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<p>Nah, even rich people can be swindled when it comes to trying to do the best for their children. Children throw a wrench into the free market analysis of what is happening.</p>
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<p>And not just Harvard and its peer competitors, but many private colleges, from the full range of the selectivity spectrum, all charge in the same high price range.</p>
<p>If private colleges were car dealers we could say that most of them compete with each other on the basis of their cars’ reputation, performance, and features and not on the basis of price.</p>
<p>Originally Posted by collegedad2013
you are making a huge, huge assumption that people don’t increase their pverall contributions when approached for a donation for a program like this.</p>
<p>There is a reason why the total charitable contributions increases year to year. Either more contribute and/or people contribute more.</p>
<p>bclintonk wrote: “Except that your factual premise is flawed. Charitable giving has mostly hovered around 1% of GDP since the mid-1950s”</p>
<p>WUT? Since GDP has grown, so has the amount of giving.
So nothing I said is flawed.</p>
<p>Looking at in terms of percent of GDP or percent of pirates in the world is irrelevant.
The total amount goes up.</p>
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Having just been to a Harvard reunion, I was struck by how un-pristine Harvard is. There are some nice pieces - the Freshman dining hall for one (much better than when I was there, when they totally wasted the space), but the dorms are poorly designed, the Science Center is pretty creaky, the grass is always struggling to grow…</p>
<p>^That doesn’t sound like a $55k per year environment…</p>
<p>I have no trouble understanding why Harvard costs 55K per year.</p>
<p>Someone explain to me the economics of Goucher, Bard, Colby, Stonehill, Hofstra, Adelphi, Pace, Farleigh Dickinson.</p>
<p>I’m not bashing these schools by the way- fine places, all. But spend a few hours at one of Harvard’s libraries or museums or performance halls or labs or attend a symposium at the Law school or a conference at the med school- and even if you know that your own kid won’t be personally benefiting from all those things as an undergrad (although virtually all of this is free and open to anyone in the Harvard community), you can figure out that this stuff is costly and valuable. </p>
<p>I think it’s harder to look at an institution with a much weaker infrastructure, fewer facilities, smaller faculty, smaller art and archival collection, smaller libraries, etc. and ask why are these places not significantly cheaper than the Harvard’s of the world. (some of them are. But pound for pound, the need based aid at Harvard is better for most kids who qualify, and for a full freight payer, that kid is just “getting less”. </p>
<p>Don’t flame me with stories of the kids who need smaller class sizes and individualized attention. Yes, that costs. But we’re talking infrastructure and capital campaigns here, not the cost to add another English Lit faculty member or an adjunct to teach another French section.</p>
<p>To me the problem is not Harvard per se… it’s the other institutions who price themselves based on the distance between what Harvard is charging and what THEY think they can charge.</p>
<p>Hanna is probably right- tour the Hofstra campus one day and then head to Harvard. Harvard will seem underpriced for the product it is offering.</p>
<p>Blossom wrote: "I have no trouble understanding why Harvard costs 55K per year.</p>
<p>Someone explain to me the economics of Goucher, Bard, Colby, Stonehill, Hofstra, Adelphi, Pace, Farleigh Dickinson."</p>
<p>That really is an excellent point.</p>
<p>Based on the latest Forbes list (please no flaming whether that is the right list to use, I just picked the first search result)</p>
<p>The difference in list price between the top school on the list and number 100 is 74 dollars.</p>
<p>I would also expect that the top school gives out a heck of a lot more financial aid than #100.</p>
<p>Go figure.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that H is worth the most. The question really is whether it makes sense for any u to be charging $220k for an undergraduate degree. Does that type of wealth transfer benefit us all best? I don’t know. It seems excessive to me, and I can afford it.</p>
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<p>I agree. The red brick New England Colonial architectural theme has a certain understated charm. And the place is drenched in history. But “pristine” is not a term I would ever use to describe Harvard’s campus.</p>
<p>When I saw the campus and environs for the first time while moving in my freshman D, my reaction was, “this is Disneyland for college students!” So maybe it isn’t pristine, but it is packed with everything a college kid could want.</p>
<p>^^Except for a Student Union building.</p>
<p>Maybe H can spare a couple mill from its $6.5 bill campaign to finally build one. :)</p>
<p>“The question really is whether it makes sense for any u to be charging $220k for an undergraduate degree. Does that type of wealth transfer benefit us all best? I don’t know. It seems excessive to me, and I can afford it.”</p>
<p>I’d like to see much bigger price differentials across the board – both among schools and among students at the same school. I wish Hofstra et al. guaranteed to meet full need.</p>
<p>Bay, one area where I think we’re on the same page is that it makes no sense to me that the standard price point at all expensive private schools is 40% more in real dollars than when I was an undergrad. If Harvard wanted to charge $150k to multimillionaire parents, that would be fine with me. That is more or less what elite prep schools do with hedge-fund parents; there’s an understanding that they’re expected to underwrite the institution by $X per year above tuition. But honestly, I thought the kind of schools blossom mentioned were overpriced at $25k. I wouldn’t pay for them over a solid in-state option unless I were a hedge fund guy (as opposed to a regular upper-middle-class parent like an obstetrician or an engineer).</p>
<p>I understand the market forces pushing the prices up, and in particular the over-use of loans that makes consumers far less price-sensitive than they ought to be. But does the whole system look sensible to me? Nah, not at all.</p>
<p>I do think a really interesting point you are all raising, and one I really hadn’t thought of myself, is the pricing of colleges. Is Lehigh really the same price point as Yale? </p>
<p>And why? </p>
<p>Just using Lehigh as an example of hundreds of privates with the same price.</p>
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<p>Don’t forget, that less than half of Harvard’s students pay that amount. And those that do pay sticker, are rich/wealthy by most definitions (so they happily pay it). Heck, HYPSM could easily charge $100k per year and fill their classes. </p>
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<p>One could argue that yes, it does benefit us all. If HPSM raised their prices to say, $100k, they could budget for even more financial aid for those non-rich families. (mini suggested something similar a long time ago.)</p>
<p>I suggest all colleges which only provide FA follow the system used by Scandinavian countries’ traffic tickets - charge a variable price with no top limit based on income.</p>
<p>TPG, are you also suggesting the schools should sell admission tickets to the highest bidder? Of course, people such as Ralph Lauren know that is already happens for “development admits.” </p>
<p>Have we not reached a point of no return as whatever schools might do will invariably make most people … unhappy. If there was a poll for financial aid adequacy, it seems that it would be in tough competition with the US Congress. :)</p>
<p>What I am proposing is that there should be no upper cap in fee for admitted student (admissions are need blind right?). </p>
<p>If someone making 180k pays 18k but someone making 250k has a tab of 60k, it kind of makes no sense. It is essentially saying whatever you earned over 180k, just hand it over since about 40k is probably leftover after all taxes on the difference.</p>
<p>So if someone is making a Million, why charge them only 60k? We are cutting those making 250k down to size, why not those making a Million.</p>
<p>I also see no issue with Harvard accepting 10 million from someone and giving them a seat. The more seats they can give out that way, the easier the funding becomes for poorer students.</p>
<p>“Is Lehigh really the same price point as Yale?”</p>
<p>Yes. And on average, Yale attendees are paying less.</p>
<p>If you think that’s crazy, welcome to the law school world. We’ve got price point parity between Harvard and Suffolk law schools. Unlike Harvard College vs. Goucher, there are widely agreed upon, objective measures that going to Harvard Law is hugely more valuable for virtually any student than going to Suffolk Law. That is a market failure resulting from a poorly designed student loan system. It’s insane.</p>
<p>I’m with tpg on pricing the seats, though I think assets should play a bigger role than income. I’m fine with them charging the truly rich whatever the market will bear. (And with auctioning off a finite number of seats where the students meet basic qualifications – most schools are doing that under the table already.)</p>
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<p>Neither do I. Although I am not certain that it really works like that, unless the donor specifically requests the funds to be allocated to financial aid. My take is that there is more chance to see a new building, or the funding of a chair or research than “helping” the poor. </p>
<p>Further as the Carnevale studies at TCF have shown – see <a href=“http://www.tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-carnrose.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-carnrose.pdf</a> – Harvard might find it quite hard to help more low SES students. Not because they lack the funds, but because not many qualify on a pari-passu basis. </p>
<p>Ain’t this complicated?</p>
<p>PS For pricing and competition, it is always good to revert to the current NW President old grounds. Check the various contributions at <a href=“http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/research/[/url]”>http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/research/</a></p>