vs. other American RU’s. So when you look at which colleges have a higher proportion of high-achieving alumni, guess which RU’s come up on top there as well.
“I guess the question is what is the point of being number 1 in this arms race? Or put it another way, is there some harm to finishing second to Stanford?”
Yes, if you’re Harvard. There are advantages to being perceived as #1. It’s all about attracting the people you want – both professors and students. It benefits the alumni every time there’s a story in the press about being #1. It helps their brand.
If you’re looking at the big picture, absolutely, every university that’s part of the .1% is so privileged that the nuances don’t mean anything. But everyone who’s making decisions on behalf of Harvard has a duty to Harvard. It’s their job to do what’s best for their group.
The Metropolitan museum continues to get gifts of artwork, cash, endowed assets to fund expansion, etc.for what is already one of the premier artistic institutions in the world. Should they start refusing gifts and telling donors to bequeath paintings to smaller museums “spread the wealth”???
I care because I pay $54,000 per year for my D’s education, and this whole endowment and fundraising race counterintuitively makes the tuition increase situation worse not better. None of these schools are raising this money for scholarships or FA, though they like to make you believe they are. As I said, with $1 billion dollars in gifts, you can pay for 20,000 students to attend Harvard. If this race for money was focused on students, let’s say, lowering student-faculty ratio or capping tuition, I wouldn’t have as a big an issue with it since at least that would be competing on the merits of their education, but it’s not. This endowment/building boom is the university equivalent of Paul Allen and Larry Ellison competing for longest yacht in the world. It has no relationship at all to academic outcomes or the school’s mission. (And contrary to other comments here, a school’s mission is not to be #1, as if that has any meaning anyway.)
OP- so don’t pay it. If you don’t care about the educational arms race, don’t participate in it. Tell your D to get an online degree and sit in your kitchen while getting herself an education. If none of the things universities spend money on is meaningful to you, then stop paying the 54K.
The problem is that like most nasty things, it all flows downhill. My D goes to a school that it is competitor with these schools, and would be considered wealthy by any measure except in comparison to Harvard and Stanford, and it is not immune this. If Stanford builds a new $50 million dollar computer lab, then Berkeley has to build a $20 million computer lab, and then UMASS has to build a $1 million computer lab. It’s not fair to say, don’t participate in it, because every school is affected by it in some way. And I never said that none of the money that universities spend is meaningful to me; I’m saying that the money that they are accumulating is obscene, and what they do spend the excess on is not meaningfully advancing their education. My D may be getting overcharged on her $54,000 per year education, but it’s still more valuable than an online degree, so it’s not a fair equivalence.
@blossom - that’s not a fair comment. If one does not pay the 54k tuition (or 30k - or 25k - whatever your kid’s tuition is), then that kid will not have the education that our society has proclaimed is essential to success. There are countless studies proving that lifetime earnings are far greater with a college education.
Unless you are so wealthy that these exorbitant tuition rates are nothing to you, then you (or your kid) will be sacrificing greatly to afford this tuition, which can amount to a quarter of a million dollars over the course of four years. It has become a catch-22: either you pay now and hopefully reap the rewards over a lifetime of increased earnings (at the expense of your parents’ retirement or your own ability to spend/invest due to large loans), or you don’t pay now and suffer a lifetime of reduced earnings. Pick your poison.
Either way, the large middle class in this country are suffering greatly due to this “arms race” as it has been so aptly named. Not poor enough to get meaningful financial aid, and not rich enough to pay tuition without substantial sacrifice. These policies keep the middle class perpetually running in place (or, worse, falling even further behind).
Honestly, your comment smacks a bit of “let them eat cake.”
Actually, fin aid is one of the biggest categories that donations to university endowments are earmarked for. In fact, if you are looking at just donations made by alums, financial aid is the biggest category that donations to the endowment are earmarked for.
“I care because I pay $54,000 per year for my D’s education, and this whole endowment and fundraising race counterintuitively makes the tuition increase situation worse not better.”
If she were at Harvard and you were paying $30,000 per year, because Harvard can afford to give fin aid to professional families and others can’t, would Harvard’s wealth seem as obscene? I don’t know. I rarely hear beneficiaries of aid at Harvard/Stanford complaining about their wealth.
“My D may be getting overcharged on her $54,000 per year education, but it’s still more valuable than an online degree, so it’s not a fair equivalence.”
True, but there are many, many alternatives in between wherever she is and an online degree. If your daughter got into a competitor of Harvard and Stanford, she could be at a Research I university at a far lower cost.
“If Stanford builds a new $50 million dollar computer lab, then Berkeley has to build a $20 million computer lab, and then UMASS has to build a $1 million computer lab.”
They only have to if that’s what the market (meaning parents) demands. There are lots of bargains out there, but a lot of consumers turn them down. If full-pay parents demanded a 1970s-style campus operation with lower costs and lower tuition, the market would race to serve them. It’s not what families choose.
"Honestly, your comment smacks a bit of “let them eat cake.” "
Is there ANYONE here (even the biggest elitists among us) who truly believes you need to pay 54K per year for your kid to get a good college education?
If so- identify yourself. And for once I’d LOVE for MiamiDAP to weigh in.
I’m not being Marie Antoinette- anyone who thinks that their kids full pay college is ripping them off, clearly needs to explore other choices. The day that every single accredited college in America charges 54K (or the inflation adjusted equivalent) then you guys will have an argument. But until then, make different choices if you don’t want the full freight option.
The point is not that one must spend $54k per year to properly educate a kid. The point is that, just a few short years ago, that same college and that same education cost half of what it costs today. And the $30k education cost half of that. And the $15k education (if that even exists anywhere) cost half of that. And so on.
It is this “arms race” to ever-improve the things at a college that should not matter (spectacular gyms and perks that don’t help students and endless/expensive marketing campaigns) that is driving up the cost. These things have nothing to do with the stated missions and purposes of higher education.
Maybe today…MAYBE…an affordable choice still exists for many middle class students that does not necessarily cost $54k per year, or $30k, or $15k, depending on where one falls within the “middle class.” But with costs rising exponentially every year, those choices are dwindling, and dwindling fast. Soon, as you so succinctly and off-handedly suggested, the only choice will be online school in the kitchen for most of America, unless they are willing to compromise their retirements or take on massive debt.
Is that really what we want for our nation’s kids? Is this really acceptable to you, blossom?
To suggest that it’s OK for these costs to keep rising (at all levels, not just the $54k level, which frankly isn’t even near the most expensive option these days), does indeed smack of a “let them eat cake” attitude. To suggest that there are other choices cheaper than $54k a year, I will give you that. But the remaining options are not much cheaper for those in the middle who do not qualify for financial aid and who cannot easily afford even the cheapest instate options, which typically start at $20k COA.
Many people in my area send their kids to comm college for 2 years, then our state flagship. It’s not a bad strategy; they graduate w the degree and no one cares that the first 2 years were spent elsewhere.
I’m not convinced the “arms race” at Harvard et al affects more than a relative handful of colleges.
In fact it does surprise me that a school, especially a LAC doesn’t try this; I think it would be a big draw and could be disruptive to the rest of the colleges. It’s also risky, and we know that college adminstrators are anything but risk-takers.
I really think the actual cost of a college education at most of these schools is around $25,000-30,000, but the tuition price is not driven to marginal cost the way market economics tells us it would if it were efficient because a whole of lot of cross-subsidies, lack of transparency, unequal bargaining position, borrowing, etc. distort the market severely. And on the cost side, the producers (schools) are not properly incented to lower their costs because their endowments and gifts and the other subsidies at work. It’s like how a regulated monopoly or oligopoly behaves: they gold plate their products or services because they are the price-setter, and they set the price to cover their inflated costs. There is no price competition to incent them otherwise.
Not to mention that it is not a totally free market. You cannot select the product; the product must select you. Any attempt to cast a wide net, and therefore be able to better price-compare, is met with hefty application fees, test score sending fees, etc. Moreover, only the very best students (top 1%? 5% 10%?) are going to command sufficient merit aid.
The population of kids who are B students (has to be most of them, no?) with decent but not amazing test scores, and who are from middle class families with limited application and college tuition budgets are not able to take advantage of a whole lot of shopping when it comes to cost.
Again, at the Harvard level, this is not really an issue. But it is definitely an issue at the vast majority of state and private colleges available to these types of students.
As far as the “arms race” goes in terms of seeking ever-growing endowments, I don’t really care. Private donations from private donors are none of my business. If Stanford wants to build a helicopter landing on every dorm’s rooftop, so be it.
However, the endless enhancement of facilities/marketing/etc. at the hundreds of schools in the middle, with the attendant rise in tuition that necessarily follows, is disturbing.
Community college for two year is not a bad strategy. But it is a riskier one. There have been studies showing that community college students are substantially less likely to obtain four-year degrees than students who begin their higher education at a 4-yr institution.
If you have a good student who can get into a 4-year college, and yet you choose to put him/her into a community college because you cannot afford the 4-year, then this is what you must do. It is better than no college, but it is not ideal.
You certainly can argue that students in some fields (like the humanities) are getting the same education that students in those fields got 2-3 decades ago.
In other fields (much of STEM, business, and econ), the education may be the same, but the market price for top talent in those fields has gone up dramatically, so if a university still paid its professors in those fields the same as it did 2-3 decades ago, the top researchers in those fields would now be in industry instead of academia (this is what happened to Oxbridge, BTW, where the prestige/name is the only thing that allows them to draw some of the top talent to teach there, and even then, those folks almost need their spouse to work in industry to support them; in many fields, Oxbridge hasn't been competitive in the global academic talent market for decades).
In some fields, the educational opportunities definitely aren't the same. In pretty much any field where lab work is required, the equipment/computers/etc. are all so much better. And you can argue that the quality of the education of an undergrad engineer isn't affected by the equipment&computers of a EE lab, but if a top EE department still was using the equipment and computers that they had in the '80's, there is zero chance that that EE department would remain tops still today.
Seeing what I laid out, you could certainly make a good case for differential pricing by major (as they do in Japan, the UK, and many other countries), but for some reason, that seems to go against the American ideal. Some colleges (like UIUC) do do that, but even there, the differential is small. Tuition for an engineering major isn’t 2-3 times that of an English major (like you see in foreign countries).
Finally, financial aid has definitely gotten better. 2-3 decades ago, no-loan fin aid did not exist. That has been paid for by the increased list price, of course, but as I have stated elsewhere, the increase of list-price tuition has tracked the growth of wealth&income of the top 1-2 percent pretty well. The elite colleges understand what the market will bear (and these days, market support for those sky-high prices is coming from increasing numbers of internationals willing to pay top dollar for a brand name). Also, as @Hanna pointed out, amenities have gotten better because that is what (high-earning) parents demand and are willing to pay for. You will not see any elite college try out your idea, @spayurpets, because there aren’t enough parents like you. I mean, on CC and other sites, you hear folks strike colleges off their list after visits because the dorms look shabby or windows were dirty or the campus tour wasn’t Broadway-production quality. You hear parents worried about the academic support system and fretting about counseling services. So long as parents are worried about such things, prices will not go down.
Purple Titan, your argument makes sense, and leaves me wondering how many of the cheaper-option colleges have the advanced STEM facilities, labs, etc. necessary to provide a quality education to a student of lesser means?
if it truly costs a college that much to keep up with science, and this is the explanation for the huge increases in tuition over the past years, are we telling students who will not be able to afford this tuition that their only option is to obtain this education online at the kitchen table? The cost of keeping up with science will not abate. The cheapest $20k tuition today will be $40k tomorrow, and middle incomes are not increasing at that rate. It is of value to see that as many of our students as possible get a quality STEM education, if they have the talent to pursue it.
I get that the rise in tuition has been tracking the preferences of the top income bracket for some time now. But that’s the point. It’s a “let them eat cake” mentality - I have mine, who cares about you.
This really has nothing to do with me personally. My kids will go to college and I can afford it. I am genuinely concerned with the direction of higher education and what it means for the vast majority of Americans.
Another thing too is that while list price tuition has increased dramatically, average net price (while above the inflation rate) has not. Merit scholarships have exploded in recent decades. What’s happening is that the elite privates have been able to flex their brand names/market power (but also increased fin aid, so even there, average net price has not gone up as much) to increase list prices. Privates lower down the totem increase their list price in lock-step to keep up appearances, but they discount (some heavily) with merit aid (and at some of those schools, you don’t need terrific test scores/GPA/anything to get “merit” money).