NYT: Wake Up, Sheeple! College Still Cheap!

<p>The new tuition model for private schools is essentially “how much do we think you can afford”. They raise tuition to levels that very few outside of the uber rich can afford, you submit to an invasive financial analysis and they then give you a number they feel you can pay. I think it will be interesting to see how this changes the process. </p>

<p>To some degree, it has already turned things on its head. It used to be that if you were from a middle class to upper class family you went to the “best” school that accepted you. Now the term “financial safety” is used liberally on CC. Even if my child could get into an Ivy or a “little Ivy” like Amherst, we couldn’t afford it. But a person whose income is below $60K would go for free. So an Ivy is now a “financial safety” for that person but unaffordable for my child. </p>

<p>My H and I graduated from a top 50 school but my own children will likely not. Ironically, in large part to the education we received there, those schools are out of reach for us financially. S1 is at our state public and with D1 we are looking exclusively at lower tier privates that will offer her merit. </p>

<p>So I think the interesting question is: if the best and the brightest are now looking for the best tuition value, not the highest ranking school, will that effect the rankings of schools down the line? </p>

<p>I have a question for the “upper middle class” families in the donut hole: Do/did you feel an obligation to save for your children’s college education?</p>

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<p>How do you plan for adequate savings when the cost of college is rising 3X the rate of inflation?</p>

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<p>I’ve been thinking about this, which comes up often around here. I live in one of the most expensive areas of the country (Bay Area), and yet there are people who live here who make less than $60K. How do they do it? They live in cheap apartments or mobile homes, they don’t go out to eat, they don’t buy new clothes, they don’t go on vacations. I’m not suggesting that upper-middle-class people with double that income should confine themselves to that kind of lifestyle rather than buying a 3-bedroom house and paying for music lessons for their kids. But I do find it a bit disingenuous when people talk about how unfair it is that if they were poor, they’d get a free ride, but since they have an UMC salary and live an UMC lifestyle, they now can’t afford to send their kid to college. Because what that is saying is basically that colleges should subsidize that nice home and those vacations that poor families could never in a million years afford to give their kids.</p>

<p>I’m sorry if this sounds harsh; I live an UMC lifestyle myself and I don’t feel guilty about it. But just because we’re all accustomed to this lifestyle and would feel very deprived if we had to give it up, doesn’t mean we’re entitled to it.</p>

<p>And of course, the real problem is that college just shouldn’t be this expensive. I wondered on another thread if the skyrocketing costs can be attributed to the increased luxury of today’s college experience and the gorgeous new buildings and facilities appearing on so many campuses. Colleges want to live an UMC lifestyle too!</p>

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<p>There is something fundamentally screwed up with the way college is priced in the US. The philosophy of practically all other countries is to give priority to developing the most academically-capable people in their population. If you demonstrate academic ability, you go to college. They don’t have the insanely widely variant, means-tested tuition pricing we have in the US: $0 to $60k. </p>

<p>What other critical consumer goods/services in the US are priced on the basis of customer income?</p>

<p>@DEfour: Some of the top 50 offer merit aid. Especially the bottom half of the top 50. Also, many publics have strengthened their honors colleges in recent years (and often include scholarships to them). If your kid can get in to a top 10, getting merit at these places should not be that hard, and for many career paths, they’d be just as good.</p>

<p>Plus, they’d already have the advantage of coming from an UMC family (knowing the mores and culture of the professional class as well as what opportunities are out there and how to get them).</p>

<p>The top schools are really most advantageous for lower-class and immigrant kids who get exposed to a world and opportunities that they did not know exist.</p>

<p>@GMTplus7: I totally agree. If nothing else, enabling the education and future career of our best and brightest young people is doing what’s best for our society. This is also why public K-12 schools should receive more funding. </p>

<p>To quote a Barbara Kingsolver essay, “Be careful what you give to children, because you are sure to get it back.”</p>

<p>@GMTplus7:</p>

<p>Yet the US higher educational system is also the envy of the world. I’m not sure you can change one part without changing others.</p>

<p>In fact, you can argue that the high-cost/high-aid model helps with alumni donations. Those who receive high-aid tend to be grateful and will donate. More importantly, the high-cost/high-aid model squeezes out the UMC in favor of the rich, who have a lot more money to donate.</p>

<p>Base everything on dispassionate merit, and people are more likely to think that they earned it themselves and less likely to credit the school.</p>

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<p>There are plenty of other countries w top universities. The UK has 3 in the world’s top 10-- that’s not too shabby. </p>

<p>@GMTplus7: Depends on your field. In the pre-professional fields (like engineering, business, communications, among others), few of them measure up to the American schools. On the MBA level, LBS is successful by adopting the American model.</p>

<p>The strength of the American higher educational system is its diversity and pragmatism. That goes hand-in-hand with “unfairness”* all over the place.</p>

<p>*Unfairness in quotes because under the English system, public school (which are akin to our private boarding schools) grads have a far better chance of entering Oxbridge than lower-class kids from regular state schools. If you are UMC, you have think that that is more fair. You probably wouldn’t think the same way if you were poor.</p>

<p>I doubt that American lower-class kids from regular state schools stand any greater chance of getting into our versions of Oxbridge (HYPS) than their British counterparts. And I wish we wouldn’t include these schools in discussions about higher education. They’re anomalies in our society. Let’s focus on how feasible it is for a working class kid to get into his or her state school - perhaps even their flagship. </p>

<p>Purple Titan, I’m not sure the US higher education system IS the evny of the world. I think a handful of schools might be. But the SYSTEM, with its astronomical prices, often leaves many foreigners aghast. </p>

<p>“But I do find it a bit disingenuous when people talk about how unfair it is that if they were poor, they’d get a free ride, but since they have an UMC salary and live an UMC lifestyle, they now can’t afford to send their kid to college. Because what that is saying is basically that colleges should subsidize that nice home and those vacations that poor families could never in a million years afford to give their kids.”</p>

<p>@Dustypig Not sure why you referenced my post with this comment but that isn’t at all what I said. I was simply using myself as a comparison vis a vis the Amherst example that was used at the beginning of the thread. It is the current way college is priced and my comment was if and how this new model will change the rankings as people send their children to schools based on their own income rather than their childrens’ grades. </p>

<p>Fairness is entirely different question that I didn’t address. </p>

<p>I will say that I don’t follow your logic here. Colleges have priced their product far above its cost so that they can overcharge some people for the same product and use that money to subsidize the cost for others. The college isn’t subsidizing anyone, its the full payers who are doing that. </p>

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As I noted on the previous page, the average cost is around $83,300 at Amherst. Full-payers are not paying average cost. Annual giving and the endowment are doing the subsidizing. </p>

<p>@katliamom: Actually, I believe that HYPS do far more to try to help lower-income kids than Oxbridge does. And if you look around, on the whole, the American system is far better. Maybe not for UMC kids who test well, but overall, most definitely. Here, if you don’t test well, you can still go to college and prove yourself (as opposed to being consigned to a trade or no education as is the case in many countries). CC’s also allow a path for kids to straighten up. The diversity of paths to success is in general far greater here. And yes, college costs a lot more, but many of those countries where college costs less have higher tax rates for UMC families as well (in part to support those colleges), so overall, I don’t think you’re better off. Let’s be concrete: name a country and a class of people that would do better outside the US.</p>

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Very few are. At my institution, parking is means-tested, as is day care, but few other goods are. What makes a college education different from most other goods, though, is that the seller cares who consumes the good and the consumers care who else consumes the good. When you go to buy your new BMW 428, you don’t really care who else will buy one from that dealership this year. Likewise, the dealership doesn’t care too much who buys as long as they can pay. By contrast, students care a great deal who their classmates are, and colleges care a great deal who their students are. That alters the incentives tremendously.</p>

<p>This is belated, but thanks, scout59. (Also, I like the nod to “To Kill a Mockingbird.”)</p>

<p>@DEfour, I wasn’t addressing your post specifically. Your post brought up some issues that have been addressed often around here, and I was commenting on those issues in general, not rebutting your post.</p>

<p>You’re welcome, QM. “To Kill a Mockingbird” = best book/movie combination, ever. </p>

<p>“Annual giving and the endowment are doing the subsidizing.”</p>

<p>This - especially at the no merit aid top schools like Amherst. If any one thinks the full pay students at Amherst are subsidizing the no pay/low pay they are wrong. Amherst’s endowment is $1.8 Billion. </p>

<p><a href=“List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment&lt;/a&gt; </p>