Again, post hoc ergo propter hoc. I believe that for statements like the above to not be viewed as hyperbole there needs to be evidence. You can keep it your opinion and speculation, of course, but without evidence it is simply that.
Many colleges are now rolling back high sticker prices closer to the average net or real price. Also if NEU students got a better product for the new higher price is that really a problem?? What is wrong with incenting higher quality–even if it also requires higher prices? As long as the money goes to a proper effective use. “Efficiency” usually has costs too. They just are harder to see.
^^When families making a quarter of a million dollars a year can no longer afford the sticker price, I would say, the “incenting” has probably gone too far.
As long as they are able to fill the classrooms with the number of students they want with the revenues they find acceptable, I don’t expect colleges to be too concerned about who cannot afford sticker price (or to attend for whatever reason).
@saillakeerie wrote:
They should. They should be very concerned.
In the long term. But like most businesses, few colleges are looking at the long term.
@Postmodern, when there is overlap between the consumers of products A and B, shifting the price on A would have an effect on the demand for B.
@saillakeerie i think that depends on what you mean by few. Most of the top universities and colleges probably care a lot about their long term institutional reputation and financial well-being or independence. Many of the elite schools now have perfected a cycle of privilege-reputation-donation that they should want to perpetuate by admitting the right mix of students. It has to be like a business, but that’s to say simply that it has to execute that strategy ruthlessly and maintain the brand.
Not true. A college’s long term projections affect its credit rating.
Just like how listed companies worry about analyst ratings, colleges worry about how potential creditors perceive them. A school’s credit rating will significantly impact how much it costs to borrow to build a new dorm, renovate a library, etc…
You can’t read what I said in #105 without also reading what I said in #103.
Yes @PrimeMeridian , that is outlined in the link I posted. But it assumes that raising of price for product A results in a decrease in demand for that product, which is natually self-correcting.
And it is not universal between product types, and I think you’d have a hard time proving a link between 3,000 colleges. Tickets for Hamilton selling for $1000 do not result Spiderman the Musical being able to charge $900 (sorry couldn’t think of a worse show).
Plus the market for colleges does not work this way. It has been posited many times here that Harvard could charge $150,000 per year and get it easily, and it would not change the price that Rutgers could charge. The market result would be that Rutgers might get some students who would have otherwise gone to Harvard. So the car analogy does not apply, and colleges being non-profit and a uniquely scarce good where $$$ are not the only currency necessary for acquisition make simple economics based arguments ineffective, IMHO.
Most importantly – singularly importantly, actually – none of this economics discussion answers the question I initially asked which was what evidence is there that USNWR is “one of the chief driving forces behind higher college spending these past thirty years.” (@circuitriders’s statement, not yours of course) and how that has affected tuition costs.
That’s a bigtime claim and if it is true I would like to see evidence of it.
@Postmodern, I think you answered your own question at post #88
^^^ Sorry, @circuitrider , if I am being dense, but I do not see how that statement shows cause/effect from USNEWS.
In fact, the opposite, since they have gone up at nearly all schools, the bulk of which USNWR does not rank. That’s what I was referring to.
So what am I missing?
Imagine what the costs of other goods/services would be (and the reaction) if before being told the cost, you were asked to show your personal financial statements, and only then were you told the cost.
You can’t have it both ways @Postmodern. You can’t argue one minute that every college decides tuition independently of what every other college does and then argue in the next minute that they do in fact seem to follow in each other’s footsteps Which is it?
^^^ @circuitrider, I have made no assertion as to why tuitions have gone up. You have.
I did assert that the laws of supply and demand do apply, and I stupidly entered a debate over economic principles WRT Lexuses and Toyotas.
I do also assert that tuitions have raised up across the board over the last few decades, as that is obvious and not in debate. I don’t know what caused that to happen. I would guess it was costs for everything, but I have no evidence as to the cause.
I am asking again, simply:
What evidence is there that USNWR is “one of the chief driving forces behind higher college spending these past thirty years.” , which you asserted, in context with “rising tuition rates.”
I will not respond again unless you choose to provide evidence of the statement in bold, at which point I will mea culpa. I understand that you may be correct. I want to see proof.
If you can’t provide any, let’s drop it and let the thread stick to its topic.
Ten per cent of the USNews rankings are based on “spending per student”. That is undisputed. It is published in their methodology. Mr. Morse has, in fact, stated that more spending means a college can improve its rank in the poll. It has been an integral part of the poll for at least the past twenty years, long enough to observe its effects, to wit: spending has gone up astronomically during a period of comparatively low inflation as measured by the CPI.
At least a quarter of the USNWR ranking can be bought
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19943962/#Comment_19943962
Correlation does not imply causation. I understand it may look more than coincidental, but without proof its only an unproven conspiracy theory.
Certainly the spending per student results were obvious to other observers than the USNWR staff? Class sizes, fancy dorm rooms, the infamous lazy rivers… available also on a college tour or in Fiske. My converse speculation to yours is there must have been many other, larger drivers of the spending. But I have no proof of that either.
I think I have nothing more to offer so I will sign off this topic now. Good night all.
Parents of full-pay kids at private schools are essentially treating college as a Veblen good, or an item of conspicuous consumption. Colleges have convinced people that higher cost means higher quality, when there may or may not be a correlation.