The Tuition Debate

Parents Forum
401

<p>@circuitrider,

I’m a STEM person; I went to a 4-yr private university. Never gave LACs a look.</p>

<p>@Benley,
FYI, general info about honors colleges:
<a href=“http://www.petersons.com/college-search/honors-college-program-difference.aspx”>http://www.petersons.com/college-search/honors-college-program-difference.aspx&lt;/a&gt;
These colleges within a college have their own deans. Many have separate endowments, a separate application for admissions, nicer exclusive dining halls and nicer exclusive dorms. Access to top faculty.</p>

<p>I’ve been studying honors colleges on paper, and they are very intriguing. Plan to visit some for perspective. @ChoatieMom raved about Barrett Honors College at Arizona State. Schreyers at Penn State also seems impressive. 'Bama’s Honors College students have VERY high scores, and it doesn’t superscore:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1669130-does-alabama-s-honors-college-rival-the-ivies-p1.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1669130-does-alabama-s-honors-college-rival-the-ivies-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>

For high stats kids, very generous merit aid is offered to OOS kids. </p>

402

<p>@GMTplus7‌

</p>

<p>Ah. So, it was a double burn.
You paid ivy prices or close to it, for a large university. - and still no one ever heard of it. Part of the conceit of going to a small college is that there’s a built-in excuse if no one’s ever heard of it, and if they have, you almost always have something in common with them. The alumni connections are tight
I’ll bet Bowdoin has twice the alumni participation that your no-name STEM university has when fund raising time rolls around.</p>

403

<p>I have worked in recruiting for global corporations for almost 30 years and I don’t believe I’ve ever had a boss, peer, or someone I managed on my team who hasn’t heard of Bowdoin. Not every company will send a recruiting team (when I hired aerospace engineers, would have been a waste of time and money) but people who hire new grads and experienced professionals for a living in large companies have most certainly heard of ALL the B’s (Bowdoin, Bates, Brandeis- different environments but attracting a pretty similar type of student).</p>

404

<p>My undergrad school has a much larger endowment than Bowdoin. Bowdoin only recently passed $1B.</p>

405

<p>Again, GMTplus7–I fail to see the logic. I also grew up in the Northeast and heard lots of great things about the NESCAC schools and similar places like Swarthmore and Haverford since I was in grade school. Just because YOU had never heard of them doesn’t mean that they’re not worth it.</p>

<p>The fallacy is as follows: I’ve never heard of x; therefore x cannot be worthwhile. If these schools weren’t worth it and everyone agreed as such, then they wouldn’t be turning away 80-90% of their applicants.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the schools you mention have some of the highest alumni giving rates in the country. Clearly their alumni feel that their education was worthwhile. </p>

406

<p>Funny how there is a double standard here, @GMTplus7. </p>

<p>You like the Honors College idea, yet it does cost. You like small class sizes??? Well, that means you will have to pay for it. And I suspect the cost to deliver the ‘product’ would increase much faster than the rate of inflation.The labor costs to deliver the product to twenty students 30 years ago would have been much, much less than the cost to deliver the same product to twenty students in 2014. However, the labor cost to produce a physical good, such as a garment, has declined considerably. </p>

<p>Honors college dean and development officers? They cost–and they are added to administrative costs. So Honors Colleges are responsible for administrative bloat.</p>

<p>Nicer dining halls? They cost. Nicer dorms? They cost. </p>

<p>And really, do we have to spend money on stuff like this so ‘junior[’ and his parents can proudly assert that he/she goes to an ‘Honors’ college, rather than being with the great unwashed as a state school. Nothing like the appeal to the bourgeoisie’s need for prestige. And we’re wasting good scholarship money so ‘junior’ can boast to his/her firiends that he/she is having an honors college experience to ‘find himself/herself’. I don’t think you are a state resident. Why do I have to subsidize your child’s ‘finding himself’?</p>

<p>Now, if you are part of the ‘Honors College’ at UA, do you think that all your classes will be with Honors College student? Unfortunately, no. A UA Honors College student need only take 6 honors classes over 4 years. The rest will be with other students. So do you think that your child’s entire education will be geared toward those students with 28+ ACT? The answer would be ‘no’.</p>

<p>Who’s paying for all these scholarships? I’m sure a whole bunch of students who are taking out student loans and are awarded Pell Grants to pay for their non Honors college experience. </p>

<p>Do you really think that if we eliminate loans and grants (which, according to you, are causing the increase in tuition) that UA would be offering such generous scholarships?</p>

<p>So, sure, you get a benefit as well from all these loans and grants, which will be a greatly reduced cost of education. Why would you be advocating for their elimination? And why are you complaining about the rise in college tuition, since you value nice dorms, dining halls, and small classes with high achieving students and top tier faculty?</p>

407

<p>No, there is no double standard, because I think our colleges should prioritize resources on developing the most academically capable students, regardless of income (the way all other countries that subsidize higher education do). You, on the other, prefer to prioritize resources on the poor regardless of academic capability.</p>

408

<p>No, @GMTplus7. </p>

<p>You complain constantly about the financial aid practices of elite colleges, and yet those students, even according to you, would be the most academically capable.</p>

<p>You disparage kids who go to Bowdoin and yet they also very academically capable. What’s the point in painting a picture of Bowdoin students as you do? Yeah, I know that it’s fun to be provocative on a message board, but what are you trying to achieve?</p>

<p>There’s a very long ethical tradition in the Western world of those who have more resources helping out those who have less resources. </p>

<p>What is seen as less ethical is when wealth is transferred from those with less resources to those with more. And that’s what’s happening as places like Alabama.</p>

409

<p>What is happening at Alabama is wealth is being transferred to those with demonstrated ability to to best leverage that intellectual investment, including to those who are poor.</p>

410

<p>Yeah, @GMTplus7, well, notice that you haven’t specified where the origin of the transfer is. So spell it out for me.
'Wealth is being transferred [from whom?] to those with demonstrated ability to succeed, including those who are poor.</p>

<p>Because that is the same thing that is happening at elite colleges. Wealth is being transferred to those with demonstrated ability to succeed, including those who are poor. So why do you dislike their financial aid practices?</p>

<p>And explain to me why the cost to teach those high achieving students in a small class with top-tier faculty would not be rising higher than inflation, given what I talked about in labor costs in post 405. What’s wrong with my reasoning here?</p>

411

<p>I don’t like the honors college model; most are just expensive administrative window dressing. Academic rigor should be dictated by outcomes, not student inputs.</p>

<p>I knew someone in HS who went to Bowdoin. Otherwise, wouldn’t have heard of it. That’s how name recognition works: luck.</p>

412

<p>

Please don’t tell me the money is coming from the pockets of poor students from their Pell grants. I pay for the Pell grants with my federal income tax payments. Poor people pay very little federal income tax.</p>

<p>

No, it’s not the same, because if you want to characterize the FA for the poor at elite colleges as being merit scholarships, then they should not be means-tested. Merit is merit. They don’t hand our gold medals at the Olympics to only poor people. </p>

413

<p>“How much of the difference in tuition fees is there between the best honors program attended as OOS and a top LAC?”</p>

<p>It varies enormously. If we’re talking about the honors college at Michigan, you’ll generally pay the full OOS cost, which approaches top-LAC costs. At many other honors colleges (such as Alabama and Arizona State), many of the honors college students will receive substantial discounts from the relatively reasonable OOS cost.</p>

414

<p>Yes, @GMTplus7, some of it is coming from people with lower income. A Pell Grant will cover only 5K, and it you are really poor, maybe an additional 1500 dollars for a SEOG grant. The rest will come from loans and family resources.
There’s also lots of families who don’t qualify for Pell Grants but are still of lower income. They are taking out loans and using their own resources as well.</p>

<p>We could end the whole Pell Grant program, but how much that save you in taxes? The entire federal education budget is about 3% of the entire budget, with the Pell Grant budget maybe being half of that. How much of your income tax goes to the Pell Grant program? No Pell Grants would mean fewer students going to UA. Fewer students going to UA would mean fewer scholarships for higher achieving students or maybe less overall money in the particular scholarship program. Would it be a wash in terms of tax savings for you? I have no idea.</p>

<p>So be explicit–who is paying for your high achieving out of state student to attend UA? </p>

<p>No, I want to characterize admission to an elite college based on merit. And then I think payment is based on need.
You want to have both admission and payment to be based on merit. But someone has to pay to educate your high achieving student. We could do it through taxes, but that’s repugnant to many people. So we do it in other ways, including wealth transfer from lower income folks.</p>

<p>And you haven’t answered my question about cost…</p>

<p>Really, for you, it’s about entitlement. You want to get a high quality education for nothing. You feel that your student is entitled to that service for nothing because he is high achieving. In fact, you feel that all high achieving students deserve that service for nothing. But the question is how to pay for it. Remember, you don’t like taxes…</p>

415

<p>“How much of the difference in tuition fees is there between the best honors program attended as OOS and a top LAC?”</p>

<p>Depends…</p>

<p>For us last year…</p>

<p>Arizona State was going to be about $24,000 per year total I think. They require you to live on campus 2 years and the room and board fees for the honors res hall are substantial.</p>

<p>After running the NPCs on multiple top 30 LACs, it appeared we would be paying about $40,000 per year which is the same price we would have paid for another acceptance, Tulane.</p>

<p>Our instate option was about $14,000. Academically, I didn’t feel that either of these other options were worth the premium over our instate Land Grant other than being in more ‘exotic’ locations. Son liked the instate school the best anyway so he chose that. He was in the honors program but there isn’t really much to it although it did allow him to do some research with a faculty member as a frosh and live on an honors wing of a res hall. He is not in it this year.</p>

416

<p>

First of all, I don’t have a student in UA. I haven’t launched one yet.</p>

<p>Second of all, I asked that very same question about who is paying for these generous scholarships to OOS and whether Alabama residents resent it. The answer:
<a href=“Do Students at Alabama Resent OOS Students That Get Scholarships? - University of Alabama - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1668183-do-students-at-alabama-resent-oos-students-that-get-scholarships-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

417

<p>I’m not familiar with honors programs/colleges at all. Thanks for the education. They seem to be mainly a way in which “second tier” universities try to lure high stats high caliber students (together with merit money for OOS students in particular)? Some as @Haystack pointed out, “there isn’t much to it”. Others seem to be running a whole different game than the rest of the institution. In the latter case, I wonder how the experience of the students in honor programs feels like. I know it’s totally bad analogy but somehow it reminds me of this: <a href=“Photography”>Photography;

418

<p>

</p>

<p>The true “donut hole” for the majority of students/families. </p>

419

<p>

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<p>I believe the Barrett Honors College at ASU is one of the best LAC-like values out there. The high-end for in-state (private room/private bath, unlimited meal plan) is about $26K. The same package for OOS is $40K, still a bargain compared to the NE LACs.</p>

<p>Per the website:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So base tuition increases from $10,157 to $24,503 for OOS, but there is only the $500 bump per semester for Barrett tuition. Room/board difference between the main campus and the honors campus (where facilities and food rate a 10) is about $2,400 at the low end to $5,000 at the high end.</p>

<p>I do not have a student at Barrett, but if you are considering honors colleges, this one is certainly worth a look:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ivycollegeprep.net/imported-20110121194859/2013/11/14/the-honors-college-and-asus-barretts-honors-program.html[/url]”>http://www.ivycollegeprep.net/imported-20110121194859/2013/11/14/the-honors-college-and-asus-barretts-honors-program.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://barretthonors.asu.edu/academics/scholarships-and-fellowships/[/url]”>http://barretthonors.asu.edu/academics/scholarships-and-fellowships/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://barretthonors.asu.edu/about/facts/[/url]”>http://barretthonors.asu.edu/about/facts/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

420

<p>@GMTplus7 Funny, you like the merit scholarships at UA, and are willing go take advantage of them if that is what your family decides, but you can’t be can’t be explicit and honest with yourself about who is funding them.</p>

<p>I think if you asked the residents of the state of Alabama if you resent paying taxes so a very wealthy out of state student can attend for free, I doubt you would get all positive answers. Not just what a select few parents of OOS kids at UA say about their kids attending.</p>

<p>And if you really think that it’s football and donations that are paying for those scholarships, then why has tuition increased over 100% in the past ten years. Don’t you have a problem with increasing tuition sticker price (not net price)? If football is an increasing source of revenue, then why can’t it be used to keep tuition down across the board?</p>

<p>And also, couldn’t the same be said about elite colleges–its all those private donations that their endowment that pays for financial aid?</p>