<p>^The Forbes list has been recognized as having methodology that skews to smaller schools with generous aid, and purposefully disregards the single most telling metric - peer assessment scores.</p>
<p>But that said, you will note the first 100 or so schools on that list have a tuition structure quite within range of Michigan ;)</p>
<p>So too do Michigan’s actual American peers on the Times World University ranking – where it’s ranked 15th!</p>
<p>Of course, you could argue; what is the material difference between 100th place and 300th place? when only +/-1300 of 4500 schools are rated?</p>
<p>You can “regard” or “disregard” any rankings that best suit your desired outcome. I’ve posted this link before - but here again;</p>
<p>So which rankings are legit and how should you use them? To find out, MoneyWatch.com took a hard look at their methodology and rated the raters on a scale of one to five stars. We can only recommend one: Forbes’ America’s Best Colleges. Despite its limitations, it comes closest to actually measuring the quality of the education at the nation’s best schools.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Colleges: The Real Rankings - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-51345754/best-colleges-the-real-rankings/]Best”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-51345754/best-colleges-the-real-rankings/)</p>
<p>And with the exception of the military academies, most of the colleges in the top 100 are more expensive than Michigan. There are a few with lower tuitions, but all within a few thousand dollars except for:</p>
<p>Wheaton College (IL) – $38,430
St. Norbest College – $37,392
Transylvania University – $37,180</p>
<p>UM-Morris is the only outlier at $21,722. Nice try.</p>
<p>
I never knew that one counts as “many”.</p>
<p>You’re missing the point - why should any of the other schools leave money on the table? this education bubble didn’t start yesterday! They’ve all followed suit; charging what they can get away with, largely by over-promoting prestige and rank.</p>
<p>Do you really think it COSTS 3 times as much to educate at any one of these institutions than any other place? They charge what they do, because people pay it.</p>
<p>Hate to give you more homework - but here’s another good article on what drives the price of college. And it sure isn’t “quality” or actual “cost” of delivery.</p>
<p><a href=“The Price of Perception - The New York Times”>The Price of Perception - The New York Times;
<p>And I guaranty you; the PRIVATE universities you listed, aren’t getting that price - they’re heavily discounting with merit money and other grants, to a more reasonable cost.</p>
<p>Giterdone, I find it strange that you should favor a ranking that places universities such as Cornell, Cal, UNC, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, WUSTL etc… out of the top 50. In some cases, schools as good as Minnesota-Twin Cities, Wisconsin-Madison, UIUC, Purdue and MSU are not even ranked among the top 300 in the nation!!!</p>
<p>But even if the Forbes ranking were accurate, most universities ranked between #70 and #130 cost approximately as much as Michigan (over $40,000k/year). </p>
<p>The main exceptions are:</p>
<h1>74 UNC-Chapel Hill: $39,000</h1>
<h1>84 St Norbert College: $37,000</h1>
<h1>90 Minnesota-Morris: $22,000</h1>
<h1>94 Transylvania University: $37,000</h1>
<h1>97 US Coast Guard Academy: $5,000</h1>
<h1>112 St Mary’s College of Maryland: $39,000</h1>
<h1>121 Berea College: $9,000</h1>
<h1>122 Colorado School of Mines: #39,000</h1>
<p>That’s 8 out of the 60 universities ranked around Michigan’s general vicinity that are appreciable cheaper. Sadly, most of those universities, with the notable exception of UNC, do not carry the same weight as Michigan.</p>
<p>“And I guaranty you; the PRIVATE universities you listed, aren’t getting that price - they’re heavily discounting with merit money and other grants, to a more reasonable cost.”</p>
<p>Please Giterdone, do not lower yourself to the intellectual equivalent of a child. 65% of Michigan undergrads pay $10k in tuition. 50% of students at most private universities pay full freight ($30-$40k in tuition). That is certainly the case at the three schools that GoBlue listed.</p>
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</p>
<p>That’s patronizing. Read the entire contribution - I don’t think we should complicate the discussion by mixing private and public schools. It’s just another variable.</p>
<p>I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. If, at this point, you can just concede; that college pricing has as much to with supply and demand, as quality? And that, as the OP asked “is UMich really even worth it?” is way more gray, than black and white (school spirit, current students and alum considered).</p>
<p>
Not as much as Michigan is discounting for in-state students which constitutes 2/3 of the student population.</p>
<p>I agree with you that the universities are only charging market price. The lone example you cited, the University of Minnesota system, is no exception. Minnesota only recently reduced its OOS tuition to in-state rate + $2000 to attract OOS students in order to raise its academic profiles.
<a href=“http://www1.umn.edu/regents/docket/2007/june/tuitionhandout.pdf[/url]”>http://www1.umn.edu/regents/docket/2007/june/tuitionhandout.pdf</a></p>
<p>Supply and demand? Sure, to some extend as education is a marketplace. But it is not like Umich is throwing off a profit that they are not directly reinvesting. Have you been to the campus? The costs to keep the quality of those facilities, let alone the quality of the professional staff is emmense. Additionally and obviously, any $ they get from OOS lessens the IS burden. </p>
<p>The pricing is undoubtly a careful balancing act of IS burden, diversity and quality of OOS students you are trying to attract and meeting the mission of a world class (in all regards) institution of higher learning. </p>
<p>With a decreasing acceptance rate, they could undoubtly charge more. But, that could lessen the student quality which would ultimately lead to less demand of the product, starting a pricing cycle. </p>
<p>You must be arguing that Michigan could get by with a lower price hence, they are wasting a lot of money by overpaying the professionals and/or overspending on facilities. Otherwise, where do you think the $ is going?</p>
<p>Forbes - 25% of the weighting is on professor’s ratings from ratemyprofessor.com. Gee I can’t think of any better way to judge the aptitude and ability of the staff? Are you ******* kidding me?</p>
<p>Also produced by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Well, don’t you think by name, this institution leans toward “affordability” as opposed to quality? Granted, one wants educational value but if you are ranking a university on quality, that is not a top driver.</p>
<p>these are nonprofit colleges, not for-profit enterprises.</p>
<p>But neither are they expense-minimizing enterprises.</p>
<p>Administrators strive to avoid losing money, while achieving only a small excess of revenue over expenses. Once tuition is set, costs are controlled — or permitted to grow — to match the maximum revenues each institution believes it can get. One assumption is safe: colleges spend all they can get their hands on. No administrator or faculty member I know is short of ideas on how to spend more.</p>
<p>Just to make sure we’re on the same page; nobody is questioning UMich’s instate value. The question is, is that SAME value delivered at twice the cost, for OOS?</p>
<p>
First of all if this is true then that ranking has lost any shred of credibility that it may have previously held onto.</p>
<p>
Secondly, guarantee is a verb, guaranty is a noun. Don’t use blatantly incorrect grammer when arguing for Xavier Louisiana over Michigan.</p>
<p>“grammar” ;-)</p>
<p>Haha alright got me there.</p>
<p>^lol</p>
<p>One thing this discussion of costs is missing is the ever important aspect of what another poster on these threads calls the edifice complex.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s quite as simple as supply and demand alone and a case of price-fixing per se – directly, that is. I think that the consumers in part generate the inflated costs with the expectation of low teacher-pupil ratios, gleaming facilities, a host of non-essential services and opportunities, etc. </p>
<p>By way of example, a century ago or so, I attended university in Canada, where tuition today remains lower than most in-state flagships. In terms of educational quality, several Canadian u’s rank in the top 100 by world metrics. But the federal govt is picking up a very large share of the tab, and there are some things you just don’t generally expect – eg small classes and myriad study abroad programs and amenity-rich residences, etc.</p>
<p>I think the thing that frustrates so many parents of OOS students is the fact phenom of in-state/out-of-state fees. But that’s what you get when you have a country both founded on state rights and a free market preference – elite private institutions generally unaffordable to many, or flagships that attract OOS students offering the kind of amenities of the privates, or the devil-you-know instate, which may well be a fine institution but doesn’t have the funding to mimic the private amenities.
And even pooled federal funding instead of state-by state funding wouldn’t equalize that because of the “amenity-pressure” of the privates. </p>
<p>The second cost differential between Canada and the US in terms of delivery is faculty/staff healthcare - a substantial fiscal burden in the case of the US. At the same time, as taxpayers, we aren’t spending much in terms of funding universities indirectly via universal healthcare and centralized federal funding – so boy o boy do we get the hit when we actually have to use one ;)</p>
<p>I don’t find the system fantastic in terms of what’s best for the country overall in terms of maximizing human potential, but I’d be hard pressed to find many folks on these threads willing to collectively alter their lifestyles to fund healthcare and higher Ed more robustly from the tax base either ;)</p>
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<p>One of the many myths I’ve not touched on, is this myth that IS students deserve a “break or discount” due to all the State money that funneled to their institution - this may have been the case, 30 or 40 years ago, when States largely funded their flagships… but, in 2010, for example - and in Michigan’s case, State funds ONLY exceeded Federal funds by 40 million, or about $2,000 per undergrad.</p>
<p>So, the myth that IS earned the right to discounted tuition? is largely debunked.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Univ,_Grants_&_Fin_Aid_58839_7.pdf[/url]”>http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Univ,_Grants_&_Fin_Aid_58839_7.pdf</a></p>
<p>[University</a> of Michigan’s federal stimulus winnings? $277 million and counting](<a href=“http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/university-of-michigans-federal-stimulus-winnings-277-million-and-counting/]University”>University of Michigan's federal stimulus winnings? $277 million and counting)</p>