<p>And my belief is that the biggest driver in the increase in cost is overly easy access to credit.</p>
<p>When everyone is guaranteed to be able to borrow $20K+, prices will go up by $20K. Maybe schools would have been somewhat serious about controlling costs if there wasn’t a government-guaranteed level of loans the schools could basically force the students to tap into.</p>
<p>And like the housing crisis, which was caused by the same thing, we are headed for a major blow-up/melt-down.</p>
<p>At some schools there are still those students (and parents) who haven’t been beaten into submission by the club of annual tuition hikes. When SUNY decided to raise tuition by $600 per year (about double that for OOS) a few years ago there were protests, letter writing campaigns, and visits to Albany from across the 64 campuses. People were incensed! This was the first hike in 6 or 7 years and it was not rescinded, but it was not repeated the following year either. Perhaps that sent the message that these students were serious about finishing their education affordably, regardless of whether other “perks” had to be sacrificed. </p>
<p>I must admit that, barring very unusual circumstances, I usually have little sympathy for people who complain about the cost of private schools even though I agree that it’s ridiculous. But I have less patience for those who bury themselves in debt for it! Once you strip away all the extras and intangibles, it’s just not that difficult to find affordable schools that will provide a good education to anyone willing to work for it. People need to get over the McMansion mentality as it applies to education (it’s shiny and new and costs more and our friends are doing it, so it must be better) and teach their kids the difference between “want” and “need”! The sooner the better, imo!</p>
<p>*Back then, everyone commuted to BC; there were no dorms whatsoever, and none of the buildings even had names. There was no bling back then. Now, I see bling everywhere on this campus. If we cut these costs, then college would far more affordable.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these days, colleges want to sell not only an education, but a lifestyle as well. To create such a lifestyle, massive capital expenditures were undertaken, and that is what is leading to the high sticker prices on colleges across the board.</p>
<p>I say that if people stop obsessing over prestige, then colleges would feel less compelled to enter in these sort of “arms races” against other colleges, spend less on dorms and recreation centers and focus more on what counts - the education itself. *</p>
<p>There was a time when only the affluent sent their kids away to school. So, most schools didn’t have to compete for students because the locals went to their local college.</p>
<p>Many colleges behaved like public high schools…knowing that most children will HAVE to attend the local school, so none bothered trying to “sell” their schools.</p>
<p>I remember growing up with Cal State Fullerton close to my home. It was ugly, it had almost no dorms (maybe just for the athletes), had no gym, etc. Everyone was a commuter. Now, when I visit my parents, I see the school and it’s rather inviting.</p>
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At UMass, they haven’t raised tuition in 10 years, maybe more. And what a bargain - only $1714 for in-state students! That’s because tuition is controlled by the politicians.</p>
<p>The fees, on the other hand, are now more than 6x the tuition, and are going up 10-15% next year. That’s because fees are controlled by the school.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the SUNYs are like this, but in our case the tuition is now basically “noise”. It’s practically the cheapest part of the cost.</p>
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omg, organic chemistry in the summer :(</p>
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Unfortunately for us, the SUNY system does not have ANY schools with majors in DS’s area of interest. A few weak minors. So we will most likely be relegated to a private school. Fortunately, there are several that are candidates to give him good scholarships, so that they will be on par with the publics.</p>
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<p>If the money in your left pocket was given to you specifically to buy lunch for the homeless guy on the corner, yes it does matter. Some endowments are made up of money donated by alumni and others for specific purposes, and cannot be used willy-nilly. </p>
<p>Richie Rich and Joe Poor are both accepted to Fancy U. Richie Rich will pay $50K per year, and Joe Poor will pay $0. Does Fancy U have $50K to work with? No, their endowments fork over $50K for Joe, and Fancy U has $100K in it’s operating budget. So Richie isn’t paying for Joe, the endowments are.</p>
<p>Two general observations.
First, there has been a general increase in the aspirations of students of middle income families (often working class) and mid-level smarts. Here in Chicago, schools like DePaul, Columbia College, Loyola, Roosevelt and others have morphed from being live-at-home to save money schools to “destination” schools. By destination I mean living in an urban dorm or in a city apartment in order to have “the college experience” folks see on TV. Just a product of general prosperity, vs. decades ago. Expectations are different.
The other observation has to do with the claims of elite colleges that full tuition payers only pay a fraction of the true costs of their educations. I have never been able to figure out a way to effectively measure what the students “get” vs. what academics and administrators “get” by feathering their own nests. Sabbaticals? Teaching only 3 or 4 courses a term? TAs to help? Administrative position on top of administrative position? Generous contributions to TIAA-CREF? Marketing frills like rock climbing walls? Paid leave and costs for professional “conferences”? I have to say that those TIAA-CREF ads about serving those who work “for the greater good” make me gag. And I used to work for the place.</p>
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Not taking issue with your other points, but this spring I was a TA for General Physics I at Big State U. There were 580 students in 3 sections. 5 TA’s held a total of 17 recitations per week between us. In order to proctor and grade the 3 exams and final, additional TA’s and graders were brought in. Each exam took 11 graders working for 7 hours to grade. There is no way in *** the 3 professors could have done all that. They survive on the backs of the Teaching Assistants.</p>
<p>Rule of Thumb: The more expensive the school, the more financial aid given out :]</p>
<p>sylvan…that’s exactly the unusual circumstances I was thinking of as my D had exactly one SUNY to choose from for her major! That was poorly worded on my part but I’m sad that several of D’s HS friends are scrambling to find new schools as their parents just decided after one year that their private schools are unaffordable.:(</p>
<p>notrichenough, no tuition at a 4 year SUNY is just under $5K and fees vary by campus but are under $2K.</p>
<p>*At UMass, they haven’t raised tuition in 10 years, maybe more. And what a bargain - only $1714 for in-state students! That’s because tuition is controlled by the politicians.</p>
<p>The fees, on the other hand, are now more than 6x the tuition, and are going up 10-15% next year. That’s because fees are controlled by the school.*</p>
<p>Six of one, half dozen of the other…in the case of UMass, it really is all tuition. It’s disingenuous to put forth that the tuition hasn’t changed in years.</p>
<p>Would anyone say that the UCs and Cal States are tuition free? They don’t charge any tuition to instate…it’s all fees. That $12,800 (or so) per year for UCs is all “fees”.</p>
<p>*I’ve read numerous articles and interviews given by some of the most generous schools and they always say that their endowments, not their students, are funding institutional grants.</p>
<p>I’ve always found this argument somewhat ridiculous.
Does it make any difference if I pay for my lunch with money from my left pocket or if I pay with money from my right pocket? *</p>
<p>No, it’s not ridiculous. The money from institutional grants didn’t come from students; it came from donors. If grant money (from donors) didn’t exist, then the argument could be made that FA for poor students comes from rich students…because then there would only be “one pocket” of a money source.</p>
<p>If your child pays you to $10k per year for his upkeep, and you have an endowment from another source that pays $10k per year to cover the upkeep for a foster child, then your child is NOT funding the foster child. </p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that some schools have no choice as to where to put their endowment money…sometimes a donor specifies it. So “one pocket” can only be opened for XXXXX costs.</p>
<p>If and when every book and every lecture becomes accessible online, and they will, colleges in current form will no longer exist, in the near future. As adults, we use only a fraction of what we learned in college, and we have to update our skill tool set constantly. Why does a kid need to pay $50-70K a year to go to college? It will be for reasons other than education, and you don’t have to.</p>
<p>^ true, a better analogy in the lunch money scenario would be that you’re picking your co-worker’s pocket (full pay parent) vs. using your own savings to add diversity to your diet! </p>
<p>There may be some schools that make a profit on some students by raising tuition above the break even point (enrollment management tactic) and having a large percentage of full pays. If they can manage to refrain from spending this money on building projects and other fluff, they can use that to pick up some needier kids which is also good for their image. But since they raised tuition for reasons other than funding need-based aid, it doesn’t hold up that the full pays are paying high amounts because of the higher need students. Correlation is not causation.</p>
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<p>If you believe THIS, you could be in for a very rude awakening come college acceptance and financial aid acceptance time. There are more than hundreds of expensive private schools that do NOT meet full need for students. Many of these give very small financial aid packages because they simply don’t have the endowments to support large awards.</p>
<p>If you are an out of state student at a public university, your costs can easily approach 45K per year…or more. Clearly this will be MORE than your instate public would cost you…but do NOT expect to get more aid just because your sticker price is higher. You probably won’t.</p>
<p>If you have a high income…quite frankly it doesn’t matter at ALL what the sticker price is per college…your aid will not be adjusted because of the cost of the school.</p>
<p>Yes, there are a few very generous schools that award very generous need based aid. BUT they are in the VAST minority.</p>
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I bet in the future college will become a lot more like a 2 school thing. People will do 1 or 2 years at a community college, and then 2 or 2.5 years at a University
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<p>If this trend is on the upswing, top 4 years will simply stop accepting (or reduce) the transfer credits.</p>
<p>Hillsdale College in Michigan refuses to accept government funding which eliminates government interference. The result is a tuition that is $10k less than their peers. I find it interesting that they can keep their cost down.</p>
<p>*
Rule of Thumb: The more expensive the school, the more financial aid given out :] *</p>
<p>this is not true. there are only a tiny number of schools with COAs of $50k+ per year that are generous with aid. There are many schools with COAs of $50k+ that are not generous with aid.</p>
<p>Referencing a famous article in the NYTimes, “In Twist on Tuition Game, Popularity Rises With Price”- Dec 12, 2006…,</p>
<p>many boards of trustees at colleges raised tuition in order to increase the number of applicants. It worked. “Applicants had apparently concluded that if the college costs more, it must be better.” According to this article it applied to better known colleges such as Notre Dame, Bryn Mawr, Rice, University of Richmond, Hendrix, Ursinus. Other schools are mentioned, (and I think it must be widespread and still happening). Institutions watch one another. How else do tuition and fees end up being so incredibly close across a wide swath of colleges? They justify it by saying they turn around and feed the increases into financial aid. Since it is clear that merit aid is on the DECREASE across the the country lately, the inescapable conclusion is that with regard to some of these tuition increase decisions, making college more expensive for some enables less well off students to go with a direct correlation. Colleges raise tuitions to stay competitive with other colleges in their class, not always because they need the money. And it’s paid for by those who can pay even if they can’t fund their retirements anymore.</p>
<p>I think we’re getting OT and I’d like to hear ideas on the “what can we do about it” side. I think everyone feels there’s not much that can be done individually - even if we choose to “shop elsewhere”, even public school fees are getting quite high in some states and pricing families out of the college market. </p>
<p>The Republican party created a website for Americans to voice their ideas on a wide variety of subjects for consideration by lawmakers, including education. I often think that people don’t take the time to make their voices heard and perhaps this could be a way for parents of college students, and potential college students, to be involved in the process. Time will tell whether this turns into something of value or not - right now they seem to have bandwidth issues!</p>
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