<p>I’m guessing you are half kidding, but I don’t understand this line of thinking.</p>
<p>My general objection is to universities amassing and hoarding tremendous amounts of money just because they “can.” H has $30 billion in tax-exempt dollars, is campaigning for $6.5 billion more which it will probably get, and you are proposing that H charge $1mill per year to whomever is willing to pay it? Why?</p>
<p>Are universities more deserving of wealth transfer than say, the American Cancer Society, or some other truly charitable organization? Does it make sense that our $$ is concentrated in this way?</p>
<p>From a consumer standpoint, we already know what these exhorbitant tuitions have created the student loan crisis. Don’t those non-profit universities who can, have a social obligation to <em>reduce</em> their tuition to help prevent things from getting worse?</p>
<p>Do we have access to well-researched numbers on the “exhorbitant tuitions” vs loan crisis? Should we assume that a student who might go in debt for a HYPS education will contribute to the loan crisis in a larger manner than say … someone who failed to graduate from one of those cheap academic factories a la UTEP --mentioned here because of its Mother Teresa Ranking fame! </p>
<p>In the end, the loan crisis is tied to the willingness to go into unmanageable debt --a US national obsessive passtime-- and a growing unattainable ROI. The biggest problem might very well be that the degree obtained rarely transfers to the stratospheric incomes one is … expecting. That equation might be worse for the people who did go in debt, and never graduated with a degree or marketable skills.</p>
<p>" H charge $1mill per year to whomever is willing to pay it? Why?"</p>
<p>I said the following:</p>
<p>180k - 18k
250k - 60k (a family’s true income now is on par with those making 180k)
1 million - 60k (their income does not change much while the people making 250k have been cut down to a different income bracket so why not ask them to pay more).</p>
<p>The college fees with FA work just like taxes but they impact those having incomes between 180 and 250k disproportionately. </p>
<p>If H can collect 100 million from someone and give them 10 future pick admissions, why not?</p>
<p>I am well aware most decent private u’s all charge about the same tuition. My objection is not to H, specifically. If a u needs $50K per year to survive, then that is different from a <em>non-profit</em> u charging $50K per year because it <em>can.</em> The latter is extremely offensive to me.</p>
<p>The alternative is to drop the financial aid from 180 to 120 or 60, and let the FAFSA do its job! The aim of those program was to aid a specific bracket of applicants, and change the “too rich but too poor” to apply stigma. </p>
<p>By the way, if you move if from 180 to 250, the 300/400 crowd will repeat your math.</p>
<p>Bay, I understand the school charge “what they can” but should we consider the often repeated argument that the real cost might be 150 to 200% of the full tuition. Again, that data is found at the Williams’ site. </p>
<p>My “rebuttal” was mostly on the loan crisis. I would love to see the numbers that correlate the “problem loans” to the highest-cost schools. My hunch is that the bulk of the problem will be found at the bottom of the tuition range, and at schools that are selling very dubious academic achievements.</p>
<p>I think you are correct that the majority of problem loans come from the for-profit colleges, but I haven’t seen any data about how “the rich” are paying for the $220K tuitions. I don’t think there is any data on that or an analysis of the opportunity cost.</p>
<p>Texaspg wrote: "You can apply the policy uniformly or charge people more because they can afford it. "</p>
<p>I find that an amusing line of thinking. We should do that for everything. Want a seat on a plane? How much do you make so we can price it accordingly? Price of gas should be correlated to the value of the car. </p>
<p>We can have a national ID card that also acts as your payment card. The card would know your wealth and then debit your account for each purchase based on how rich your are.</p>
<p>I would love to see a bill that proposes a system where the entire cost of K-16 education is considered a … business investment. Upon graduation, the entire cost directly paid by the student and the parents would be added up and allowed to be depreciated as a direct tax credit over the next 20 years. Obviously, that includes private tuition in K-12 and not the indirect cost of public education. </p>
<p>The IRS could share interesting statistics as the information collected would shed much light into what people REALLY spend on education, and how their return on that investment functions. </p>
<p>Fwiw, it would also represent a magnificent gift by parents to their children as the subsequent tax credits would benefit the graduating student. </p>
<p>Feel free to add graduate school, if warranted. The idea is the same.</p>
<p>“How much do you make so we can price it accordingly?”</p>
<p>Who says it is not done? I was trying to buy my kid a ticket home for thanksgiving. Saturday or Sunday travel during that week is priced at 700 or so while going on Tuesday the next week costs 250.</p>
<p>I think State of Oregon is proposing to provide free education based on a percentage of future income? There was a thread on that story in CC.</p>
<p>“My general objection is to universities amassing and hoarding tremendous amounts of money just because they “can.””</p>
<p>I don’t think it is this simple. The way I understand it, Harvard is 150 years older than the United States and intends to outlast the United States. It’s thinking 100 and 500 years down the road. It’s getting ready for anything that might happen – revolution, mass extinction, the Chinese Empire taking over the world, whatever. It wants to stay Harvard forever. “Calm rising thro’ change and thro’ storm.” There aren’t many institutions that have parallel ambitions except the Catholic Church.</p>
<p>This is amassing, but I don’t think it is hoarding just because they “can.” They have a concrete goal for this money: cementing their place in the global power structure in perpetuity. Whether you agree with their goal is a different question.</p>
<p>Of course it does. (And if it didn’t, someone would be filing a complaint to challenge their non-profit status.)</p>
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<p>That’s really a straw man argument. Harvard enrolls 1600 kids every year, and the supposed wealth transfer of tuition payments is not even a rounding error in the non-profit world.</p>
<p>But, IMO, H should charge more. A LOT more. Ditto the others in HYPSM. (I also think they should all go no-loan, and not participate in the Pell program and fund the students out of their increased tuition.)</p>
<p>Why? Whenever tuition is raised, another segment of applicants is priced out, unless you give them FA as well. If HYPSM raise tuition to say $100K per year, then what? The $190,000K folk probably can’t pay it. You will end up with a bunch of uber-wealthy students, and then the rest making $180K and under. Maybe that is good enough?</p>
<p>My son swears that it is Princeton that looks like it was designed as a “college set” by Disney.</p>
<p>I do think that there is a serious question regarding how much colleges charge. When my son was applying to colleges and people would ask “where?”, I would mention the various schools including Harvard, and the response would always be “How can you afford Harvard?” Now the list contained our in-state BSU, and OOS public, and eight private schools. If there was more than $2K difference in COA at the eight private schools I would be amazed, but everyone focused on Harvard. Here is a list of “sticker price” tuition according to the Dept. of Education for 2013: [College</a> Affordability and Transparency Center](<a href=“http://collegecost.ed.gov/catc/#]College”>http://collegecost.ed.gov/catc/#). Note that Harvard is not even on the list!</p>
<p>Ditto. (Personally, I just don’t care who attends H or Y or…) From a societal perspective, I am much more concerned about the 50% drop out rate in inner city high schools!</p>
<p>btw: In reality, H exists in the catchment area of the NYT, so only the uber-wealthy attending will never happen.</p>
<p>What is the point of your argument if it doesn’t make sense? Do you think HYPSM would adopt a tuition policy (like $100K/year tuition with FA ending at $180K) that cuts out some of the best qualified applicants who will go somewhere else at that price? Why would they do that? Just because they <em>can</em> fill their seats with uber-rich kids who might not be as smart? That makes no sense.</p>