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

<p>“My daughter has taken distance learning, in the year she was homeschooled. I think you do not have a clear idea of what goes into a quality distance learning program. I would suggest that even a quality distance learning program (see JHU CTY for example) is not equivalent to the intellectual life on an Ivy league campus. It MIGHT be an excellent substitute for much lower tier on campus learning, but those aren’t that expensive to begin with. Maybe.”</p>

<p>I’ve seen distance learning programs (I knew someone who did a couple, I talked to them about it, and saw the platform they logged into), and this is definitely true. That doesn’t mean they can’t be, and that there’ll never be any distance learning program for strong students. There just isn’t one right now.</p>

<p>This thread is titled, “The cost of college is out of control. What [do] you suppose we [should] do about it?”</p>

<p>Of course it’s true that COA has risen faster than inflation. And it’s unchecked. Why can “they” get away with that? If people continue to pay tuition, colleges have little incentive to hold down the costs. My solution is full disclosure. I suppose this goes against the concept of “private” colleges, but I think it would make inroads towards keeping a lid on costs. I also think colleges needs to justify raising tuition beyond the weak rationale that, “every other college is raising tuition, so I’ll increase ours too.” </p>

<p>Instead of colleges touting some new building or department, wouldn’t it make a great selling (marketing) point that sets them apart if they positioned themselves with, “This College Is Working Hard to Keep Tuition Costs Down.” When did you last hear that?</p>

<p>" “This College Is Working Hard to Keep Tuition Costs Down.” When did you last hear that? "</p>

<p>USNWR lists top value colleges, and I am pretty sure many or most of the colleges on that list use it in their marketing. Fiske lists bargains, and I think Princeton Review does, though I am not sure.</p>

<p>Well, assuming a high ETI and high tax rates, should show the worst case for my proposed contracts. However, loans don’t create these perverse incentives. Hence, even if my favorite solution isn’t realistic, no cosigner student loans should be. The problem with Stafford loans is that they only cover a fraction of the cost of tuition at out of state or private colleges. If your parents won’t cosign or help pay your tuition, then those students are without recourse if they are good enough to get admitted to a respected school, but not so amazing as to get a free ride.</p>

<p>Brooklynborndad,</p>

<p>I think we’re in more agreement than it may appear. I personally don’t have any philosophical trouble entertaining the idea of ending subsidies to 4 year state schools and telling them they to now act like privates—i.e. figure out how to fund their budgets from tuition, fees, gifts, endowments, and competitively awarded federal grant money.</p>

<p>But I just want to be clear that “no state tax dollars for college education” means “no state university system” with all that may imply. And I don’t think going private will automatically make a currently state school more affordable—particularly in states that have relatively low in-state tuition and no particularly outstanding state school. I teach at a mid-to-lower tier SUNY. If the state subsidies (both direct and through state grants) were eliminated and we were told to go private, the tuition at the school I teach at would probably be just about doubled, and that would push the COA into the $25K to $30K range, which is not far off what the local 3rd and 4th tier privates do charge. Only we’d have no endowment to speak of to provide any merit aid (which they do) or decent need-based grant aid (which some of them do in a preferential FA packaging sort of way.) So a whole bunch of our local, live-at-home-to-save-money students would suddenly find they could not afford any four year college in the area, or any where else for that matter. Unless, of course, the limits on Pell grants and Stafford loans were increased dramatically.</p>

<p>As for federal subsidies that follow the student—I think that’s the model that we’re de facto heading towards. But right now, there seems to be little outside incentive for a well endowed and highly sought after college to minimize COA increases since students will still apply and come regardless of how high the COA seems to be.</p>

<p>One potential brake the feds could try to apply for reigning in tuition at high-priced state schools and pricey, but not particularly prestigious privates might be an inversely proportional federal student subsidy: The feds could try to encourage colleges to keep their COA at or below, say the $45K range by reducing the federal money tied to a student on a sliding scale based on how much excess COA there is, and, I don’t know, eliminating all federal aid tied to an individual student if the COA is ridiculously high like $60K? The net result, of course, would be to give the pricey, but not prestigious colleges an incentive to keep their COA below the fed’s definition of “not too hideous” since they would have to “make up” the lost federal dollars out of their own endowment because they’d have to increase institutional grant aid to the students or lose them. But I don’t think this would do a dang thing for the COA for the top 50 schools on the USNews rankings, unless the school is not well endowed.</p>

<p>But the whole community college issue is different. The private for-profit models at this level, as you note, are some of the worst offenders at ripping off both the feds and the students in terms of sucking in money from Pell grants and subsidized Stafford loans and not actually getting the students to succeed in finishing their course work. I think the problem is that the privates at this level are “for-profit” and “for-profit” and “education for the masses” just seem to be mutually exclusive goals in my humble opinion. </p>

<p>As for the Tea Partiers, I think they read the 10th amendment pretty broadly: It states:</p>

<p>Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.
</p>

<p>And the word “college” and “education” appear no-where in the Constitution. Hence I think their reaction to changing the college system would be strongly dependent on what you mean by “federalizing” it:</p>

<p>If you mean to replace state-run and state-subsidized colleges with “federally-run” and “federally-subsidized” colleges where the US Congress takes on the role the state legislatures play in the college funding game and professors become US Government Employees instead of state employees, then I think they’d scream loudly against such a proposal.</p>

<p>If you mean to convert all the state-run schools into privates with no direct subsidies from either the state or the federal government, I think some of them might just scream loudly in <em>favor</em> of the idea.</p>

<p>If you mean to state-subsidies that go directly to state colleges’ budgets with indirect federal subsidies that are tied to the individual student (similar to the often floated school voucher for parent’s choice of public/private school), then their reaction just might depend on the particulars of how the individual student college voucher actually worked out. $20K for everybody regardless of school and you have to figure out a way to pay for COA-$20K all on your own or with the college’s help? Maybe they’d see this as a good idea. A sliding scale of $5K to $50K based on something similar to the FAFSA that took into account the student’s family income? I don’t know if they’d go for that.</p>

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<p>Around the same time that I heard “This College Is Working Hard to Reduce Expenditures on Your Child’s Education.”</p>

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<p>Some seem to be under the impression that colleges offer “poor scholarships”. I give the colleges more credit than this, they are giving hands up to smart kids who happen to be poor.</p>

<p>I wonder if the people who resent kids with high need would ever trade their income for the other parents’ income. That awesome Pell grant of $5500 a year might not look so hot if you had to live off of $25k a year.</p>