Special Snowflake on CC is regularly used to describe a kid who has needs beyond the norm- whether academic, physical, or social. Parents get attacked for asking about “how do I find an affordable liberal arts college” and are told they should send their kid to the 40,000 student flagship public U (whether or not it’s appropriate for their kid). Parents ask about finding a college for their B- student who wants to become an engineer and are told that their “SS” needs to go to community college to study construction management instead. With the implication being “what is so special about your kid?”
well then, if it is used to describe kids whose needs are beyond the norm, then it is being misused.
I can understand the difficulty of a B- student going into engineering; but that doesn’t make him/her a SS.
We live in a litigious society, with insane parents willing to sue their child’s school for any number of issues. So schools have to not just lawyer up, but also create a structure that helps them defend themselves against any number of possible lawsuits. My husband works with universities, he’s a former tenured professor and a former Associate Dean, so he has a pretty good insight into how academics work. But he says what he’s seeing today is absolutely stunning. He recently had a 2 hour conversation with a administrator whose sole job is to verify study abroad programs for students at a University of California campus. Yes, the requirements are so detailed, and so numerous, that the campus had to hire a special attorney AND a special administrator just to make sure the school is compliant, and relatively lawsuit safe.
Now that’s staff IN ADDITION to the school’s own study abroad office. These guys only focus on programs other than the ones offered through the school.
Want to cut down on college administrative costs? One way is to never let your kid off campus. Certainly don’t consider study abroad.
Talk about snowflakes! And I don’t mean the kids. I mean their parents.
It isn’t about litigation or regulation or snowflakes.
Colleges kept raising prices year after year for exactly one reason – because they could.
Because demand for seats in college kept increasing – echo boomer kids increased the annual number of HS grads, plus an increasing percentage of HS grads started going to college, plus internationals increasingly seeking a U.S. college education. Also, families got themselves comfortable with taking on debt to finance higher ed.
But now, demand is lower. There’s fewer HS grads each year. The share of HS grads going to college is flat. Fewer or flat internationals. And folks less willing to borrow for college.
The lower demand is really hitting the for-profit schools hard, especially since the job market has been stronger the past few years. But weak demand is also hitting traditional non-profits, who are not able to raise net (i.e. after aid and discounts) prices much or at all.
But demand for seats at the high end schools remains very strong. So those schools are able to continue to raise prices like it was 1999.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/college-bubble-ends/534915/
“It isn’t about litigation or regulation or snowflakes. Colleges kept raising prices year after year for exactly one reason – because they could.”
In part, yes. (And litigation is just one of many fiscal challenges. I just brought that up as an example.)
But the OTHER part, the one conveniently ignored in such discussions, is the need for institutions to create a bigger infrastructure – and admins to run it! – to provide the latest technology, the coolest services, better customer service, and — in the past 20 years especially – greater entrepreneurship in the face of state funding cutbacks.
So yea, it’s not sustainable. For neither the schools, families nor society. Something will have to give. And that something will likely be hundreds of smaller schools nationwide.
Ooops, the above should have been tagged @northwesty, not @northwestern123 – apologies to both
At least in California, where I live, and Alaska, where I went to undergrad, tuition increases in public universities are coming about because of increased numbers of administrators, expensive capital projects on campus, and decreased funding from the state.
As an aside, I used to be in the Air Force, and the base education office when I was serving had about a half-dozen legitimate colleges teaching classes on base, e.g., UC Davis, USC, Chico State, Chapman College, Yuba College, Southern Illinois are the ones I remember. Now it only has three providers on base - Yuba College, the local community college; Embry-Riddle, which is awfully specialized but considering it’s an Air Force base, you can understand why they’re there; and friggin’ University of Phoenix. I want to know who got bribed in the government to let the University of Phoenix replace all those other schools.
“University of Phoenix. I want to know who got bribed in the government to let the University of Phoenix replace all those other schools.”
They’re rising from the Obama ashes once again…
“At least in California, where I live, and Alaska, where I went to undergrad, tuition increases in public universities are coming about because of increased numbers of administrators, expensive capital projects on campus, and decreased funding from the state.”
You have the cause and effect out of order.
Increased demand enables price increases. Price increases enable more spending.
Now that demand is softening, net prices increases are no longer possible (at most schools). So spending can’t continue to increase.
Please check out my thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2008200-overenrolled-colleges.html#latest
It’s not just the traditional elites that are flourishing. These students are coming from somewhere.
While I think many of you make good points, I think the real reason we see some fractures in this particular bubble is that my own kids are now in college. Once the youngest graduates, and I am done paying tuition, I assume the bubble will finally burst and shortly thereafter college costs will drop to approximately 25% of what they are now. This path tracks with a great deal of my financial experience over the years.
I hear you Ohiodad51…I’ve said the same thing to anyone who will listen for the past couple years 
@Ohiodad51 writes:
True that!
Vent: Why are home prices so high today?
One reason: A typical home has grown from about 1,200 sqft to about 2,200 sqft in the past 50 years. Consumers today demand a far larger home. Our parents may think that we are not frugal.
Vent: Why do college costs so much today?
One reason: Expensive amenities, such as grand student sports center, fancy dormitories, etc. But you know what: to some degree, consumers (i.e., most students) demand them. There are quite a few universities where students voted to pay extra fees so that they can have fancy student sports centers, etc, when their administrators would not want to built them (reason: too costly and/or not necessary for its academic missions) at the first place.
As parents, our consumption preferences and patterns are quite different from those of our next generation. At many colleges, staff/administration proliferation partially reflects today’s students’ expectation toward student services, career development, special need supports, dog therapy sessions, etc.
@prof2dad I’m with you, but yearn for a solution (i.e. I would pay good money to wean the country off of usnews rankings) The same behavior is killing the sedan by favoring crossovers, killing formal journalism by favoring free online blogs, killing human interaction by favoring sitting at a table staring at our phones… I yearn for the days we prided ourselves in picking what we need over what we want.
ack, I must be feeling old today.
Crossovers will be killed by something else (self driving electric cars?) Formal journalism is doing GREAT thanks to Trump, and I just came back from a cafe/bar filled with people talking about movies, politics, and gossip.
But maybe I’m just optimistic.
PS I just bought a little sedan - got an amazingly low price for it because of a glut & need for dealers to make room for 2018 models. The crossover trend worked out just fine for me 
Electric vehicles (with or without self-driving capability in the future) can be crossovers or sedans or other body styles.
Well done @katliamom, I took advantage of the sedan situation too, but I fear a future where sedans have gone the way of the station wagon.
I look at my emaciated copy of the SJ Mercury News, once an award winning paper, each morning and I can’t feel good about the state of the industry. Now everyone has to subscribe to the New York Times to get meatier journalism, but in my humble opinion it loses the local perspective way out here in California.
Generally the few times I’ve been able to have deep conversations with youth nowadays is when we’re outside phone coverage like backpacking or we expicitly ban the use of phones during the event.
But prof2dad’s point that I was resonating with is that choices made at the individual and village level percolate up and the market responds. And when our purchases reflect wants vs needs, of course the price rises. If our desire for colleges is educational and societal nirvana, then overhead is needed to assure that, again with a pricetag.
Anyway I fully admit I was crotchety last night. I just feel that the consumer needs to scale back some of our expectations on colleges and then demand that the colleges cut the fat in return.
I fully understand and I often descend into crotchetyness. And regarding colleges - truth is, MOST American kids go to their community colleges and/or state colleges with scaled expectations because they have to work to help pay for their local (and often modest) schools. One forgets this on CC, a bubble of expectations and “average excellent” students with educated and (relatively) well-off parents.