“For Trinity I have no idea. I guess they will find out.”
They aren’t standing alone here. Their peers have the same cost.
You can’t compare UK pricing model to USA private college models. And why do you think the reason you stated (“lesser” institution") is the reason UK schools max out their fees? It’s probably because they want the money and the market will bear it. Can you point to something supporting your viewpoint?
“They aren’t standing alone here. Their peers have the same cost.”
Depends on how you define their peers.
“So the incentives for some (many?) colleges are to actually increase the price, not keep it under control.”
And that is exactly what’s happening. We live in a highly capitalist, commercialized society and have convinced the population that the more expensive the better. Market studies confirm this.
“The price escalator will continue”
The prices of everything escalates. (With the possible exception of certain tech products.) Why should colleges be any different?
@katliamom: Actually, the price of a lot of things have not escalated. Inflation has been pretty low over the past couple decades.
In real terms, food, clothing, various entertainment, housing in rural and blue-collar areas have not changed much or have even fallen since the '70’s.
Now, granted, healthcare, housing in popular metros, and the list price of colleges have escalated.
And that is directly a result of the US becoming more unequal (and clustering) as well as healthcare system with perverse incentives.
You’re right, Purple… I have some friends who live out in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. They bought their home for $60K a decade ago… it’s now worth $48K. Yes, we’re talking about a home (with central air, even!) and not a car…
@doschicos That what the second tier UK universities say:
“Our students have been checking we are not charging the bottom of the spectrum because they don’t want it to be seen as second rate.” In other words, the less you charge, the lower the quality of your university appears to be.
That article points to a lot of reasons why universities in the UK charge what they charge. You can’t cherry pick one statement from one person and attribute that as the driver of UK university pricing policy. You’re really stretching to make your argument and again I don’t see how it is relevant to what Trinity and many other private colleges in the northeast (an expensive area and one that has more expensive public school costs as well). Trinity is not pricing itself outside of its peer group and competition.
@PurpleTitan I’d define their peer group as colleges with overlap in applications and similar academic structure so likely a bunch of other LACs. How would you define their peer group?
Here’s a study they did on campus climate from a diversity angle. You can look at the schools they compared themselves to for that. I would imagine that is their peer group plus some. It’s not recent but I doubt too much has changed re: peer group.
http://www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/Documents/Appendices.pdf
The UK isn’t relevant to whether there are limits on what US universities will charge. My argument is simply that demand for top colleges in the US is not sensitive to price. So prices will continue to increase, and those expressing shock at how expensive colleges are should ask themselves if their willingness to keep paying regardless (whether they justify it in “fit”, “value”, “prestige” or whatever) has something to do with that. Whether Trinity is a “top” college worth paying for or not I have no idea.
I’m not immune to the lure of paying for prestige (whether I call it that or something else) either. I’m just trying to resist it in college selection and finding it much harder than I have in my choice of car, house, watch, etc. It appears many people have the same challenge, and that’s inevitable since the cost vs value equation is so hard to evaluate (“think of all the improved career opportunities this more expensive college can provide”).
At the beginning of this process I would have had a hard time thinking of D18’s choice as offering sufficient “prestige” compared with (say) Berkeley, even though it’s likely to be free or nearly so. But fortunately it’s one of the top few colleges for what she wants to do. So the cost is not going to be the deciding factor in her case. But if it was then I would struggle with this too. And we may well be having some of that cost vs value debate for S18.
The reality is…there are any number of colleges that can offer these “special” majors folks talk about.
In addition, many…many careers are not directly related to the undergrad major at all.
You know…I don’t live far from Trinity. I know a number of very satisfied and happy students, as well as graduates of the college. I don’t have any idea what they paid to attend…and frankly, it’s none of my business to know that anyway.
It’s all about choices…and some folks make different choices than others.
Our state flagship did offer the majors both of our kids studied. It never crossed my mind that they would attend the school…but it had nothing to do with the majors or programs, or even the quality of the school. Our flagship is in the boondocks. And our kids wanted an urban college. Fortunately we were able to pay for this criteria.
In both of our kids’ cases…folks asked us why we were paying for OOS publics…because the college names sounded like they could have been OOS publics. You know…even if they were OOS publics…it was NO ONE’s business why we made this choice.
Folks attend lots of expensive colleges. I mean how many threads have you seen here about NYU which is also $70,000 a year…or so. Some feel there is a cache to that school at full price. Their money…their choice.
There’s no doubt that college costs IS an important American issue.
I just don’t think that Trinity is a good example of any issues that really affect the vast majority of American students. Nor is Berkeley, actually.
Now, when the working class can’t afford the generic state U… THAT’s a real issue.
@PurpleTitan
An interesting comparison.
https://www.forbes.com/value-colleges/list/
https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank
How do you define “similar academic structure”?
Trinity is #44 on USNews’ LAC ranking. Use any other metric and they’re probably around the same place.
The two LACs right above and right below Trinity are Whitman, Oxy, Bard, and Centre. At those 4 schools, 2/3rds or more of the student body gets grants from the college (at Centre, it’s 99%). At Trinity, less than half get grant money from the college. Trinity is an outlier as they have the full-pay percentage of a more elite/selective LAC. There are few LACs like Trinity, in fact, being where they are in selectivity and yet having the full-pay percentage of the most selective LACs.
@PurpleTitan Small LACs for one.
Centre and Whitman are in tough locations which puts them at a disadvantage. Oxy and Bard are much more liberal and appeal to different types of students.
“There are few LACs like Trinity, in fact, being where they are in selectivity and yet having the full-pay percentage of the most selective LACs.”
It is unique and that is what enables it to do what it does. It’s the whole package of attributes I alluded to - location in NE not far from big cities, not in the boonies, strength of alumni network, recognition for econ progam/connection to Wall Street, success of certain teams, engineering major in a LAC setting, greek life, etc. Again, not my cup of tea but more power to them for filling a niche that does attract enough full pay families to make it work.
The other colleges you mention aren’t going to be hugely cheaper either for a full pay family.
@doschicos: However, it is possible to get merit scholarships at Whitman, Oxy, and Centre (big ones at Centre). Bard has some big merit scholarships as well but those may be tied to need. Trinity’s only large merit scholarship is only for IL residents.
Regarding Trinity’s peer group (link #46), when colleges self-select their peers for the purposes of institutional analysis, they often choose “aspirational” peers – and therefore not “true” peers.
Have you looked at the list, @merc81? Plenty of the colleges on that list aren’t aspirational.
@PurpleTitan Doesn’t that give even more weight to the case I’m making about Trinity and its attractiveness because of unique things it brings to the table? They don’t feel they need to discount their tuition through merit scholarships to fill their beds. The gripes I’m responding to seem to be about full pay fees not discounted fees.
Do you mean the 32 other colleges listed on page 7? They’re largely schools ranked higher by U.S. News. Many of them do indeed appear to be natural overlaps of Trinity, and therefore peers, but they are, with a few exceptions, more selective than Trinity, at least at this time.
Glad you took the time to count them all, @merc81. HALF the colleges on that list have acceptance rates either lower than Trinity College’s or within 2-4 percentage points. Yes, I’d consider those peers along with others on the list that are more selective because they have a lot of overlap in applicants.
Trinity places 139th on this reasonably current list based on standardized scoring:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9
To the extent that standardized scoring can measure academic preparation, this represents a fine placement. However, the fact remains that nearly all the schools listed in the link provided (#46) appear in higher positions than Trinity in the BI analysis, @doschicos. The same holds true for a comparison based U.S. News rankings.