<p>ah, one of their main economists is a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. In addition to writting on higher ed he has also written “The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy (with Lowell Gallaway).[4]”</p>
<p>None of which means he is wrong, of course.You are all free to go through the numbers in detail.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t accept this study as an authority, any more than the studies done by university admins.</p>
<p>Well, community colleges are often considered effective for teaching freshman and sophomore level courses, but do not offer junior and senior level courses. Some freshman level courses are taught in high school as AP courses.</p>
<p>Of course, junior and (especially) senior level courses would be a different story.</p>
<p>“~Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP). Conventional wisdom holds that America is under-invested in higher education and that students do not have enough access to colleges and universities. The solution advanced by the proponents of this claim is greater government expenditures on higher education. Based on preliminary research, CCAP believes that the opposite is true, and that we are perhaps over-invested in higher education. This research study addresses this deficiency and forms the foundation for later research on how to make higher education less dependent on government subsidies. Click here to find out more.”</p>
<p>It’s probably partially accurate- Certainly you can’t just take all school spending and divide that by the number of students and say that is what they are spending per student on their education.</p>
<p>Some of what they do is just, well, I don’t know what to say.</p>
<p>Here’s is something from the report:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here’s the beef I have with this. Every university should be spending what the median amount is for universities of its type or what the university spends, whichever is lower.</p>
<p>I’m going to use hypothetical examples to illustrate my points. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Academic support spending, let’s say we put ‘Writing Center’ expenses under that category. Now let’s say there are many universities that don’t have well-funded writing centers, such that it isn’t open for many hours per day or week. This, of course, will bring down the median spending for all universities Now let’s say that at my university, I have a well-funded writing center and it is open many hours, and this contributes to a higher academic support spending. What the authors of the report are saying is that having a well-funded center in this case is ‘overspending’.</p></li>
<li><p>Let’s say that academic support spending leads to higher student retention, higher GPA, etc. By simply pooling all U’s of the same type, and expecting each U to spend the median, we might be missing some benefits that the extra spending might have. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>In this case, sure, you can get away with less spending on academic support, but maybe schools that do that don’t do very well in terms of retaining students. So what would you rather have–less money in support, or fewer students graduating?</p>
<p>And it is true that students who don’t graduate with a degree are more likely to default on loans. </p>
<p>"It’s probably partially accurate- Certainly you can’t just take all school spending and divide that by the number of students and say that is what they are spending per student on their education. "</p>
<p>except I dont think thats the conventional methodology.</p>
<p>There is spending and there is spending. Surely, at some point, “spending per student” (taking total costs and dividing by number of students) reaches a point of diminishing return. (which is also why, past a certain point, endowment per student is also irrevelant). The five-story parking lot at Williams is very nice for the few students who don’t live on campus, and for the faculty, put the “value-added” per student is minimal. Same can be said of the 18-hole PGA golf course, or the arboretum at Swarthmore, etc., etc. Which isn’t to say some students don’t benefit from it, and through them, the institution as a whole. But it isn’t “worth” (a loaded term) the same as the first dollar, placing a gifted teacher in the classroom with a bunch of first year students. </p>
<p>It is clear to me that from a marketing perspective, prestige privates are WAY underpriced. The asking price has not gone up as fast as the assets of those in the top 10-20% of the population they mostly serve, making them cheaper now than they’ve been at any time in the past 30 years. They are turning away more students than ever (granted, many of these applicants wouldn’t even have dreamed of applying 30 years ago - the state u. was perfectly fine for their parents.) The number of Pell grant/poor students attending continues to decline - it’s about 5% at Harvard and 9% at Princeton, fewer than 20 years ago, despite all the noise about commitment to low-income students. </p>
<p>I think they are underpriced by 30-50%, and I expect we’ll see such increases over time, without any impact on the number or quality of applicants.</p>
<p>As for the state universities, the answer is simple: squeeze the poor. Provide less funding for community colleges, and make it more difficult for community college students to transfer to 4-year colleges (happening in California and Washington). Get rid of or restrict Hope scholarships (as in Georgia). Cut money for Pell Grants (thank you, Obama). And, do what UVA does - when it comes to low-income students, simply don’t accept them. Take in more high-paying OOS students - ranking will go up, even as quality of education goes down.</p>
<p>Fewer than 10% on Pell Grants, about the lowest percentage of any state u. in the country, and has been that way for years. (Helps their rankings.)</p>
<p>Yes. I could see that. The Pell recipients seem woefully underrepresented at a lot of the highly ranked colleges. Too bad US News doesn’t add # of Pell recipients to the ranking equation. Nothing more motivating than that, it would seem.</p>
<p>"And, do what UVA does - when it comes to low-income students, simply don’t accept them. Take in more high-paying OOS students - ranking will go up, even as quality of education goes down. "</p>
<p>I thought this was called the Michigan system. Why are you giving UVA credit for our innovations?</p>
<p>'cause I think Michigan has about double the percentage of Pell grant recipients that UVA does, though I think it’s possible they may catch up.</p>
<p>Rankings will increase even as quality of education declines. It’s a good trick. (The ultimate goal is to get the number of low-income students down to Harvard level.)</p>
<p>I am much more outraged by the decade of under-funding and mistreatment of NJ colleges by the NJ lawmakers. This is just cheap politics. Students run their own funds and if they make poor choices that’s on them. She drew SRO crowds so at least some RU students found her interesting enough. So whta is "good"might vary and that’s fine. It is THEIR money and their reps elect how to spend it. I am sure there are many items some students won’t like but that’s not how a democracy works. You take the bad with the good and pay-up or run to change that.</p>
<p>Barrons, I disagree. Mandatory fees should be kept a minimum and used for educational purposes. You want snooki to come? Charge admission. Wanna bet it would not have been sold out.</p>
<p>Well, what is minimum and isn’t that really another question. The entire idea of fees if to fund extras outside formal education including concerts, speakers of all sorts, sports at many schools, student health and other services not covered by tuition which might include computer centers, etc. If you want to change the entire system–that’s another issue.</p>
<p>“I’ve always maintained on CC that full paying students pay for Financial Aid and this article is able to confirm that.”</p>
<p>Er, no, not even if you agree with their methodology. They confirm that the COST at a place like Dartmouth exceeds full pay tuition. They calculate (using shaky methodology IMO, but whatever) that Dartmouth COULD deliver that education much more cheaply. </p>
Nothing more motivating than that, it would seem.</p>