Bloomberg article:
I’d agree with that.
A long time ago I attended a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest, Reed College. First-year total costs were about $2,000 (tuition was $1,240 in my first year, plus room and board of ~$600, and other fees). Adjusted for general inflation (using the government’s cost of living calculator), that would be about $17,000 per year today. Yet based on the college’s website the total cost of attendance estimated by the college today (exclusive of transportation) is $75,000.
Obviously, the high cost of attendance today isn’t mainly the effect of general inflation. It likely largely reflects real increases in expenses for faculty salaries, classrooms, facilities and technology, and other services. Even my (generous!) annual contributions to the alumni fund, along with those from other alumni and supporters of the college, can’t keep the costs anywhere near what they would be if only general inflation was the factor in cost increases over the years.
Yet somehow the colleges “just don’t die.” The main reason, I think, is that they have a valuable and valued role in America’s higher educational system. They also draw many students from abroad (though just 10% in the case of Reed, 10% at Swarthmore, and 14% at Pomona College). They contribute disproportionately to certain professions (including to academia itself), and carry on an academic tradition that a significant share of today’s high-schoolers values.
I think they charge that much because they can. As long as people are willing to pay, they’ll all continue to charge.
Also, increased number of non-faculty staff for expected auxiliary services and the like that are expected now, as well as non-salary costs of employment (particularly medical insurance) for regular (non-adjunct/contractor) faculty and staff.
Thanks to International students with fat wallets.
This article should be titled “the 70k a year COLLEGE and UNIVERSITY won’t die.” U Chicago, Stanford, and Harvard all charge nearly the same.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=bennington&s=all&id=230816#finaid says that 90% of Bennington’s students get some grants or scholarships (average amount $39,170), although only 20% get Pell grants. List price is $73,270 for living on campus.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=bennington&s=all&id=230816#netprc lists average net prices by income bracket; they do not look particularly affordable to lower and middle income families.
According to the College Board based on NCES statistics, average faculty salaries at private nonprofit bachelor’s colleges (which would include LACs) increased by only 5% in real inflation-adjusted dollars between 2001-02 and 2016-17, and were essentially flat at research universities. So if colleges are spending more for faculty, it’s either because they’re employing more faculty relative to enrollment, or because non-salary benefits (e.g., health insurance) are taking a bigger bite. It’s been well documented elsewhere that the biggest growth in payroll costs has been in non-faculty administrative and support staff. And much of this has come about in response to consumer demand. Colleges are engaged in a kind of arms race to see which can provide the most deluxe suite of support services and outside-the-classroom bells and whistles, all of which require staff and facilities. Technology’s expensive and requires near-constant upgrades, and students are attracted to schools that offer the plushest dorms, the best food, and the nicest facilities. It’s not faculty salaries that are driving this runaway train.
What that tells me is that you also have to factor in the use of adjuncts.
Not sure how the use of adjuncts figures into this, except as a cost-cutting move by colleges. Adjunct salaries are usually a pittance, but they aren’t counted in surveys of faculty salaries which are based on full-time salaries at the assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor levels. Those salaries have been stagnant. If anything, the increasingly widespread use of adjuncts would tend to put downward pressure on the salaries of full-time tenure-track faculty because the supply of qualified people eager to fill those jobs far exceeds the number of available entry-level positions, and to some extent it also dampens demand for lateral transfers. Bottom line: faculty haven’t been the beneficiaries of rising college costs.
Presumably, you mean faculty *salaries/i. Faculty (and other staff) benefits like medical insurance are a significant cost driver in labor intensive businesses like education. Rapidly rising medical insurance costs make the employees more expensive to the employer without making the employees feel better compensated.
Families of full pay students, wealthy alumni, donations, grants, student loans and huge endowments keep them in business.
I’d love to see a comparison of the NET cost of college (after scholarships) vs 40 or 50 years ago. Sure, the sticker price is higher, but if the college is just charging higher prices to the full pay families so they can give more aid to the needy ones, then rising tuition is a good thing (at least to me).
Also, using the government Cost of Living index isn’t really fair to the schools - the cost of things like science/computing labs has made educational inflation much higher than the general inflation rate over the past 50 years.
@bclintonk wrote:
That’s not clear in the survey you cited upstream. In fact, one footnote suggests that faculty on 9 month contracts WERE included in the survey.
Computing has gotten much less expensive over the past 50 years, so that may not be a good example to use for inflation in the cost of education in universities.
Exactly, I was reading an article where it compared computer costs and the Mac cost $2500 in mid 80s, or $6K today, which I think is four times today’s list price of $1500. Similar to PCs as well.
“I was reading an article where it compared computer costs and the Mac cost $2500 in mid 80s, or $6K today, which I think is four times today’s list price of $1500. Similar to PCs as well.”
This is likely a misunderstanding of how computer costs are treated in inflation statistics. The nominal cost hasn’t changed much (in my experience it’s gone up slightly in nominal terms when comparing the typical base level desktop Mac in 1990 and the base level MacBook in 2019 which is what most people buy).
Inflation statistics indicate huge declines in computer prices because they include hedonic price adjustments (increases in quality). Car prices have some of the same issues (though not to the same extent). See https://www.bls.gov/ppi/ppicomqa.htm
I can believe that mainframes were an expense in 1990 that isn’t incurred today. But was that typical for a LAC or just confined to research institutions (and potentially covered by government research grants)?
I do not agree that computing is less expensive than in the past. Yes, consumable electronics like desktop computers are less expensive, but you cannot imagine the gear and tools needed from WiFi to the demand for a larger internet pipe to the ever-growing list of tools to identify cyber threats. My budget is far larger now than 20 years ago. Add in learning management systems, the run away costs of a student system, admissions systems (CRM), and retention tools and you are talking well in excess of $1m each year just for those.