At least 40% of parents of Trinity students are happy to pay the 72K+ per year. I’m not sure why so many on this thread are implying that it’s rare for people to pay sticker price. Very Rich, mostly mediocre, full pay students subsidize the athletic merit kids and smart FA kids. It’s the same at other LACs like Hamilton, Bowdoin, Colby, Holy Cross. They think it’s worth it. Good for them.
@Twoin18 “What is it that’s different about education?”
For MOST people it isn’t different. Which is why MOST people send their kids to the state U… and often preceded by a cheap community college. The College Confidential community – where kids/parents fantasize about (or decide on) a quarter of a million of dollars for a Bachelor’s – is a rarefied, tiny speck of the population.
Personally, I don’t think college spending is the same thing as buying a house. I would have much preferred a debt-free undergrad than a house (and especially more than a car!)
When you’re in college, you’re still just getting your feet wet in the world. College should be a time to develop skills and graduating debt-free gives you a lot more options than graduating with debt. Giving your kids money for a house doesn’t seem as necessary since by that time, kids should be pretty self-supporting.
Having gone in significant debt for both my education and my house, I’d hands-down would rather pay for my kids’ education rather than their house. I’d rather they get a better education (not that that is necessarily correlated with more expensive!) than us live in a bigger house.
I don’t compare education spending to house/car spending because I value one much more highly than the other. I can go without a new car or better house but I don’t ever want my kids to go without educational opportunities.
I still don’t think any college is worth 40, 50, 60k but I also don’t think any house is worth spending 500, 600, 700k.
“I don’t compare education spending to house/car spending because I value one much more highly than the other. I can go without a new car or better house but I don’t ever want my kids to go without educational opportunities.”
Hence the sticker price keeps going up…
And High Point’s COA is just above $50k, not $72k like Trinity is posting.
A friend has to pay 1/2 the COA at High Point, so saves $10k over paying 1/2 at Trinity.
Forbes doesn’t necessarily prove their position, but this article suggests that even some of the country’s most expensive colleges justify their full prices:
The article includes schools that now cost over $70,000 per year, such as Amherst, Dartmouth and Tufts.
The Boston Globe further discusses current trends in pricing:
“It appears many people don’t think of it as real money in the same way as they would when deciding how much to spend on a house or car. To me that’s a more serious issue than an obsession with status.”
" To me that indicates that people don’t think about spending on education as “real” money in the same way they do for as other spending. What is it that’s different about education?"
You’re basing your comments on your own value set. Other people have their own value set. I very highly value education - more than nicer cars or fancier houses. I am full pay. I also paid for private high schools. Yes, I can afford it but I also control my spending in other areas to make it work. I see plenty of people driving fancy new cars that they purchase every couple years, dining out several times per week, living in a McMansion, and all types of other conspicuous and consumer-based consumption and then they complain about college costs. Yes, it is expensive, but there is nothing I’d rather part with my $$ for than my kids’ education. If that doesn’t fit your modus operandi, that’s okay, too, because this country offers various means of getting a college education - state universities, 2 year of community college then a transfer, lower tier colleges with merit aid to strong students, schools with full tuition scholarships for high test scores, etc.
Higher education is still a business and it is obvious based on rankings and how people chase them that prestige is part of the business model. You can play and pay or you can choose another option but I stand by my comment it isn’t going to change soon. On top of domestic students, there are plenty of international students willing to play the gam as well. Econ 101 - supply and demand.
Don’t assume that some of us willing to pay for education don’t know how to value a buck or know what “real money” is. We can’t be too stupid with our $ if we can afford full pay to begin with. 
@doschicos I’m not saying it’s a problem for anyone to spend their money how they want. Some like Teslas or nice watches, I don’t care.
My point is that even if the cost of college appears to some of us to be irrationally high, there are lots of people thinking about that expenditure differently to how they think about most other expenditures: they’d rather spend on college than on other things.
So that means the sticker price will keep going up. In economic terms top colleges have become Veblen goods, just like Rolex watches.
@merc81, it’s an understatement to say that Forbes doesn’t prove their position. In their own “Best Value Colleges” ranking, UF, UCI, UCD, and BYU are all in the top 10 and beat out Dartmouth, Amherst, and Tufts. And note that that is with a methodology that takes 25% from their main college ranking (so not just looking at ROI, graduation rate, etc.)
What I find sad about these ridiculous sticker prices is that there are many, many bright, poor students who lack a savvy adult to guide them through this process. They see stick price and immediately write off college, sometimes altogether. Our state schools push $30k full pay, not everyone realizes how much aid there is for truly low income people (not my friend who complains they get no aid and they make $140k a year and chose to send there kid to a $50k school with no merit) or merit for the higher achieving student.
@suzyQ7 So you are saying that the full pay kids are not as smart as the financial aid kids and the athletes? That doesn’t sound like a valid argument And I doubt that there are very many ‘mediocre’ students at any of the schools you listed. Trinity does seem to have more prep school students than some other LACs, and sure the top kids at the top boarding schools are probably not enrolling in big numbers at Trinity, but even if you’re middle of the pack at one of those prep schools, you would be far far ‘mediocre ‘.
@suzyQ7, Hamilton and Bowdoin, at least, are selective enough (these days) where they don’t need to admit mediocre full-pay students to subsidize. They can find more than enough smart accomplished full-pay students to subsidize.
“My point is that even if the cost of college appears to some of us to be irrationally high, there are lots of people thinking about that expenditure differently to how they think about most other expenditures: they’d rather spend on college than on other things.”
My point exactly but not really different from other expenditures. Some people place a higher value on education than other purchases. It’s not that they don’t know how to value their educational expenditures as “real money”, to use your phrasing. Prestige/status factors into many purchases - cars (model, brand, gadgets), houses (zip code, amenities, size). In fact, I can’t think of a category that is a large expenditure for folks that doesn’t have an element of prestige and status.
You equated it to a car purchase before. Why aren’t we all driving small, fuel efficient cars? They’ll get us to the same places, we’ll save a whole lot of $$ both on the purchase and on gas, and it’s better for the planet and our economic and political independence. Or just buy the bare bones model of a larger car instead of a luxury model. But many. many people don’t, obviously. Doesn’t seem a lot different from the college purchasing decision to me.
Interesting thread. (And I have no fight in the Trinity game…friends have a daughter there who is happy but not a fit for my kids at all.) The school choice game isn’t as straightforward as you would like. Both my kids know that the dollars matter…we’ve been having that discussion since the beginning of high school. And they get the concept of net price.
The challenge in my opinion is the future risk. The expensive schools want all your savings now. We have two years full pay private covered for each kid. So what happens in two years if the school says “sorry…we have nothing for you”. As a parent, that is the tough part for me. Am I willing to assume that risk? Fortunately, my oldest chose his cheapest option so he is covered. My youngest has that same inexpensive option in mind…but number two on his list is RPI which will provide him with exactly the specialized major he is looking for. Gulp. So I hear I sit on a Saturday morning doing research looking for more options for him.
A generation ago, my wife and I were able to go to any college we wanted (which was Penn) and our parents took on no debt. That cost was under $15K all in…today that would be $34K in today’s dollars. When we started saving our financial planner said let’s be conservative and assume the cost of private college all in will be $40K. Oh how I wish!
My point is this discussion is not as straightforward as many are making it out to be. It’s highly nuanced. OK…time to find more schools…and check my lottery tickets. Ha!
“Prestige/status factors into many purchases - cars (model, brand, gadgets), houses (zip code, amenities, size). In fact, I can’t think of a category that is a large expenditure for folks that doesn’t have an element of prestige and status.”
True. The question is when prestige and status becomes more important than value for money. That’s the definition of Veblen goods (demand increases with price rather than decreases as normal rules of economics would suggest). Very few houses are Veblen goods (except perhaps a few mansions in unique locations). Most cars are not, but some are (e.g. Lamborghinis). High end watches, shoes and purses are.
So have high end colleges jumped the shark and become Veblen goods too? I suspect that is now the case judging by comments I see about people preferring to spend on education because its “value” is incalculable. So that’s what the high sticker price, high aid model is designed to exploit and will continue to do so for those colleges that can position themselves as a “luxury brand”.
That is crazy for that caliber of college. Lots of comparable and even higher caliber small colleges in the Midwest for far, far less. There isn’t even a high status value with Trinity. I saw. I visited. I don’t get it but apparently the college “thinks” it is “all that” or thinks that if they charge that much it is “all that”. To top it off it isn’t even somewhere bucolic or in a valuable metro area. Really strange place living in the past was my takeaway.
I never saw spending money on education in the same way I thought about buying, for example, a car. For me, a car is totally a serviceable tool to get me from point A to point B, and the cheaper the better. The most I ever paid for a car was $19K total, and I gagged at that. I don’t VALUE European brands or luxury cars. It’s just not important to me.
Education, however, was different. I see VALUE in a certain selectivity when it comes to faculty and students. I see VALUE in the kinds of connections a school may offer. I see VALUE in certain settings. I adjusted my spending on things like cars to be able to offer my children something beyond the state U if they wanted it.
Now, my values would still NOT make a school like Trinity attractive - though obviously for lots of other people they would.
But I did choose to pay a lot more to send my daughter to a university two thousand miles away from home instead of 45 minutes up the road to her (rather well regarded) flagship U. And I can objectively say that she ended up with educational opportunities she would not have had at her state U.
Trinity students – with their connections to the upper class, and the care and focus they receive from their attentive faculty – may very well say the same.
Top private colleges have been expensive for awhile now. The talk of some here is like it is some new phenomenon. It’s not. Nor is Trinity unique in that aspect. I have no skin in the Trinity College game. In fact, it is not a school I particularly like but it is desirable to a certain set of people. It does have a decent alumni network, particularly in some areas like finance. It also does very well in sports important to that set. Squash in particular, rowing to a lesser degree. It provides an alternative for those looking for an northeastern LAC but not wanting a very liberal atmosphere. Sure, I bet a lot of students who attend Trinity would rather be at an Ivy or Amherst but they aren’t slackers by any means. It’s less than two hours from Boston and slightly more than 2 hours from NYC. It also offers some attributes that other New England LACs don’t offer - an engineering major and greek life to name two.
Find me another private college in that area where the tuition is more than a few thousand less.
People value colleges for a lot of different reasons - educational quality, beauty, location, social circles, sports teams, greek life or no greek life, graduation rates, specific majors, etc. I could go on but you get the drift. Try to monetize all that.
Additionally, don’t forget that there are A LOT of people out there with HUGE amounts of money. How they value things will be very different than what you can wrap your head around. I wouldn’t consider that Veblen good territory, though.
@momofthreeboys: Heh. Status/prestige, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
The thing about American colleges (that cater to high-SES) that may seem a bit foreign to folks like @Twoin18 is that it isn’t just about the education or ROI but there is definitely a social club aspect to it as well. To some degree, that also exists at some UK Unis, but not nearly so much. On TSR, when comparing Warwick and Durham, that Durham has history and Warwick is new almost doesn’t matter. Placement and academic status are the predominant concerns.
In the US, Ursinus and Skidmore, objectively are very similar. But in certain social circles, Skidmore is in and Ursinus is not.
Yes, people say they see “value” in their Rolex watch too (cachet/status/social connections etc). The Veblen question is whether there would be meaningfully less demand for top colleges if the sticker price was $100K per year. For Harvard I doubt it (in fact demand might well be higher, especially if they add more “luxury” features with the extra money). For LACs in Ohio there presumably would be a decline (indeed there already is, hence big “merit” incentives). For Trinity I have no idea. I guess they will find out.
So the incentives for some (many?) colleges are to actually increase the price, not keep it under control. The price escalator will continue. We enable that by our attitudes, just like we enable Rolex to charge a fortune. It is what it is. Just pointing out that most people don’t seem to notice this dynamic when they complain about how outrageous it is that college X is charging $72K per year.
In the UK the motivations have worked at the opposite end of the scale. Almost all colleges have charged the maximum allowed fees because they fear being seen as a “lesser” institution if their price is lower.