For the state schools that most college students attend, that varies by state.
Financial Aid Statistics [2023]: Average Aid per Student has a table showing need-based grants and total aid from each state. From the table, it looks like some states like CA and TX mostly give need-based grants, but others like FL and GA mostly give other than need-based grants.
Yes, Iâve noticed that some states do have merit often for in-state students. I think thatâs great.
As I told those above me when I was a financial aid director & chose the wording for financial aid communications, average merit or financial aid means nothing if YOU are the student who didnât get anything.
On the one hand, you believe that the offerings at some of these colleges are "outlandishâ and the costs âinsane.â Yet on the other hand you seem to believe that this is market driven and that some families might find added value in attending the fancy universities over more modest, less expensive options, because âcollege is not just about cost.â Not sure I understand your point?
Putting words in someone elseâs mouth doesnât make them true.
No, you obviously misread my entire post as you made things up which were never said.
If someone didnât understand a post, wouldnât it be logical to ask a question regarding what they donât get?
You wrote:
and
So I donât believe I put words in your mouth. If I have misunderstood something Iâd be glad to be corrected
Yes, Iâm not sure what your question is. Nor your point.
Might I âsuggestâ the the 2 users above take it to DM if they want to continue the conversation.
Itâs Dean of Wellness and Dean of Diversity / Inclusion and Dean of Student Experience and Dean of X. All of these positions come with several staff so the bodies add up. You have to wonder, do we really need any of these. We didnât have any of that when I went to school in the 80s and we had a blast, got a great education and did well in life (within my group anyway). I donât know that I would have attended any additional âprogrammingâ offered as I was busy with classes, studying, intramurals, campus TV, and overall beer drinking.
I think we could do without all these non essentials provided it was reflected in a significant discount to tuition.
Nope, they donât. But if people want them, maybe they can pay for them.
Like the discount airline model?
Base level charges would only cover tuition, basic room and board.
Want a fancy gym, or gym access at all? Pay extra.
Want a fancier dorm, or a single/double instead of a quad? Pay extra.
Etc.
I see how this model could be appealing to some cost conscious students and parents. But it would also create different classes of students based on their ability (or lack thereof) to pay for add-ons. So not a good model in my view.
Closer analogy would be like a community college or a university whose students are primarily local commuters.
But are there âno frillsâ residential colleges in the US? I.e. where you get just the educational services plus the option for a basic dorm and dining hall.
Yes, I actually think that colleges are unlike most other venues where you pay for what you buy. I was trying to explain to a European friend how college meal plans work. They were flabbergasted. Why would someone pay for a full buffet for every meal unless they wanted it? How come you have to buy the full meal plan Freshman year. The US college experience is replete with things you have to pay for that you will never use.
Kids see financial differences even without the opt in model. Many kids in college have money to go out to eat dinner off campus, go on Spring break etc while others do not. They know who Summers in Nantucket and who is having trouble with paying for laundry. Has always been this way.
Iâd love to see the academic available without frills. Not everyone wants all the goodies. Sadly, itâs unlikely to change as once something is in place, itâs tough to remove it.
Some of these positions are required to manage issues that are related to compliance, some are in response to a recognition of systemic issues that need to be addressed, some are in response to the recognition that students have mental health issues that are better addressed than allowed to get out of hand, some are in response to a desire to help students who enter gain the tools necessary to graduate, and some are in response to what parents/students want. Not everyone had a great experience in school in the 80âs ⊠a lot of people couldnât even get into college in the 80âs (and Iâm not just referring to elite schools), and many found a particularly unwelcoming environment. The world has changed a lot, very quickly. I think it will take a bit of time to figure out more efficient ways of responding to the changes.
The market seems to have spoken regarding schools like Yale. Kids are clamoring to get in. My guess is such schools could fill their class a few times over with qualified full pay kids, even if the cost was substantially higher. If there was truly a demand for ultra âeliteâ schools, with no frills, opt-in options, weâd likely see such schools filling the demand.
And as was mentioned above, college is about more than just cost, and some schools may view their dining programs, where kids come together to eat and relax and get to know each other, as integral to their educational experience. Likewise regarding any other amenity or characteristic of the schools.
For everyone who doesnât want to pay for X, there is probably someone else who doesnât want to pay for Y. By the time everyone ops out, Yale isnât Yale. Not sure thatâs what the market wants.
And just think of all the Admin staff that they could eliminate if they did not offer need-based aid. (snarky, of course, but the point as Kelsmom raised earlier, is that thousands of non-academic staff â and their bosses â are required to run ânecessaryâ programs, however defined.)
btw: Iâve read that Yale (and their ilk) have a whole group of folks whose primary focus is to help students apply for national and international awards (think Rhodes). Not sure any public has anything close. Do the authors of the article suggest that Yale reduce that group?
I donât think the faculty are advocating for a discount to tuition, rather a re-distribution of the proceeds away from high level administration back down to the academic departmental level and towards salaries of the professorship.
On the one hand I agree that it should not be the place of higher-education to provide students with all these extra amenities, that their sole goal should be academics, but on the other hand if you have a significantly large enough student body descending on a community, itâs not fair to the residents to expect the local infrastructure to be able to absorb the needs and wants of all these temporary residents. Someone needs to provide services for these students, and unless theyâre local tax payers, they should be the ones to shoulder the costs. Now what form these amenities should take is up to debate, but at the very least health care should be one. In any case I donât think that this is what the report is attempting to address. Theyâre more concerned with administrative bloat, not facilities management.
Schools donât break ground on non-essential properties like gyms and student centers without the earmarked donations in hand. Those are not primarily tuition-driven: rich people write checks to get their names on fancy buildings, and it has ever been thus. The private university near me, however, does finance new dorms because they generate reliable income that can cover payments. So burgeoning tuition is far more likely to be driven by operational costs like staffing than construction costs.
But that doesnât really help much, does it? If the heirs to the late Mr. Conglomerate-Hugeco want to commemorate dear old dad they are far, far more likely to do so with a new Student Commons than a scholarship fund. And they may not donate that money at all if it vanishes into the operational budget, so whatâs the school to do? They take the cash, natch, pay a little more to maintain a nicer campus, take some pics for the Admissions slicks and hope that they can keep enrollment high enough to pay for everything.
Not to get too political (which is not usually a good sign at the start of a paragraph but I assure you I have good intentions here) is the trouble facing colleges is the same thing facing elementary and secondary schools in the United States: we provide a huge amount of non-educational service to students through the schools. Before college, kids are fed, clothed, given health care and babysat until parents get off work. Thereâs also mental health care, services for a vast spectrum of disabilities, ESL, busing and opportunities for sports, arts, music, theater and another spectrum of hobbies that were not always a part of the core curriculum. Ask any teacher how much teaching they do vs how much social work they do and youâll get an earful.
All of these things enhance a young life, but many used to be provided through the home, church or community and are now frequently drawn from the school district. When they get to college families often expect this to continue, and so it does at institutions without the ability to tax.
I get that poverty and equal opportunity are real things that need to be handled on a daily basis, and so a fair amount of this does have a place in education. But the easiest path to local funding is usually the convenient plea that âitâs for the kidsâ to get education money approved rather than directly funding low income health care, decent public after-school programs or counseling services for anyone. My concern is that instead of doing different things through different channels where it can be done best we are shoving too much through schools, reducing their effectiveness and burdening them with a lot of other tasks that belong to others. Colleges are just the next link in that chain.
Ok, Iâll bite: What services, besides fire and police?
Yale already has itâs own police/security force to patrol campus and surrounding 'hood, and Yale is paying $20+m to the local community in lieu of taxes. (And with respect to the article in the OP, calculating what Yale thinks is a âfair shareâ requires internal Admin staff, and (bloated?) managers to meet/negotiate with City leaders.)
btw: all students are required to have health insurance, so local heath care providers are covered.