<p>Just got into a debate with a relative about the cost of tuition and I figured that I should bring it to CC!</p>
<p>Do you think that tuition should be kept at a low affordable price for everyone OR should tuition continue to rise with increasing support from the federal government? </p>
<p>I think that tuition should just be kept low. I can't seem to find a good reason why colleges would have a high tuition, and then use much of their endowment on FA. I think it would make more sense to just keep the cost of tuition low. </p>
<p>What do you all think?</p>
<p>Sound off!</p>
<p>P.S. Forgive me if I made errors. I am typing this on my phone with acrylic nails. Yikes!</p>
<p>I don’t like it when tuition increases which can mean that the increases are being diverted to help with other students’ FA pkgs. I don’t like it when non-rich people’s tuition is increased so that they can subsidize those with slightly lower incomes. </p>
<p>and I dont’ want more fed aid. Too many games with that. Divorced parents playing games so that the low-income parent’s income is used…when both parents are raising the kids. </p>
<p>Fed aid should only increase if both parents’ incomes will be used on FAFSA.</p>
<p>@GMTplus7 One of my relatives argued that. He believes that college is a business and the price should be dictated by the market. He also believes that there should be no limit on how expensive it gets and the government should just subsidize that through aid.</p>
<p>College is a business and I believe price should be dictated by the market. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed with all the government subsidies including, and most especially, guaranteed as well as very easy to get loans. Many colleges like to believe they’re exempt from the market place and that is why they developed variable tuition pricing based on income. But even now their sticker prices are dictated by the market (such as it is). </p>
<p>The way I see it, the business model of elite colleges has priced our family out of their game. That’s fine. We’ll move on to state schools (where a government subsidy still works in our favor) and schools that will give us merit. Other families who are in our circumstances (too rich for FA/too poor for full pay) are willing to mortgage their future and/or the future of their children for the elite ed. That’s fine too. For most of them it’ll probably work out just fine. But it seems to me more and more doughnut hole folks are doing like we’re doing and just walking away. If and when a critical number of families in our shoes decide to move on, the elites will have no choice but to lower their prices. </p>
<p>If the government is subsidizing, it’s hardly a free market! The problem is that if universities were a free market, it would just exacerbate inequality. </p>
<p>I think colleges should make an effort to lower their costs when possible, but I also look at some of the chichi dorms we’ve seen, the much better food than what was available in the late 80s, and the expansion of programs to see that this is what students and parents are looking for. </p>
<p>You’re right. But the current business model is based on them having non-profit status (which is yet another government subsidy) and to prevent chaos non-profit revocation would need to be phased in slowly over a decade or more. </p>
<p>Maybe at some schools, but not the good ones. One of our kids is in a private boys school. We pay full tuition at his school which his known for heavily valuing economic and racial diversity. Lots of boys there are on financial aid. That diversity is part of what makes his school great and it is generally acknowledged as the best Catholic school in the rather large area from which it draws (3 different states). We and other parents like us gladly subsidize other students there through our tuition and our donations. If the free market is allowed to work on the university level, this should happen there as well. </p>
<p>Basically, we have gone from considering higher education a public good to considering it a private good. And in the process, we have seen tuition skyrocket.</p>
<p>A federal Pell grant and direct loan cover only a small part of the costs of the most expensive colleges that are presumably the target of the complaints about high costs. Indeed, the chart of inflation-adjusted maximum Pell grants at <a href=“http://www.finaid.org/educators/pellgrant.phtml”>http://www.finaid.org/educators/pellgrant.phtml</a> shows that the maximum Pell grant amount have fallen by two thirds from 1976 to 2006 when adjusted by college tuition inflation, though it is down by a quarter from 1976 to 2006 when adjusted by CPI inflation.</p>
<p>I.e. it isn’t federal financial aid for college students that is the driver of college cost increases at the colleges people complain about here.</p>
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<p>How many divorced parents with plenty of college money are there playing FAFSA custodial games are there compared to divorced parents where a non-poor non-custodial parent is uncooperative with either contributing money or completing non-custodial parent financial aid forms, thus disqualifying the student from financial aid at most schools with decent financial aid?</p>
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<p>Non-profit organizations are businesses, and have to avoid losing money in order to avoid going bankrupt.</p>
<p>I take issues with those colleges with huge endowments that keep raising tuitions. In this model, the middle and/or upper middle class (btw, can someone provide some guideline on how to distinguish these two - at what point do you cross that line and become “upper middle”?) families are screwed as many have noted, but then again I guess this is a sector the schools care least about anyway partly because it’s such a huge sector that event a fraction of it would be more than they expect. </p>
<p>In the US, we have a tendency to assume that an upper income is upper class. The fact is that there are an increasingly smaller number of truly upper and upper middle class, as real dollar income fails to rise. It may be true that middle income sits at 50k. It’s also true, this, when having children, isn’t leading to a prosperous middle class lifestyle. </p>
<p>The horror is how many now fall below this line, and the fact that they are struggling. Real prosperity happens when the middle class is growing. Failing to recognize the difference between middle income and middle class is like saying someone who earns the median wage in Somalia is a middle class Somolian. </p>
<p>I don’t get this. Yes, low income families get more financial aid. But they also don’t make very much money in the first place. That’s why they’re not middle or upper middle class. Are there any schools where you would be financially better off attending if you made or had less money?</p>
<p>Nobody is better off being impoverished. Nobody. </p>
<p>But there are states, California comes to mind, where there is hard line demarcation between those who receive aid and those who don’t. In that case, a family might see it as beneficial to stay below that income line. </p>
<p>Well, specific to the well endowed elite colleges that have generous FA programs, based on the guidelines provided in post #14 and in the NYT article, I can’t say “middle class” (or “middle income” - sorry poetgrl, I guess that’s what I really mean in this context) families are screwed can I? Families with annual incomes up to 150K should feel relatively comfortable sending their kids to HYP et al… It’s really the “upper middle income” families, families earning 150K - 300K (especially those living in big city metros) that are having a hard time pulling it off. I suppose in the elite college FA realm, this is the “too rich and too poor at the same time” category? </p>
<p>I don’t think at that level of finaid anyone feels ripped off.</p>
<p>But the statistical likelihood you will end up in one of those five or so schools is pretty slim.</p>
<p>I understand what middle income people are talking about, as their income is less and less valuable in terms of purchasing power, but they face increasing expenses in terms of health care and education. It’s an interesting phenomena and it contributes, I believe, to this sense of dwindling prosperity we hear about these days.</p>