The cost of college is out of control. What you suppose we do about it?

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<p>PA state schools are worse. Our three best schools(PSU, Pitt and Temple) are “state affliated”, so they charge over 14k/year for tuition only. I can go out of state for about that price. Add in room and board and no real financial aid and very few people can afford it. My own “in state schools” are not financial safeties-that’s a problem. Even the “state schools” are over 7k in tuition. It’s nearly impossible to put yourself through college unless you go to CC’s. Our local CC is AWFUL, so really, a poorer student with no family help is screwed at every turn. I had to go to generous OOS schools(Alabama) or privates(Smith) to be able to afford college. Had I not been a pretty good student and been very fortunate, I don’t know if college would have been in the cards for me</p>

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Maybe from a purely bookkeeping point of view this is true. The reality is though that I have $20K to spend on 2 kids; does it really make any difference which pocket the money came out of for which kid?</p>

<p>As for designated endowments… if an endowment is explicitly targeted at providing FA, then a student’s tuition can go towards the cost of education. If an endowment is funding a chair, then tuition can go towards providing FA.</p>

<p>In the end it’s one big pot of money, thinking of it differently is just accounting fiction.</p>

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<p>Then maybe you should blame your parents for not starting a college fund, or maybe you should blame yourself for not doing better in school. Higher education is expensive–that’s the idea.</p>

<p>the typical ‘good’ $50,000 private school spends about $10,000 per student on institutional aid. schools known for very good aid come in closer to $15,000, with the most generous schools a bit above that (dartmouth and princeton each spent $17,000 per undergraduate this year, for example).</p>

<p>so the best case, ‘eliminate institutional aid’ scenario at a more typical good private would bring the total annual costs down to a much, much more manageable $40,000 per year. however, as mentioned, substantial portions of these schools endowments are restricted to spending on need-based aid. many alumni are also driven to ONLY donate to need-based aid in their schools annual funds, as well. the result is that theres no way youre getting down to $40,000 per year. (arbitrarily) split the difference by eliminating all discretionary aid and youve managed to get the sticker price down to $45,000. congratulations, private college cost ‘crisis’ solved!</p>

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<p>like others, i have no issues with private college costs. they can do whatever they want and as demand mandates, discount rates will be adjusted. but i suspect there will be no change in the exponential growth of sticker prices. so long as the ‘aid is available’ argument remains persuasive, theres simply no economic incentive to stop the practice. </p>

<p>simply, why should a school charge a full pay student $40,000 when she would gladly pay $60,000 for the same (or, actually, a slightly better) product, especially if the schools operating costs exceed $60,000 per student (thus avoiding that moral dilemma)? the school is simply leaving $20,000 on the table that could be utilized for improved programs or, yes, additional aid to ‘buy’ an academically better or more diverse student body.</p>

<p>my stance is different for the state flagships that are becoming increasingly unaffordable for many state citizens. do we really want institutions for which ALL state taxpayers are subsidizing the educations of the upper-middle classes? mandatory tuition and fees for juniors and seniors at penn state is now around $16,000. typical room and board brings total costs to nearly $25,000. for a school and state with little available grant aid (an average family making $60,000 will likely get around $3,000 from the state and nothing from the university), this nothing short of unacceptable. </p>

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<p>last, costs per student are fairly simple to assess at undergraduate-focused schools based on their publicly available irs 990 filings. result: unless a private school is fairly wealthy (endowment exceeding $100,000 per student) or has substantial research revenue, it is likely that its sticker price exceeds its total costs per student.</p>

<p>A few pages ago it was asked if the SUNY’s blanket students with “fees” like UMass, and no they don’t.</p>

<p>But anyone who doesn’t know that many publics, SUNY’s included, was suffering in provided adequate services haven’t visited lately. Some ration copy paper.</p>

<p>Many are increasing class size.</p>

<p>Some are eliminating departments.</p>

<p>And for my S, at least, SUNY Binghamton was the only campus in the state that offered his major.</p>

<p>Here’s a link showing what various colleges ACTUALLY SPEND per student in instructional costs, overhead costs, etc. You can click on “compare colleges” to make a new list for yourself, and then click on the lower link “finance and faculty” to see these types of numbers.</p>

<p>Interesting that Hopkins has the highest instructional expense and also the highest number of full time faculty…</p>

<p>[College</a> Results Online](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=166027,162928,163046,163286,243744,110635,164465,166629]College”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=166027,162928,163046,163286,243744,110635,164465,166629)</p>

<p>To see the expenditure numbers, click on “finance and faculty” tab on the far right side. The link didn’t post as exactly as I would have liked.</p>

<p>Mom2collegekids: Thank You!! Want to write more, but cannot come up with an appropriate response.</p>

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<p>I did very well in school, that’s why I am attending my choice school. I said if I hadn’t done well, I probably would not be attending college at all as a CC would still be out of reach. When you live in my shoes, you can judge me. We were really poor when I was little and a college fund simply wasn’t possible when even food wasn’t always present. Now, with my dad having cancer, any saved money is gone. Don’t judge unless you KNOW someone else’s situation</p>

<p>I dont really care what your situation was, but you’re whining because our state related universities are not $4K a year like in Florida.</p>

<p>There are loans, there is merit and need based aid, there’s work study, etc., etc. All of the options are there to pay for college.</p>

<p>rocket6louise, please ignore above post. It’s just mean.</p>

<p>thanks MD Mom.
I’m not trying to whine. I’m not even attending a PA state school. I just think it’s pretty sad that there is no “financial safety” for many kids</p>

<p>Some time ago there was a thread about colleges increasing tuition because people were more likely to enroll at higher priced schools. There were some nice schools in PA if I remember, privates I think, that found they were looked upon as “better” when they raised prices. I couldn’t rustle this up searching; anyone have better luck?</p>

<p>This link has an interesting report and how much different types of colleges spend per a student and where the money comes from. Private research colleges spend substantially more on both research and education per a full time enrolled student than their public college counterparts. They lack state subsidies in education, but more than make up the difference with greater endowments and higher tuition. Private research colleges receive just as much federal money as public colleges. Private colleges that don’t offer Phds are almost cost competitive with state universities after taking out the government subsidies.</p>

<p>State subsidies averaged $8500/year per student in 2006. Of course, some of that money goes for research and not teaching.</p>

<p>Source: <a href=“http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/trends_in_spending-report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/trends_in_spending-report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I predict that within 10 years, at least one private school will start counting the kid’s grandparents’ income and asset information towards the FA calculation.</p>

<p>No reason that an anticipated inheritance shouldn’t be on the table for schools to grab. So what if they aren’t dead yet… why should the school have to wait for that? Grandma can just sell her house and move in with you, and direct-deposit her SS check right to the school.</p>

<p>Sadly, only half-kidding. :/</p>

<p>rocket6louise, my son will be a full-freight student in the fall, as well as my 2 others. I know we are “lucky” to have had well paying jobs and able to save $$$. We do not live an elaborate lifestyle: no fancy cars or vacations. Really: we drive decades-old cars and go camping. No trips to Europe. I have no objection that you’ve found scholarship. I know you’ve worked hard to overcome your situation (and I always enjoy your posts). I also have no objection to another frequent poster here, also a strong applicant, who obtained a full aide.</p>

<p>But what urks me is an attitude of entitlement.

Where is it written that anyone gets money because they’re URM?</p>

<p>Hugpost, see my post #119 about colleges raising tuition to be competitive and increase applications.</p>

<p>Thanks Stillwater. We have met the enemy and it is us! The best way to get colleges to lower price is to choose lower priced schools for our kids. Take the merit aid option that’s a bit lower ranked than the other acceptances. Tell the schools you reject why you did so. Supply and demand, baby!</p>

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<p>It’s not, but it was insinuated that being a URM is a significant help in getting scholarship money. I don’t know anyone who has seen any of that infamous money. I was sarcastically stating that that money doesn’t exist, at least not in the quantities claimed.</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>I would suggest, that for all the whining in CC about the cost of 4 year colleges, and the situation 4 year grads with lots of debt find themselves in, bigger problems are students who spend lots of money at a 4 year college, public or private, and who do not graduate. I would suggest more analysis into why they don’t - academic reasons, financial, or personal - and how they can either be helped to finish, or steered in a different direction earlier, would be most helpful. </p>

<p>At the federal level, the best steps are to work on macroeconomic stabilization. A dip of the size of the current recession is inevitably going to cause severe pain, esp to sectors that more or less naturally involve debt financing. </p>

<p>If we truely beleive that higher education benefits the society, not just the student and their family, we should subsidize it. Its not clear to me that subsidies at the state level are optimal - it gives us a crazy quilt pattern of instate and outstate enrollments, as states try to avoid subsidizing out of staters (though of course many instate grads will take their skills and apply them elsewhere) schools try to balance student bodies, etc, etc. Federalizing things is a hot button right now though, and CC seems much fonder of State U’s than of broader higher ed subsidies funneled through students. </p>

<p>To the extent that higher education benefits the student mainly, the arguments for subsidies are less clear. To the extent good higher ed is simply a luxury, well there are lots of things poor and moderate income people cannot afford. If we don’t like THAT inequality, well lets just redistribute income and call it a day. </p>

<p>To the extent that we see higher ed as a path to social mobility, well maybe we don’t want it so limited. OTOH I think we see that there many obstacles, esp in the early childhood environment, that hold back the poor much more than State U tuitions. OTOH its possible we are more concerned with the mobility prospects of the lower middle class than we are of the poorest. Philosophers may disagree, but how many votes do they cast? </p>

<p>Obviously if we can reduce the cost of attendance, overall, that would help, however it is financed. One question I wonder about - is PhD education optimal. I have heard stories of Phds in the liberal arts spending incredible periods of years refining their dissertations. That has to impact the equilibrium salaries for liberal arts professors, a key driver of instructions costs. I personally am skeptical of the use of tech to make higher student faculty ratios more acceptable, but who knows. </p>

<p>Improved connections between universities and the work place would make the massive debt loads less frightening. Whether via Co-ops, internships, or just improved graduation employment prospects. My impression is that some progress has been made in that area - certainly all the schools I saw on college tours seemed much more savvy about that than universities did when I attended. </p>

<p>Is that a start for a discussion of solutions?</p>

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<p>Do you think that the typical state flagship provides sufficient access to higher social mobility? I think so, but I’m sitting here in the midwest where, frankly, a degree from a Big 10 school will get any poor kid pretty much anywhere where he wants / needs to go.</p>