<p>"I hate the "sock it to the rich kids" argument."</p>
<p>But it's not sock it to the rich. Upper middle class kids could actually end up paying LESS than they do now. Just pay what the product costs.</p>
<p>It's not a very difficult concept.</p>
<p>(Don't mistake me: I don't like the bill.)</p>
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....at the moment, Harvard seems intent on buying up all of Allston, but they refuse to tell the city what they plan to do with the land),
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<p>Not true. Harvard has massive amounts of information on the plans for the new Allston campus on their website. </p>
<p>Harvard</a> University Allston Initiative - Institutional Master Plan</p>
<p>Detailed maps and artist renderings of every new building planned for the new campus are included in this 65 page PDF file of the planning (12 Mb file):</p>
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Even the wealthy I would imagine, appreciate value. How many wealthy would continue to pay full sticker price and many others become significantly subsidized? There are already threads with animus towards those who receive the benefit of a selective school experience w/o paying full price.
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<p>I don't think the uber-endowment schools are terribly worried about running out of wealthy applicants anytime soon.</p>
<p>Are the Massachusetts politicians pandering? That's what everyone who doesn't live in their districts would call it. But many of their constituents will see it as "looking out for my interests." Politicians pander because that's what their constituents want them to do -- they just don't want yours to do it. Beyond that, they are desperate and they see billions of dollars sitting there not (in their short-term view) helping their constituents. I don't want this to turn into an argument over how they got into this situation or what the federal government could do (I'm an elementary teacher - give my school what is spent in Iraq in ten minutes and my school would be the Harvard of elementary schools for the next 50 years). It is just an understanding of where they are coming from and why they might propose this. </p>
<p>And, this sort of thing is part of the reason the Ivies have become so much more generous. The other high-bucks privates (Duke, Emory, et al) need to decide whether they will keep up with the Ivies or whether they will hold steady (ceding the under $150K income applicants to the Ivies and the publics, ceding the 7-figure income applicants to the Ivies, but scoffing up more of the ones in between).</p>
<p>It is not unreasonable to expect non-profit institutions who are tax exempt because their product, education, is a societal benefit to have some obligations to use their resources (which includes endowments) in aid to students. Five % per year doesn't seem unreasonable. Perhaps measure it over a certain period, 10 years or so, so that it doesn't have to be 5% exactly every year, sometimes a little over, sometimes a little under. This appears to be what the Ivies and some of the high-end LACs are moving toward. </p>
<p>Sometimes legislative threats and pandering aren't really intended to actually become law. Sometimes it just to spur someone or some entity into self-evaluation and action.</p>
<p>"This is exactly what you are endorsing and the colleges are moving there quite quickly with the annual compounded 5% sticker price increases."</p>
<p>Annual compounded 5% sticker price increases are actually lower than the growth in income and assets of their prime customers. For these customers - the rich - these colleges are the cheapest they've been in 30 years. We can debate whether this has made it better or worse for "upper middle income" folks (likely better - if we are consider "upper middle income" as being in the top 20% of all U.S. families). But since the colleges complain regularly (to alums like me) that costs are always going up, the slow rise in sticker price doesn't get them there.</p>
<p>I can't see why rich folks would or should complain about paying the actual costs - not subsiziding anyone, just paying the actual costs - and letting the endowment support those who couldn't afford it. I don't see what legitimate interest is served by using massive endowments to subsidize the wealthy - I know my interests aren't served, and I can't see that either the state's or communties' interests are served either.</p>
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I don't see what legitimate interest is served by using massive endowments to subsidize the wealthy
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<p>Lower acceptance rates. It's the discount between the cost of providing the education and the sticker price that has rich folk lined up around the block trying to get it. </p>
<p>It's that discount that ultimately makes a prestigious school prestigious.</p>
<p>No. It is the PRICE (and the willingness of those who would emulate the rich to pay it) that makes a school prestigious. If it were simply the discount, the top LACs would be much, much more prestigious than any of the Ivies. Raise the price, and have individuals willing to pay it is what increases a school's prestige. (one only has to look to Georgetown and NYU as prime examples).</p>
<p>Beyond a certain point, lower acceptance rates don't benefit the schools either (except for Harvard and one or two others). They actually make it LESS rather than more likely that the schools actually enroll those students most likely to benefit from what they have to offer. At any rate, certainly lower acceptance rates are not a legitimate individual, state, or community interest.</p>
<p>Higher discount rates simply reflect the the law of diminishing return - educationally speaking. The costs of maintaining an arboretum for 1,500 students (without raising the price) does not improve the education of the students one iota above that of maintaining a larger and better arboretum at double the cost for 20,000 students. (In other words, at a certain point, higher discount rates simply reflect increased waste at a time when, society wide, educational resources are increasingly scarce. That's what gets the politicians dander up.)</p>
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Higher discount rates simply reflect the the law of diminishing return - educationally speaking. The costs of maintaining an arboretum for 1,500 students (without raising the price) does not improve the education of the students one iota above that of maintaining a larger and better arboretum at double the cost for 20,000 students.
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<p>Some rich folk prefer to pay extra for the personal attention of a small boutique store with designer clothes than mixing with the riff-raff and buying off the rack at the Mall of America.</p>
<p>Even though the goods they are able to purchase are actually of LESSER quality. (that was the whole point of the arboretum analogy).</p>
<p>What they really prefer is the prestige of paying more. They could be treated like crap, but if really wealthy people also preferred being treated like crap, being treated like crap would be a sign that "they had finally made it."</p>
<p>the expense of a good unversity is ridiculous</p>