Mostly accurate
I agree. One part he leaves out, though, is that part of the increase in administrators (likely not all, but some) is due to demand by students (and the parents paying out money to the schools) for more “goodies” like study abroad, job placement assistance, entrepreneurial centers, various special programs, etc. All that requires staff. Also, there has been an expansion in governmental demands on institutions of higher learning as well.
In short, we’re not going back to the '60’s, Toto, and, at least at the high end, the demand up to now has been unflagging.
In addition to administrative bloat, there is also perks bloat and marketing bloat. I was stunned by the number of kids on CC reporting expense-paid “fly-in”. And it wasn’t just for poor kids.
Some colleges are now claiming that it costs them $90,000 per student (subsidized by donations and endowment investment earnings, since even list price is less than that).
I found the article to have serious flaws in logic and computation. The facts are, that whatever is causing the increase in college costs, public funding covers a smaller and smaller portion, particularly since the recession.
UCB, the now in the claims is an understatement. This was old news a decade at the Williams College WPEHE site.
http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/files/2011/06/DP-45.pdf
For a full overview: http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/discussion-paper-abstracts/#dp-62
For a different angle on this issue>
THe strike did not just bring down the province’s government; it also revealed deep cultural differences in ideas about university funding. French Canadian students, influenced by European thinking, were outraged that their government had proposed raising tuition fees from C$2,168 ($2,168) a year to C$3,793; the rest of Canada, used—American-style—to much higher fees, was baffled by their fury.
In most European countries the state pays 80-100% of the costs of tuition. The main advantages of this model are equity and cost control. Where it works well—in northern Europe—graduate education levels are uniformly high. Where it works badly—in southern Europe—they are uniformly low.
Well said @PurpleTitan .
The European model has a great many other factors that are left out here. Look at how the schools rank. Very few European school rank highly. The ability to even attend college is regulated by the state. Why do you think so many people come to the US for college?
By the way, the ‘state’ never really pays for anything. What that really means is they collect the tuition through taxes, pay bureaucrats to ‘process’ it, and then convince people the education is somehow ‘free’.
There is a direct correlation with the increase in US/State government spending on education and the rise in tuition. Qualified educators are a limited resource. Ultimately, if you spend more you are not getting a better product, you are simply raising the cost per credit hour to keep the quantity and quality in line. When people were spending only their own money on tuition, they did not tolerate the rampant growth of tuition. The more distance you put between earning the money and spending the money, the less responsibly the money is spent. (anecdotal evidence aside)
I would also point out that I do not think that US citizens have the tolerance for the tax rates necessitated by the socialist systems in place in some European countries. There is no free lunch.
It is a complex question without a simple answer. Multiple factors are at work. I certainly don’t have the ability to validate the following research on this one element of the cost “rise” but I find the premise intriguing that the AVERAGE NET cost hasn’t actually increased, but rather the STICKER PRICE increase has grabbed the headlines, but actually serves to have wealthier families subsidize needier students.
Article:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/pageone-economics/pages/newsletter.php?nid=92
Some excerpts:
^This
Many of these subsidized unis are very no-frills, bare bones. Pretty much instruction and some institutional dorms as an afterthought. No student activities or sports, little campus life.
I agree it’s absurd to compare the European model and the US model. Two totally different approaches to higher education. Like comparing apples and oranges and arguing that there’s similarity beyond the fact that the two happen to be fruit.
Three key issues compared to 20-30 years ago.
- Said earlier, the"frills" such as study abroad and high end rec centers, student unions, etc. it's an arms race of non-academic items.
- The reduced state funding is a huge piece.
- Simply the need to go away to school, be it OOS or simply to not commute. When I went to school I was lucky in some sence that our state flagship was 9 miles from home. But that meant that I was both going there for sure and commuting. Never gave it another thought. Now I'm one of those parents who wouldn't want my children to commute. But room, board and OOS travel costs are huge.
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The facts are, that whatever is causing the increase in college costs, public funding covers a smaller and smaller portion...
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So, according to this logic, if my state U decides to upgrade all the toiler seats at the university from plastic to gold, the tax payers in my state is obligated to fund a percentage of this upgrade based on the historically funding trend?
It is really intellectually dishonest to say that state X used to fund 25% of the X State U budget but now it is only funding 15% and this is the only reason that the school needs to increase the tuition 5x the rate of inflation.
I do agree that the article is a bit sloppy. The author freely admits that the funding per student has been decreasing. In my opinion, this per-student-subsidy number gives you a true perspective on the amount that the state has been cutting back on higher education. However, no where in the article mentions the amount of decrease (of spending per student) adjusted for inflation.
If state X used to subsidize $2000 per student and now it is only subsidizing $500 per student (adjusted for inflation), I would say that this is not a good trend. However, I would expect the X State U to increase the tuition by $1500 and no more.
snarlatron, what you say jibe with the experience of my colleagues from France and Germany. These engineers claim that their college education is pretty “bare bone” - you show up in very large lectures and essentially it is swim or sink. I am not sure it is a better or worse system - it is just different - like what katliamom has said. However, let’s not have facts get in the way of a good smackdown between the partisans of the American left and right.
The view from Down Under
http://www.afr.com/news/world/north-america/ten-elite-us-universities-where-middle-class-kids-study-free-20150404-1mepyy
No real surprise that internationals do not understand our financial aid offers.
If someone started an academically rigorous university that met the idealized expectations of this forum in the academics, but was no frills otherwise (maybe a very basic frosh dorm and dining hall; upper class students can find their own housing and food) at lower cost than academically comparable schools, would people here choose it?
ucbalumnus - In the end, I think they’d only opt for that New U if it worked out to be less expensive than the home-state publics that offer decent honors programs.
@xiggi,
Regarding that the article u linked #16.
I just shake my head when I read threads by low income int’ls who have applied to ivies and nothing else, bcs they say ivies give lots of money-- so does the Powerball lottery. And for all practical purposes, the likely outcome is no different.