<p>The idea isn't new, but its adoption continues to rise: charging different tuition for different majors. With all the emphasis on the ROI of a particular degree, maybe this idea's time has come.</p>
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This practice aligns price more closely with instructional costs and students ability to pay post-graduation. Exploiting the staggered adoption of these policies across universities, this paper finds that differential pricing does alter the allocation of students to majors...
<p>One chart shows that the number of schools with differential undergrad tuition has risen from almost none in 1987 to nearly 150 today. So, if you have your heart set on a major that isn't popular or doesn't generally offer lucrative job opportunities, it may pay to shop around - you might find a school offering the major at a "discount" to other majors at the same school.</p>
<p>Or, if you really want a degree from a particular school, you might find enrolling as a Classics major is cheaper than, say, Business.</p>
<p>Are any CC members seeing interesting bargains out there? Or, on the flip side, are you seeing schools charging more for high-demand majors like computer science?</p>
<p>This is fairly common overseas. I know the University at Copenhagen charges based on category the major falls under. Like, Humanities majors pay less than Science majors, etc. The problem is that many students don’t really know what they want to major in, or change majors. That could make billing very difficult. Would lower income student who can barely afford school to begin with then be forced into choosing a major based on cost instead of interest?</p>
<p>For undergraduate education this is just another bad idea because (at least in the United States):</p>
<p>(1) A large percentage of the students with declared majors change their mind regarding major and career while undergraduates.</p>
<p>(2) The concept of a large University being “one”, such as a “One Penn” is very appealing – both from a social point of view as well as from an academic point of view. So if I take some of my courses at the business school, or engineering school will I need to pay a surcharge?</p>
<p>(3) If the difference in cost between major is small then there is little point in this concept. But if it’s large then why would I want to encourage the cash starved student to pick the cheaper course? Sounds a lot like retail shopping.</p>
<p>Perhaps this makes sense in for-profit education systems.</p>
<p>Some schools charge the same tuition, but then they tack on “course fees” for the classes that have labs, high tech equipment, or other pricey needs. Those course fees can add an additional $300-1000 per semester, depending on the schools.</p>
<p>I know my brother, who was a Chemistry major at UMich, had variable tuition based at least on class standing if not also on lab classes. It really discouraged him from all of the AP credits he had racked up, which is kind of a shame, but he still stayed all four years.</p>
<p>Music majors often have to pay more–either in tuition or additional fees for things like lessons. D’s school required a higher deposit for School of the Arts majors as well.</p>
<p>I think this would punish low income students by hampering the option of becoming a scientist or engineer, and probably discourage a lot of higher income students from such career paths. This would badly hamper our technological sector, which is already lagging behind.</p>
<p>If the differential is based on the actual cost of instruction, then it does make more sense to charge it by the course, rather than major or class standing, due to students changing majors, or taking expensive courses while undeclared, etc…</p>
<p>That’s what students get for trying to major in those STEM fields! Jeeze, someone who’s poor and has the audacity to try to use lab equipment? Don’t they know that beakers are only for rich kids?</p>
<p>The problem with this is that it’s presumptuous. Certain majors may have higher average salaries, but there’s no way to know what the people from those majors are going to actually do. The philosophy major may attend Harvard Law and their first job may be a near-six figure job at a BigLaw firm, whereas the engineering major may decide that he hates engineering professionally and become a freelance writer or a math teacher.</p>
<p>I also think that this has the potential to discourage low-income students from majoring in high-paying careers, because they wouldn’t be able to afford it. That would further a wage gap and just make income inequality larger, perpetuating generational wealth. Wealthy kids could afford to major in any field, including the most lucrative; low-income students may have to settle for majors with lower-paying average salaries with fewer professional job opportunities.</p>
<p>The extra fees that these schools are charging aren’t “differential tuition policies” for higher-paying majors with a higher ROI; they are simply extra fees associated with the higher costs of administering these programs.</p>
<p>Some universities base the differentiation on actual costs. Others base it upon “market demand.” If they have a surplus of students wanting to get into the nursing or business major, they increase those fees because they know they can.</p>
<p>Some universities make money on their undergrad liberal arts majors (especially when they are packed into large classes for their first 2 years), who end up subsidizing the engineering majors and majors that need low ratios of teachers to students.</p>
<p>I just wish colleges would be more up-front about the differentiation of costs. Many don’t mention it on any of their application materials or the first few layers of their websites. Sometimes you have to really search in order to find it. It can become a big issue when comparing the net costs of various colleges. For example, Penn State’s in-state tuition for the last 2 years of its nursing program is $20K.</p>
<p>I think this is a necessary thing, and I say that as somebody whose major would be among the most expensive.</p>
<p>As for those majors which are occupational in nature, like STEM, medicine, accounting, etc., no credible argument can be made for having other people subsidize another person’s training for that job when the recipient of the degree is the one who will reap the benefits. Otherwise you uncouple the <em>cost</em> of providing an education from the <em>return</em> the degree-holder gets. You are bound to get surpluses of one kind of major and shortages of another if you just use a flat fee for everything.</p>
<p>If the ROI of a given major is reflected in its price, then this is providing very valuable information to people who otherwise wouldn’t know squat about the market value of their degree. I know talking about the market value of a degree is like claws on chalkboard to some people but let’s be real: nearly everybody who goes to college does so with the intention of using their degree to get a job. People who have the money to go to college just for funsies are in the minority. Maybe not at Harvard or Princeton, but they are at most colleges.</p>
<p>Not only do I think differential pricing is desirable, I think in the end it will be necessary (like after the higher ed bubble pops).</p>
<p>One last point for those of you who think that STEM majors and other kinds of majors would be beyond the price point of everybody if the price was reflected in the tuition, fees, etc, there are two main counterarguments:</p>
<p>A) even STEM degrees don’t have to be nearly as expensive as they are now, the tuition inflation of the past thirty years is a separate issue from differential pricing</p>
<p>B) given the higher ROI for STEM degrees, this makes STEM major more likely to pay back loans and thus with all other things being equal, it would make banks more likely to extend loans to STEM students regardless of current income. Loan-worthiness would be based more on future earnings than on current.</p>