Net university spending per student

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Athletics was brought up again--what seems to have been missed was my earlier point, which may not have been clear enough. If athletics aren't budgeted as an auxiliary enterprise, then athletics are included. IPEDS says as much. I don't know the budget models of the schools on the list, but this could be a pretty big difference.</p>

<p>This is not related to athletics (necessarily) but it's a huge red flag to me that UCLA and UC-Berkeley have such a disparate per-spending total. These are fairly similar institutions. I do not believe that all things being equal UCLA really spends so much more per student than Berkeley does. There simply must be a difference in what they report for the IPEDS category selected.</p>

22

<p>Thanks, svalbardlutefisk, an interesting post opening an interesting thread.</p>

23

<p>I've been away for a while, but here are some more of my thoughts.
There are a few ways in which spending related to having grad students impacts these number, some of which are legitimate, some of which can be controlled for, and some of which I won't be able to do anything about.</p>

<p>In the first category, research universities generally have higher professor salaries, relating to the superiority (at least in the eyes of the universities) of their research. This clearly does not directly impact teaching quality, but it's hard to deny at least some value to having top-of-the-line researchers on campus. Another legitimate area of grad student related spending is TA salaries. Clearly having TAs leading sections is an improvement over having a large lecture class not split into sections. Only schools with grad students have TAs, so if TA salaries are included in instructional spending (and I would guess they are) then having TAs improves one's numbers. Now, I don't deny that it may be better to simply have the smaller classes of LACs that do not necessitate TAs, but the professor to student ratio is already taken into account (more professors means more instructional spending). And, as it turns out, some institutions use undergrads as TAs (I have a friend, a sophomore, no less, who will be a TA at her institution next term). Using grad students as TAs is almost certainly superior to using undergrads, so this is legitimate spending.
In the second category, extra spending that I can control for, one main issue is tuition and fees. Grad students count as FTEs for the purposes of average tuition and fees received by the university, but they (PhD students at least) almost never pay tuition (particularly at the top universities under consideration here). This has a substantial effect on my numbers - Caltech's tuition and fees, for instance, are reported as around $8,000 per student, nothing like what a full-tuition undergrad is paying. I will try to compile full tuition numbers over the next few days, and redo my numbers using them.
In the final category are the various areas of research related spending that may appear in other areas. I have no way to sort these out, as IPEDs' data is not that specific, so the only real recourse is to simply separate out LACs from research universities. On the other hand, grad students don't derive the benefits of a lot of spending that I count (spending on extracurriculars and student organizations overwhelmingly benefits undergrads for instance) but those numbers are still divided by the number of grad students. Hopefully there is some balancing effect in these areas, though perhaps no to the extent we would like.</p>

24

<p>For those who are concerned about different universities reporting numbers in different ways, here are the top 20 in order for total expenditures per FTE (including research) minus tuition per FTE.
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yale University
Stanford University
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Wake Forest University
Washington University in St Louis
Vanderbilt University
Princeton University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
University of Chicago
Columbia University in the City of New York
University of Pennsylvania
Carnegie Mellon University
Emory University
Northwestern University
Cornell University
University of California-Los Angeles</p>

<p>As one can see, the top spending research universities in my rating do similarly here. Tech schools do significantly better (as one would expect with massive research budgets). Obviously LACs do much worse, but the main goal here is to see whether it is likely that research U's count dollars in significantly different ways. As it appears to me, the schools that benefit in this ranking are schools one would expect to have more research dollars in relation to undergrad spending (Caltech and MIT with large big-budget science programs, Harvard and Stanford as two of the world's premier research schools, Cornell generally considered stronger in research than in undergrad programs, Carnegie Mellon with some strong programs in well funded areas, Berkeley also rises significantly, though not enough to reach the top 20) and the schools that are hurt are schools one would expect to have comparatively less research spending (Yale - since it has weaker programs than its peers in the scientific areas that bring in the most research dollars, Rice with its small grad programs, Wake Forest with its weaker reputation as a research school). This implies that different budgeting is probably not responsible for differences among research universities in apparent undergrad spending (or at least not significant differences)</p>

<p>edit: one exception I notice is WashU, which has a reputation for a comparatively large amount of research spending (particularly on its med school) but does worse in the ordering that includes research. In fact, it reports research spending below that of Yale and Duke, and only slightly more than Princeton, Vanderbilt, and CMU.</p>

25

<p>Very informative post, Sval. This is really interesting, especially for kids who go to schools where research is integral to the entire undergraduate experience.</p>

26

<p>
[quote]
Using grad students as TAs is almost certainly superior to using undergrads, so this is legitimate spending

[/quote]
</p>

<p>In technical fields at least, there are several advantages to having undergrad TA's. First of all, in many technical fields the majority of graduate students are foreigners, and many have rather limited command of English. This is a recurring problem for sections taught by these students. The undergrads, on the other hand, are primarily Americans, and the internationals are pretty much required to be fluent in order to function in their courses.</p>

<p>Those universities that use undergrads as TA's also have enough grant money to support their graduate students on research funds, without having to use them to teach. From the grad student education viewpoint, this is a good thing.</p>

<p>Finally, the undergrad TA's I know get paid for their work. So money to pay TA's, whether they are grad or undergrad students should appear as instructional expense.</p>

27

<p>"But in order for say, that Caltech/Mudd difference to be due to grad students, the spending per capita on grad students would have to be 5 or 6 times as high as the per capita spending on undergrads"
Part of the reason for this particular discrepency is the vast difference in student/professor ratio between the two school. Caltech's ratio is very low, almost 2/1 if I recall correctly.</p>

28

<p>I recalculated utilizing the full tuition and fees number for each school (in-state for publics) as reported by US News (except Middlebury which does not separate room and board from tuition and fees. I estimated $36000, similar to its peer institutions - and about right based on the total number, and UCSD, where I noticed US News was wrong due to the vast difference between UCSD and the other UC schools. I looked up UCSD's fees myself). I also added all of the top-20 publics except Penn State and Rutgers, which don't report the necessary numbers to IPEDS. Here goes:
Yale University 77041
California Institute of Technology 65150
Wake Forest University 52266
Harvard University 41533
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 41489
Washington University in St Louis 40601
Stanford University 38190
Johns Hopkins University 33862
Vanderbilt University 26575
University of California-Los Angeles 24143
University of Chicago 23014
Dartmouth College 22947
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 21390
Columbia University in the City of New York 18628
Princeton University 18203
University of Pennsylvania 18019
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 16726
University of California-San Diego 13752
University of California-Davis 12812
Rice University 12132
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus 11811
University of California-Irvine 11414
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 10673
University of California-Berkeley 10399
Williams College 9128
University of Florida 9013
Emory University 8848
University of Wisconsin-Madison 8271
University of Virginia-Main Campus 6735
University of Maryland-College Park 6573
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 6455
Swarthmore College 5824
Northwestern University 5700
Ohio State University-Main Campus 5519
The University of Texas at Austin 4624
University of Georgia 3954
University of California-Santa Barbara 3484
Pomona College 3284
Wellesley College 3175
College of William and Mary 2980
Duke University 2848
Grinnell College 2010
Carnegie Mellon University 907
Bowdoin College 789
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 786
Haverford College -1114
Cornell University -1372
Harvey Mudd College -1843
Amherst College -1993
Brown University -2486
Davidson College -3786
Vassar College -4098
Carleton College -4668
Claremont McKenna College -5062
Middlebury College -5062
Georgetown University -5251
Washington and Lee University -7805
Wesleyan University -7892
University of Notre Dame -9184
Tufts University -9213
University of Southern California -9745</p>

<p>Note: the numbers for Haverford and below are in fact negative. That means, if you are paying full price, you are paying for more than what you are getting (in terms of money spent).</p>

29

<p>
[quote]
Finally, the undergrad TA's I know get paid for their work. So money to pay TA's, whether they are grad or undergrad students should appear as instructional expense.

[/quote]

I'll bet they get paid less.</p>

<p>
[quote]

Those universities that use undergrads as TA's also have enough grant money to support their graduate students on research funds, without having to use them to teach. From the grad student education viewpoint, this is a good thing.

[/quote]

We're talking about undergrad education here, not grad education, but, regardless, learning to teach is an important part of grad student education (after all, it's supposed to prepare them to be professors). A school that does not use its grad students as TAs would be doing them a disservice. Incidentally, if you think schools that don't use grad students as TAs are doing so due to lack of funds to support them otherwise, you're wrong, as these schools include many of the richest in the country.</p>

30

<p>Separating National Universities from LACs, the above numbers, in rank order</p>

<p>National Universities
Yale University
California Institute of Technology
Wake Forest University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Washington University in St Louis
Stanford University
Johns Hopkins University
Vanderbilt University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
Dartmouth College
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Columbia University in the City of New York
Princeton University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Washington-Seattle Campus
University of California-San Diego
University of California-Davis
Rice University
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus
University of California-Irvine
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of California-Berkeley
University of Florida
Emory University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Virginia-Main Campus
University of Maryland-College Park
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
Northwestern University
Ohio State University-Main Campus
The University of Texas at Austin
University of Georgia
University of California-Santa Barbara
College of William and Mary
Duke University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Cornell University
Brown University
Georgetown University
University of Notre Dame
Tufts University
University of Southern California</p>

<p>LACs
Williams College
Swarthmore College
Pomona College
Wellesley College
Grinnell College
Bowdoin College
Haverford College
Harvey Mudd College
Amherst College
Davidson College
Vassar College
Carleton College
Claremont McKenna College
Middlebury College
Washington and Lee University
Wesleyan University</p>

31

<p>S: </p>

<p>Again, thanks for your work producing this data. But your post #24 confused me. You say that this list is including research, and the lists puts WashU below Yale, yes, but ahead of Duke (not below both) and ahead of not only Princeton, Vandy and CMU, but also ahead of research powerhouses Chicago, Columbia, Penn and Cornell. I'm not seeing the "exception" you're referring to.</p>

32

<p>Bigred, I was referring to simply the number of dollars per student in research (not the total when research is included). I did not post that data, but I have it in an excel spreadsheet. Sorry for the confusion.</p>

33

<p>Thanks. I'll have to chew on that for a bit. </p>

<p>Do these figures include spending on large brick-and-mortar projects? Or is that a separate category? Also, do you see trends among universities regarding athletic spending --- which ones have largely self-supporting programs and which are spending a lot per-student on athletics that are not revenue producing. I've always wondered about that.</p>

34

<p>I don't think they include large construction projects. Instead, they seem to include depreciation as an expense (this is an accounting practice utilized by almost everyone). It means that the cost of a construction product is divided up and counts as an expense for some length of time (say, 30 years). So a recent construction boom on campus shouldn't lead to significantly inflated numbers.</p>

<p>Sadly I can't look at athletic spending directly, but I can look at the spending category that includes spending on athletics (that is not self-financed), student services. The amount of spending here ranges wildly, from $23,950 at Yale to $0 at Columbia (implying some sort of different accounting practices). The $0 at Columbia is particularly surprising since it certainly has a non-self funding athletic program. Ignoring Columbia's number (which is simply inexplicable), a lot of the top spenders in this category seem to finance their own athletic programs. But, Caltech is 5th here, with very small athletic programs, while Harvard, with the most athletic programs in the country (presumably not self-financing), ranks 17th, 1 spot ahead of Northwestern, who's major-conference (Big 10) Division 1 programs may very well support themselves. All in all, it seems unclear to what degree athletic programs are influencing the numbers.</p>

<p>edit: Yale's numbers here are suspiciously high, more than twice that of any other school. They may very well be counting something in student services that others don't. Of course, it's entirely unclear where it should actually be counted, so it's hard to say what effect it's having on the total numbers I report (the same thing applies for Wake Forest and the academic support category).</p>

35

<p>What sort of spending falls into the "academic" support category as opposed to instructional support and student services? </p>

<p>I'd like to see more transparency and uniformity in reporting regarding all this type of spending; it could be very telling and important for individual decision making.</p>

36

<p>I realize this is a peripheral point, but to come back to grad TA's.</p>

<p>I suspect undergrads TA's are paid less, but I don't have figures. However, it is not a matter of money spent on grad students, vs no spending if they use undergrads.</p>

<p>If the university uses undergrad TA's, and pays them less than grad students, then the total instructional expense will be lower, but not at all clear that the educational experience would be inferior. Ask anyone who has tried to understand their math section leader who could barely speak English.</p>

<p>Not all grad students are headed for academic careers. First of all, many are in masters programs, and have no intention of joining college faculties. Second, even those in doctoral programs have lots of job opportunities outside of academia. In many fields, academic jobs are rare and industry work is plentiful.</p>

<p>As this discussion points out, a university being rich does not determine where it chooses to spend money. The most important thing for students in a research doctoral program is that they get their research done and get their degrees. Time spent teaching contributes nothing to this, and that is why it is a good thing if the student is supported on research funds-they focus 100% on their research.</p>

<p>It is not that the universities cannot "afford" to support a graduate student without them teaching, it is that universities do not work that way. </p>

<p>The graduate student would belong to a department or graduate group. It would be up to that group to pay them. The university could have zillions, but if the department had no funds to support the student without teaching, then the student would have to teach, and spend a significant portion of time away from their research. The department is expected to fund its graduate students through research grants, outside fellowships, and teaching. Only teaching brings in university money (since this derives from tuition). So a department in a rich university easily could be without funds to support all its grad students without teaching. In fact, this is common.</p>

<p>Recent construction could easily inflate depreciation, since this is higher for newer buildings.</p>

37

<p>"What genuine difference in student experience could possibly explain this large a difference in expenditures?"</p>

<p>Caltech pays Mudders like me to design and build their science hardware. That's where all the money goes ;-)</p>

38

<p>


You really can't get enough of yourself, can you?</p>