The Tuition Debate

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<p>You example is totally flawed. First Class in an airplane doesn’t cost more than sitting “in the back of the plane” on account of wealthy people buying First Class tickets. First Class costs more because it is a DIFFERENT product– you’re paying for a wider seat, more recline, a better meal, a metal fork & spoon, cocktails, better service, proportionately more overhead baggage space, and the opportunity to deplane first. The price charged for a First Class ticket is the same regardless of your income.</p>

<p>A spot in a given college, on the other hand, is the SAME product. </p>

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<p>If you look at any published research paper in the sciences, you will rarely see one that is single authored. The idea that a successful science career, both in and out of academia, involves a lot of scientists diligently working alone for the whole project is way off base.</p>

<p>@2018RiceParent‌:</p>

<p>UIUC says its 6-year graduation rate is 82.4%.</p>

<p>BTW, GTech says its 4-year graduation rate is so low because it has a huge co-op program. UT-Austin has a pretty big one as well, I believe.</p>

<p>Both schools have 6-year graduation rates arounf 80%.</p>

<p>Poeme- the savings come from big and systemic cost cutting, not from eliminating the lemonade at a couple of campus events. Ask your dad to see the university’s budget and then apply the critical thinking skills you are learning. Yes, cutting out refreshments might save $30K per year. Then divide that by the number of students on campus and come back and tell us all what the impact on tuition might be.</p>

<p>The savings come from cutting bodies and capital expenses/improvements, since that’s where the money is getting spent. So until you are ready to lay off your personnel, and delay or eliminate construction/maintenance, you are talking about tuition savings of what - $10 a year per kid???</p>

<p>@Pizzagirl:</p>

<p>Maybe she had in mind New College of Florida? It certainly is an impressive LAC. The only public LAC that has a percentage of alumni acheivements on par with the top private LACs.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, we have come to view higher education as a ‘product’ that is consumed as a private good. Historically, that has not always been the case. There was once a time when we viewed education as a public good. All this ridiculous comparison to airline tickets, etc. misses the mark. </p>

<p>Standard and Poor’s rating agency, not a bastion of liberal doo-gooder social justice redistribution activism, believes that problems with education have been a drag on the economy as a whole. “According to S&P’s own calculations, if the U.S. workforce gained just one more year of education on average, U.S. GDP would grow by an additional $525 billion by 2019.”</p>

<p>Furthermore “To get there would likely require increased investments in college financial aid, and in K-12 education, the report states.”</p>

<p>Note that it said increase in college financial aid to get additional economic growth. </p>

<p>Rising education levels for all, it seems, lifts all boats…</p>

<p>So we can’t solely think of education as a ‘product’ you buy like a car. There are good reasons, economically, for both high income and low income students, to have access to education, in way that is different from having access to an airplane seat and for it to be available in a different way than airline seats.</p>

<p>My source:<a href=“S&P: Income Inequality and ‘Education Gap’ Hurting Economic Growth”>http://www.ibtimes.com/sp-income-inequality-education-gap-hurting-economic-growth-1649850&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The “massive AP (and IB and online and dual enrollment and …) credit for entering freshman” is less true overall than you may see students and parents bragging about in these forums. Many students do not take such massive amounts of such courses, nor do they necessarily get good scores on the associated AP or IB tests, or good grades in college courses taken while in high school.</p>

<p>Ability to graduate in four years is likely much more related to the student than the school. However, engineering-focused schools like Georgia Tech may have lower four year graduation rates because of students doing co-ops (semester off school to work – extends calendar time to graduation even though does not add school semesters) and because students who want to change to a non-engineering major find limited choices and may be more prone to transferring out to a different school. Also, the relatively high workload and rigor of engineering majors means that, for comparable admission selectivity/qualifications, engineering students do have a lower four year graduation rate than non-engineering students.</p>

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<p>In theory, the government is the “same product” for everyone (in reality, probably not). But the government does charge different amounts (taxes) to different people, with many wealthier people paying more, although the wealthier people are obviously the economic “winners” in the political, social, and economic environment within the jurisdiction of the government (that doesn’t seem to stop them from incessantly complaining about taxes).</p>

<h1>85 I think access to jobs is the public good. What’s happened in our country is that where before a HS grad could get a good living, now they “need” a college education. There are still so many white-collar jobs where you don’t actually need any skills or knowledge you learn in college, but the competition for the diminishing number of those kind of jobs is such that you don’t get hired without a degree.</h1>

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<p>Back when higher education was viewed as a public good, it was reasonably priced, and going to a faraway college to be a boarding student wasn’t considered an entitlement that taxpayers had to subsidize. </p>

<p>“Unfortunately, we have come to view higher education as a ‘product’ that is consumed as a private good. Historically, that has not always been the case. There was once a time when we viewed education as a public good. All this ridiculous comparison to airline tickets, etc. misses the mark.”</p>

<p>Was that when the Ivies were essentially private clubs when students got in because their headmaster vouched for them with the admissions officers?</p>

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<p>Government is not a discretionary consumer product-- short of renunciation of US citizenship, that is. Lol, the IRS will spare no effort “reminding” me how non-voluntary buying government is if I opt to not “buy” the product.</p>

<p>College, while important, is still a discretionary product. I don’t go to jail if I don’t buy it.</p>

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<p>The only reason I pay my taxes is to avoid going to jail. It’s not a product I can choose whether or not to buy, like a pricey education.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t. If I felt so strongly about the accommodations for my kid being subpar, I’d pay for the upgrades myself. But truth be told, it’s unlikely I wouldn’t just tell my kids to suck it up, because that’s the kind of parent I am. :)</p>

<p>I agree with the other poster who said let the market sort it out. Colleges aren’t going to change anything until the people they deem full pay stop playing the game. As for my family, we’re taking our ball and going home (to state schools or schools that will give us merit scholarships). </p>

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<p>After welfare/safety net spending, it’s not the same product for everyone at all. </p>

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Is that why your pockets are half empty? ;)</p>

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<p>Bring the ball, We’ll meet u there, too.</p>

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<p>You got that right. :)</p>

<p>@Pizzagirl:</p>

<p>It was when many Ivies kept the percentage of Jews in their school to a level that they found acceptable so that the blue-bloods there had the run of the club. On the other hand, most all state schools then were ridiculously cheap, and many were inclusive (the ones in the Jim Crow South, not so much).</p>

<p>However, I do agree that education throws off positive externalities.</p>

<p>Imo the way government subsidizes college incentivizes increased tuition. If government is determined to subsidize, they should do it in a different way, without student loans. </p>

<p>I think the answer (should tuition be kept at an affordable rate) depends on whether you are asking about public institutions or private schools. </p>

<p>For state universities and colleges, yes, I think it is in the public good to keep tuition affordable. And to offer enough options so that students of varying abilities have a place to go. It is also in the public good to insure the quality of these schools. </p>

<p>For private schools – they should be allowed to charge the market rate. Unless they are a monopoly, I don’t see why the government should be involved in price fixing. As others have pointed out, many private schools are a luxury item that the wealthy are willing to pay full cost for. And because the wealthy are able to pay so much, (both in tuition and in donations after graduation) these schools can offer financial aid to students with lower incomes. </p>

<p>The problem is that over time, the lines between public and private have blurred. Private schools rely on federal financial aid, and federal grants for research. Public schools have seen their budgets cut so much that they rely on donations and tuition from out-of-state students. As these lines blur, I agree that my position is more difficult to argue.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s valid to argue that the education at the Ivies and other select schools is so superior to the other options that students are significantly hurt by not attending them. Studies have shown that a kid who could have gone to Harvard but instead went to a state school did just fine in life. Maybe there is one kid in a thousand who, had they gone to Harvard and then Yale Law, might have made it to the Supreme Court, but didn’t because they went to University of Vermont. </p>

<p>Another point I’d raise, going back to the original question – what is the definition of affordable? To someone who earns $1m or more per year, $60,000 is very affordable. Do we need a rule of thumb, as we have in qualifying for a mortgage, to determine what is affordable?</p>