Should Colleges Charge Engineers More Than English Majors?

[cosmicfish]

<p>Erycus,</p>

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Although I must ask, why should the government support tuition costs more? That’s why it’s so high in the first place.

As juillet noted, the sum total of federal student aid is far lower than the cost of private universities. When you look at public universities, even the expensive ones are already far cheaper than privates, so I am not sure how you can take away funding and still do any good there. The main drivers in costs have been the combination of supply-and-demand (there’s your free market!) and prestige-chasing.</p>

<p>

The other key step it must take if it chooses to do so, would be to make student loans dis-chargeable through bankruptcy. The shark private lending market in student loans would all but disappear and all the easy money to colleges that gets spent on giant new stadiums would disappear as well.

If loans were dischargable through bankruptcy, you would see student loan rates go up to credit-card levels. They are unsecured loans for a large sum, against a person with as-yet-undetermined earning potential, with deferred payments for 4+ years… if recoupment is not more-or-less guaranteed then the risks become HUGE. I think you would see rates for “sure-thing” schools and majors in the 20% range, and loans just flat out refused for a lot of schools and majors as being simply too big a risk against even best-case projected incomes.</p>

<p>Oh, and stadium costs are generally levied against the athletic departments and paid from future ticket sales, and not paid out of the general fund. For those schools where that is NOT the case there is a problem, but you should not make categorical assumptions.</p>

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If nobody is able to go to college because they can’t take out loans to do so, where will college’s get their money from?

You are making the fundamentally flawed assumption that “college” is available for any given price, when the reality is that there are bottom limits on the tuition that a school can charge while still funding a marketable education. That limit is already well above what a great many people in this country can pay, and messing with student loans and grants will do more to drop people out of school than it will to lower tuition.</p>

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With loans from the federal government and private lenders, colleges do not care if you are otherwise able to pay back your loans eventually. They already have the money, it isn’t their problem.

The same is true of every item purchased under any loan. Does the homebuilder care if you can make the payments on your mortgage? Does the car dealer care if you can make those loan payments? Heck, does Sears care if I can pay the bill for my drill on my MasterCard? No. Because those are issues for the lender to address, not the vendor.</p>