And something similar from the far left, though with the critique of the neoliberal economic agenda, from Noam Chomsky.
Though I’d like to see something that shows there’s a relationship between the rise in the neoliberal economic agenda (students as customers, education as a commodity) and the rise in tuition. I think we should look at markers such as the rise in the our society’s fascination with USNews rankings, the rise in honors colleges and the rise in merit money. The last three items are surely the focus of the petits rentiers.
@wayneandgarth, it’s rather difficult to call study-abroad, writing centers, entrepreneurship centers, etc. non-academic frills when they certainly could impact the education of the students.
Furthermore, while job search assistance can be considered non-academic, I daresay that more students&parents want more of that, not less.
The horror, the horror that colleges might want to court academically capable students… 
Nothing wrong with courting academically capable students, but a side effect of this courting may very well be a rise in tuition.
A poster child for this kind of behavior is George Washington University, as this story shows, which is well known:
And then this
@skrlvr, there are plenty of colleges w out of control tuition prices, that don’t award merit aid.
With a $34.6 billion dollar endowment, there’s no need for harvard to charge any tuition at all.
You’re right, but what I am saying is that there are certain kinds of things that students/parent ‘customers’ who are interested in prestige and status are looking for–and one of them is a ‘scholarship’ (aka merit money). It makes the customer feel good. Kinda like sale pricing at JC Penney.
No. Parents who are pursing merit money are seeking value. The most prestigious schools do not offer merit money.
My point is that the ‘sticker price’ is artificially inflated in the first place to imply prestige and quality, and then the ‘merit’ scholarship makes it look affordable at the same time as making the customer feel special. The schools that use merit aren’t the ones at the top–they are the ones further down and for the most part they are trying to steal students away from ‘near peers’.
Here’s one explanation for you:
I’m not judging this, really. And I’m not judging the families that seek merit money. All I am saying is that treating students as ‘customers’ can have unintended consequences.
You mean “mediocre” schools like Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, UMich, Emory, WashU?
Why so argumentative? Place such as the ones you listed are usually generous with need-based aid and the ‘merit’ money is offered to very, very few.
I am talking about places that are much more liberal with their ‘merit’ scholarship awards, and they are usually institutions that are not as highly ranked as the ones you mention.
And as I said, we need to think about how the ideology of treating students as customers can have unintended consequences.
The phenomenon I am talking about is very widely known.
I genuinely believe you are misguided in your impression of merit scholarships. Duke may give very few merit scholarships, but the other highly regarded schools I listed give a significant number of awards and a significant dollar amount. It’s not just $5000 ego-stroking for bunch of rich, dumb kids.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/
@GMTplus7, Harvard may be able to forgo charging any tuition, but then they likely wouldn’t have such an excessive amount of money that they can poach any faculty they want; and I doubt that Harvard has much interest in stopping being Harvard.
Furthermore, the reality is that there are only a handful of schools who can get by without charging any tuition (HYPS, roughly speaking; maybe Rice as well), but why would they do such a thing? Plenty of people are willing to pay.
Ok, but look at how the percentage of non-need based awards goes way up once you get out of the institutions you are talking about. Why is there a difference if I am so misguided? The use of merit money as I was discussing above happens at many, many schools.
It’s not that people are rich and dumb. It’s just that’s what colleges have discovered attracts ‘customers’. And the ‘high list’ and ‘high (merit) discount’ works for those institutions to attract the type of student they want.
If you don’t think status and prestige matter, you haven’t been looking very hard at the threads on CC. And read in the previous post how GWU used status- and prestige-seeking to its advantage, increasing tuition by leaps and bounds along the way.
It is not just college marketing that fuels demand. Credential creep in the job market (and some professional schools) is likely a big factor in student demand.
Very interesting topic. I have been very intrigued by the various sales/marketing approaches that universities are using to attract my son. The University of Oregon, for example, has sent numerous marketing materials (personalized postcards, link to personalized video, an Oregon flag for a car, etc.) to our home, but did not offer any financial aid to our out-of-state student. Gonzaga University on the other hand, offered my son a generous combination of scholarships and grants. It is hard for both the student and the parent not to feel more wanted by the university that is offering substantial financial incentives. In our case, the university offering the monies happens to be a better academic fit. I imagine most of the marketing blitzes are focused on the out of state students, who are being charged three times more for tuition than the in-state students. Think of it this way, what company has a product out there that they are selling for approximately $200,000 over a four/five year time frame to an individual household? Only colleges and universities because they can and people are willing to pay.
It’s true, although I would reference Canada rather than Europe, and we’re not a ‘socialist system’. All universities are publicly funded and costs are a fraction of what they are at many/most U.S. colleges. Having had kids who have attended and graduated in both countries, I can’t say that there was an inherent value in paying so much more in the U.S., although my two Ds who are U.S. grads attended their schools for very specific reasons.
I don’t know what the answer is but the cost in the U.S. for many schools is ridiculous. As for the issue of foreign schools being ‘no frills’ institutions, that certainly isn’t the case at Canadian schools.
NYT Article debunked by real by experts
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/dear-new-york-times
@alwaysamom, my understanding is that the top Canadian unis are very similar to the better state schools in the US (lots of research, sink-or-swim, big student body, and fairly unforgiving grading curve). Many American state schools are comparable in costs for in-state students to Canadian unis. Like American publics, Canadian unis charge people outside the entity that subsidizes the school (in the case of Canada, it’s non-Canadians while in the case of American publics, it’s most OOS students) an arm and a leg, however.