<p>SD Mines is another small engineering focused school with a low list price.</p>
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One may not be able to legislate economics, but one can stop distorting economics with gov’t subsidies.
<a href=“Harvard Degree's Price: Four Years Of Dependence”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2014/03/26/harvard-degrees-price-four-years-of-dependence/</a>
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It and other schools already so this. It’s called the “high tuition/high aid” model.</p>
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Why stop there? Why not charge more affluent people higher prices for EVERYTHING??? Then all animals will be equal.</p>
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<p>Why not? Middle class families lower the quality of everything else they receive (i.e. pay for) due to finances. We drive Chevies instead of Cadillacs. We eat regular meat instead of organic. We go to the in network doctor instead of one who may be better but off plan. We live in a 3 br / 1.5 bath home instead of a mansion. We wear clothes from Target and Old Navy (and heck, even the thrift shop) instead of Neiman Marcus. All of those inferior choices are much more than adequate for me and my family. We live a good life that leaves us far better off than most of the world. Why should education be different from transportation, food, clothing, housing, and healthcare? The middle class has educational options that are more than adequate. </p>
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<p>Do those who receive Pell grants at Harvard actually pay tuition there? That’s a serious question. I didn’t think they were on the hook for anything but personal expenses. </p>
<p>@halfempty, I think bluebayou wants social justice, so that would probably include charging fullpays for the personal expenses of the Pell recipients.</p>
<p>@halfemptypockets Those are all superficial things that can be lost, or destroyed instantly. Provided a person doesn’t lose their memory, an education lasts for a lifetime and it dictates what you have access to in the future. Much more important than eating regular chicken rather than organic chicken.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 I personally think that the COA should not be more than $25,000 per year at any school. </p>
<p>^^^I would say they are all basic human needs - food, clothing, transportation, education, healthcare, and housing… I’m not sure I could say any one of them is more important than any other, except I suppose food. But once the rice and beans are covered in each category, everything else becomes gravy. </p>
<p>The thing is, how many parents and students these days would complain about the quality of the education/amenities/services/everything if COA is kept to $25K or lower? You yourself feel that the quality of education isn’t high enough at many state schools where COA is below that amount. The level of non-academic support (and also academic support) would also be cut back drastically (or a lot more students would have to be admitted for a higher student-faculty ratio).</p>
<p>Hey, I’d like to pay 20K for a 40K car as well, but that doesn’t mean that’s realistic.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan And what about the thousands of other students who don’t want to do STEM? Though engineering dominates CC, if I’m not mistaken, more students are interested in jobs relate to the humanities. Those states were just examples of states with multiple public Ivies. Like I said, it’s just my opinion. I hate rankings, but once you leave the top 20 ranked public colleges (much of which are confined to a few states) there is a huge drop off compared to the top 20 privates.</p>
<p>Bringing my immigrant perspective again. I really don’t think tuition rates are sustainable, and to some extent, in my cynical moments, I suspect they are high on purpose to act as gates to top level professions.</p>
<p>I’m comparing it to my home country. Tuition has also skyrocketed there but the range is much wider. The top 3 colleges are only in reach (except for scholarships) for the truly rich, as one year’s COA would be approximately one year’s middle class income, like here. But the next tier below that is roughly half or less the cost, and the government public university (which is considered almost as good as the the top 3) is around one-third at most (they have sliding scale tuition there). So there are options. There is no widescale student loan program there although there have been noises in that direction. I fear if that comes to pass they will see the same thing happen there - tuition will uniformly reach record highs across the board.</p>
<p>Job placement after college very much depends on what school you graduate from though - management-track jobs overwhelmingly go to grads from the top 3 plus the state uni; although entry-level technical type jobs (computers, engineers, etc) are more available to anyone who tests well. (Generally applying for entry-level jobs includes testing; in fact applying to each colleges includes tests administered by each college)</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan If everything is $25,000 or lower, wouldn’t that mean A LOT less on financial aid per person? That’s millions that a college saves because they aren’t spending their entire endowment on making their $60,000 tuition affordable. They can lower tuition and improve amenities for students. That extra $30,000- $40,000 could be put to good use. What’s the point of having a high sticker price if a majority of students don’t pay it? Is it to scare away students?</p>
<p>I’m liking the conversation :)</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats:</p>
<p>Roughly half the student body at the Ivies and equivalents are full-pay, so if you do the math, that means that even if you get rid of all fin aid, if you cut COA down to less than half of what it is now, you either have to cut spending or increase the student-faculty ratio (or draw more on the endowment, but that’s not sustainable longterm).</p>
<p>As for lib arts majors, I listed several options. As I mentioned, New College of Florida is pretty affordable OOS these days. Also, a good student can get big merit money at several LACs. Transferring to UNC is also an option.</p>
<p>I think is what we think is very irrelevant, it will not change anything. On the other hand, our behavior will. It is all decided on the market, jsut like anything else. Do you think that we all should live in mensions and their cost should be lowered by government sabsidy? Or maybe it is irrelevant what we think here? We also might believe that money gorws on trees and if government spend money on anything, they collect money from those trees. IT IS OUR MONEY, straight out of OUR pockets, there is no such thing as government money. The excessive spending by govenrment, the excessive debt leads to printing more money, since has to re-pay debt. What it does do your money that are still left in your pocket AFTER you paid big chunk of your income to the government. Well, the printing of money devalues even the part of your income that you think you have in your pocket. So, here goes OUR THINKING again, it is irrelevant, we are buc=nch of sheep, nobodies, except for one event - when we vote. This acto can make a difference (maybe not huge bu some difference), what we think will make none.</p>
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<p>Absolutely concur, but that is a topic for another thread. (And btw, many who advocate for lower tuition would also argue for govt subsidies…)</p>
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<p>Never thought about it.</p>
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<p>In reality, given their endowments H and its ilk have no need to receive federal funds. They should take the high road and reject all federal funding and just use their endowment for their low income students. And yes, they should provide them extra funds for personal expenses. Low income kids in South Central LA don’t even have a coat for temperatures below 50 degrees. If they really wanted to, H could easily give them $100 to purchase a coat, and $$ for a couple of trips home. </p>
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<p>In reality, that happens today for most everything. Sure, we may all pay the same $2.50 for milk, but the wealthy fly in private jets & First Class while the rest of us are in the back of the plane. The only difference is that no one is claiming that prices for First Class or private jets should be kept “low.”</p>
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<p>I think @AnnieBeats point is valid - there really are only a few states where you can be “confident” in the state flagship (as you can at some of those she mentioned and also of course at many of the elite privates which have better graduation rates) for undergraduate education. Although, Texas A&M and UT are fine state schools (and with total cost not much more than 25K/year are cheaper for many higher income families) they could not be lumped in with the top publics (for undergraduates), schools like UCLA or UVa, nor could one be “confident that they will receive an excellent education” at all but a small handful of flagship publics. UCLA has an astounding 4 year graduation rate (89% at UCLA vs 51% at UT!!) see <a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/progress.aspx”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/progress.aspx</a> and UVa is a phenomenal 87% see <a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Enrollment.html”>http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Enrollment.html</a> Virginia and CA residents are lucky to have such fine schools.</p>
<p>Similarly, Georgia Tech and Illinois are fine schools, but I would not be “confident” as a parent sending my kid somewhere where they only have a 41% (!) four year graduation rate (Georgia Tech) in this era of massive AP (and IB and online and dual enrollment and …) credit for entering freshman. How can you graduate so few ontime when kids come in with a one to three semester headstart? University of Illinois is under 70% 4 year graduation rate (a lot worse than that of UCLA or UVA) but almost what I would feel acceptable if I wanted to be “confident” that a smart kid would graduate.</p>
<p>For engineering the story is worse at many - with state flagships failing out the majority of their STEM students, especially in engineering - I doubt that a parent could be “confident” in the education at all but a few flagship publics, especially if their child is male (which have even worse college outcomes). Georgia Tech has a 33% 4 year graduation rate for males! (see <a href=“http://www.irp.gatech.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/First-Time-Freshman-Retention-Study_Fall-2012_05072013.pdf”>http://www.irp.gatech.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/First-Time-Freshman-Retention-Study_Fall-2012_05072013.pdf</a> - contrast that with Columbia or Rice to see high graduation rates for engineers). </p>
<p>Even going out to 6 years instead of 4 years - there are only about 10 or so public universities that have really good six year graduation rates</p>
<p>University of Virginia, 92.7 percent
University of California, Berkeley, 91.1 percent
University of California, Los Angeles, 89.8 percent
University of Michigan. 89.7 percent
College of William and Mary, 89.7 percent
United States Naval Academy, 88.6 percent
University of North Carolina, 88.1 percent
College of New Jersey, 86.2 percent
University of California, San Diego, 86.1 percent
United States Military Academy, 85.7 percent</p>
<p>@blossom, I’m not even talking about cutting things related to health and student support. I’m talking about little things that people may not even miss and spending money more efficiently. Like for example, my senior class board held a ton of events this past year where only a fraction of the class could come? Is that a good use of money? A lot of student groups seem to get money for their social budget. Would it really hurt to curb that a little? What about all those random events around campus with “free” stuff that barely anyone goes to?</p>
<p>The last thing I will explicitly mention is active learning classrooms which is something that really angered me this spring. Now, I am not against universities having the best technology and making it available to students, but there are currently plans at many schools to basically take out libraries to put in “active learning” classrooms that are supposed to use technology to make students work in groups during class. This is the new big thing in the sciences and in my opinion, the idea of working in groups just pushes the level of the class down to that of the below average student and deemphasizes the individual work that is required to be successful in these fields. I personally think this is a huge gimmick that probably has some monetary incentives concealed within it. They are using money to take away science libraries and shipping the books off site so they can basically make a classroom covered with touch screens that no one needs. </p>
<p>My father is on the faculty of a top ten university so he has a good perspective on how inefficient things can be. When schools say that tuition barely covers operating costs, that’s garbage. There’s a lot of inside stuff going on.</p>
<p>"you can send your child to a state flagship and be confident that they will receive an</p>
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<p>Nearly every state has a decent state flagship. And your list is a little odd – I’ll grant you California, Virginia and North Carolina, but you’d have to throw in quite a few other state flagships (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas …) before you get to Florida. </p>
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<p>I always suspect kickbacks to the decision maker from suppliers/vendors with stuff like that.
(I can’t help it, I’m just so cynical)</p>