<p>Harvard is $6 BILLION dollars in debt? Holy cow.</p>
<p>No, Harvard <em>has</em> $6 billion in debt. It also has over $30 billion in endowment assets (plus or minus, depending on the market for any given year). They won’t need to hold a bake sale any time soon.</p>
<p>The school in the Times article that is probably hosed is the University of Cincinnati. They’re carrying over a billion in debt and have a reported endowment that is less than their borrowings.</p>
<p>The elite schools want to protect their brand. Just like premium retail brands, they are expanding in places like China, Singapore, and the Middle East where the deep pockets are located and they don’t have to offer financial aid. Elite schools are big business; when will people wake up and realize this? It isn’t about what they can do for you, it is all about what you can do for them. Will you be, are you already, a doer, a donor, or a door-opener? My elite school sent a detailed survey about 15 years after I graduated asking about every personal financial detail and career achievement imaginable. Think they don’t notice your zip code? your street address? Think again.</p>
<p>Everyone wants to protect their own interests. Why is it a surprise a U does? I’m just not as bent out of shape about it.</p>
<p>Expansion involves more than just buildings and numbers of students. It involves faculty expansion as well. Increasing the number of students means a smaller chance for students to get into a class with professor X or Y- adding professor Z isn’t the same. Class sizes would stay the same, professors wouldn’t be teaching more classes so the extra students would not be getting the same education. Remember that if the elite college expands faculty with top notch professors they are likely to be taking/stealing them from other institutions. Students can get a superb education outside of those elite private colleges. The caliber of students at many public flagships has risen since our days as students, some of us parents would not get into our alma maters.</p>
<p>Outside of the East coast people are not as hung up on the Ivies- some go below the radar of most. Many (college educated) will not be able to name all of those schools and some of them are no better than some Midwest flagships in many areas. The country is so much more than the east coast in all ways- schools and jobs included. PS- look at the resumes of Ivy profs, undergrad educations all over, and many other grad schools as well. Add in the authors of textbooks used by the Ivies…</p>
<p>Even at full tuition rates the likes of Stanford and Harvard lose money. Factor in aide and the colleges are huge money losers so the bigger the class the the bigger the loss.</p>
<p>Lose money? Really? They must be right up there with the banks on the most mismanaged corporations list.</p>
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<p>Yes, sikorsky. </p>
<p>And PG, I think ucbalumnus was referring to a larger group of “SES elites” (maybe “wanna-be elites”)–you know, the people who will just DIE if their kids don’t get into an Ivy.</p>
<p>[Relieving</a> the Tensions of Selective College Admissions: No Pain, No Gain - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/relieving-the-tensions-of-selective-college-admissions-no-pain-no-gain/28532]Relieving”>Innovations: Relieving the Tensions of Selective College Admissions: No Pain, No Gain)</p>
<p>Expanding the freshmen class of the top 20 schools from the current 20,000 to 30,000 still would leave them all ranked at the top in terms of “wealth per student.”</p>
<p>More qualified students would be enrolled at the top schools. </p>
<p>There would be trade-offs–bigger classes, more crowded, less posh facilities. But it’s not crazy. And there would be downward pressure on the food chain. As the second tier loses enrollment to the first, they too would have to cast a wider net.</p>
<p>There is one other piece to expansions. The schools are expanding but not at their core sites. Yale-NUS in singapore is an example. Several have started colleges in the middle east.</p>
<p>FrankenYale in Singapore is taking significant heat. The faculty approved a resolution expressing concern about establishing a presence in a country with a “history of lack of respect for civil and political rights.”</p>
<p>[Faculty</a> approve Yale-NUS resolution | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/04/06/faculty-approve-yale-nus-resolution/]Faculty”>Faculty approve Yale-NUS resolution - Yale Daily News)</p>
<p>Another way in which some elites are expanding their reach is online classes. This could be as significant, historically, as when the top all-males started admitting women.</p>
<p>And I just checked. When the Ivies started admitting women, they expanded their freshman classes, by as much as 20 percent, and they’re even more selective today than then.</p>
<p>Here’s an article about Yale’s plans to build 2 new residential colleges. The idea was announced right before the Great Recession hit, and construction has been delayed.</p>
<p>[Timeline</a> for new colleges still unclear | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/10/29/timeline-for-new-colleges-still-unclear/]Timeline”>Timeline for new colleges still unclear - Yale Daily News)</p>
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<p>That was in the same period when there was a great expansion in the proportion of 18-22+ population who headed off to college. </p>
<p>And that expansion far outstripped the expansion of freshman classes at the Ivies or other elite colleges. </p>
<p>Not too long before that, college was only pursued by scions of wealthy families, academic high achievers, or those willing to attend an institution where they face a high statistical chance of being weeded out before graduation. Most high school graduates back then would have gone off to their first jobs or apprenticeships. </p>
<p>Nowadays, higher ed access has expanded so that around 2/3 of HS graduates go off to college.</p>
<p>How can you justify elite universities and colleges continuing to reject students at the rate they do while increasing their tuitions at almost exponential rates? There is no debate in my mind. The way the elite institutions of this country, especially the ones with endowments in the BILLIONS of dollars, run themselves is plain wrong.</p>
<p>There is no college of arts & science in the USNWR top 20 that has more than 10K students. Not one. Typically, their undergraduate enrollments are in the 5000 - 7500 range. Cornell has ~14K undergraduates, including students outside the CAS (agriculture, hotel management, etc.) However, the Cornell CAS only enrolls about 4100 students. </p>
<p>Could these colleges expand to 15K, 20K, or more students and still have the same holistic admissions standards and per-student spending levels? Could most courses, even at the introductory/intermediate level, still be kept small enough to allow for a high level of personal engagement (Q&A, discussions, frequent writing assignments with instructor comment, essay exams, and office hour interactions)? </p>
<p>Suppose the 40-student or 100-student residential houses at some of these places could no longer accomodate most first year students. You start warehousing them in high-rise dormitories on the outskirts of campus. They have to travel a mile or more between classes. They no longer eat and talk together in centralized dining halls, but graze individually or in small groups at fast food joints scattered around a sprawling campus. What happens to the quality of intellectual and social life? </p>
<p>I think there are good reasons why many “elite” colleges choose to remain small. So, why aren’t we building any more “elite”-style colleges? For all its wealth, the country has hardly added any in over 100 years.</p>
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<p>They can increase their rates precisely BECAUSE of the vast number of people trying to get in the doors. It’s called inelastic demand. As long as people view these colleges as having no peers (i.e., substitute goods) they can charge whatever they want. It’s basic economics.</p>
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<p>I agree completely with sally305 (not a common occurrence). I would add that if universities are charging whatever they can, as businesses do, they should pay taxes on their endowment earnings and not get tax-deductible contributions, which businesses are ineligible for.</p>
<p>"As long as people view these colleges as having no peers (i.e., substitute goods) they can charge whatever they want. It’s basic economics. "</p>
<p>I can see that with elite colleges. Why is every private college charging the same whether they are ranked 10, 20, or 70.</p>
<p>Why don’t they build more Ferraris?</p>