Why don't wealthy students protest tuition hikes?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>There are wealthier students out there protesting. I haven’t been sleeping in the encampments, but I have been on Sproul whenever I can and attending bits of the General Assembly. I am upset because my tuition fees are continually rising, and the university and the state of CA will not help meet my needs to afford those rising costs. I definitely don’t fall into the 1% bracket, but I’m not in the bottom 70% either. I’m in the upper-middle class bracket that gets screwed because I receive no need-based scholarships, just unsubsidized loans, yet my tuition fees are rising dramatically, on top of having to pay for living expenses, housing, books, etc. And just because one of my parents makes a six-figure salary, that does not mean they can afford to support an 80% tuition hike for me over the next few years, in addition to helping my brother pay for med school. They have very large outstanding debts from their own businesses and personal situation which their salaries should go toward paying off, not towards my tuition hikes. Yet things like the FAFSA don’t take into consideration these factors outside of my family income, so I receive no coverage for my fees.</p>

<p>Also, this kind of cost-benefit analysis of majors slightly sickens me:</p>

<p>“With that in mind I’d be comfortable with a higher level of tuition for the less needed majors, both to subsidize the most costly (to the university) majors and to encourage students who are on the fence to go with the more useful program.”</p>

<p>College isn’t solely there to produce money-making machines that will churn a profit for the American economy and tout graduates with six-figure salaries right out of the university. It’s there for individuals who genuinely want to learn something they are passionate about, be it something from the hard sciences or from humanities. Too many students already pick their major or their career choice based on one thing ($$$), and thus end up dropping out because they can’t handle the pressure of their major, say for example Engineering, or the pre-med classes they have to take, which they only took in the first place with the hopes of making big money in a stable career. If you incentivize people to choose the more “useful” majors with a lower tuition, more individuals will end up choosing the hard sciences, despite not being very passionate in these subjects and lacking the skill to do well in these majors, all because they are cheaper than the “less useful” majors. Meanwhile, the humanities and the liberal sciences would get entirely neglected, and fewer academics would emerge from these majors (which are in some ways, as important as engineering or hard science majors). Plus, while it’s certainly easier for an engineer to find a job straight out of undergrad than say a Communications major, it’s not as if there is massive demand for engineering majors right now that’s being left unfilled.</p>

<p>I understand that offering courses for certain majors may be more expensive than others, and thus one might feel the need to subsidize them through any means. But there are inherent flaws with having students pay for more one type of major than another.</p>

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<p>I understand that it can be difficult for someone in the upper middle class to afford what a university education costs. That’s why it’s good to have a public option, which in California covers 75% of that cost.</p>

<p>As for the hard science/humanities issue, I would argue that an education subsidized by taxpayers should fulfill a public purpose, and right now there are just too many communication majors. If they wish to cover the full cost of their education, then they can study what they find personally fulfilling.</p>

<p>Look, it would be great if California had infinite resources and could not only institute a zero tuition policy for all, but could also fund other programs to help children of poorer families climb the social ladder through education. Since that’s not possible, it seems fair to give the wealthiest students only a 50% discount from the market price of an education, rather than a 75% discount. No one is forced to attend UC–private universities are plentiful.</p>

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<p>As someone who’s been paying out of state with zero financial aid (no grants - only unsubsidized ‘loans’) for the first three years, I get very upset when people complain about how expensive it is when they pay in state, and get some form of grants … (I am not international fyi)
Yet, they are the ones that complain the most… Am I upset about the fee hike? Yes sure I am. But I am more upset that I get nothing back from state of California in form of in state tuition, when I still pay income tax here, sales tax, etc. while illegal immigrants are not only getting federal aid, but now campus grants as well (Dream Act was just complete insult to all out of state students, and also international students who went through lengthy and pricey process to be here legally)
There is no wonder why California’s public education system is broke - look at the pure ratio of illegal immigrants (as in no contribution in form of income tax) to people who do pay taxes. No wonder why state of California is broke. Yet the people in here, who reap the most benefits, still complain that they’re not getting enough. Stop trying to freeload and cough up the money.</p>

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<p>However, the most popular major at Berkeley is Molecular and Cell Biology, which consistently has poor job and career prospects at the bachelor’s degree level in the career surveys (lower average pay than many social studies majors), even though it is likely a high cost major to teach (due to labs). And then Integrative Biology is also very large. Simply because the biology majors are sciences does not mean that the state is getting as good a return on its investment in teaching those majors as it is for some other majors in the social studies.</p>

<p>One could argue that, from the state’s purely economic point of view, cheaper to teach majors like Applied Mathematics and Economics with better current job and career prospects should, at the current time, be encouraged over the biology majors. Of course, using that criteria (as opposed to strictly cost of instruction criteria) to set fee levels by course or major choice could be dicey since the demands of the labor market can change over time.</p>

<p>Also, as it is now, certain majors (like most engineering majors) are capacity-limited, so there is no reason from the state’s purely economic point of view to increase the incentive for students to major in them.</p>

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<p>Nick, I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I think you underestimate how price-sensitive prospective students are. My impression is that UC-B students should be capable of getting half to full tuition scholarships at competing schools. Increasing tuition by $10,000/yr might be enough for these kids to choose the other school.</p>

<p>For people who come from poor families (or look poor on the FASFA), UC-B is clearly behind all the top privates (the top 10 or so private schools have extremely generous fin aid programs that should make them cheaper than UC-B). For these kids, it would be extremely unlikely for them to choose UC-B over the rich private school. For the kids who come from really wealthy families, they would also choose a private school over UC-B (if they’re rich enough to not worry about the cost of tuition, they probably plan on coasting on their parents’ money and UC-B has a rep for having to work hard). Thus, UC-B is most competitive for students whose families make enough to not qualify for financial aid but are sensitive enough to the cost of tuition. Every time you raise tuition faster than the private competitors, you will lose more of these cross-admit battles.</p>

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<p>pretty much this. I read online somewhere/heard from someone that the UCs are just as good as private schools, and the only reason they were dirt cheap was because the state was subsidizing them. And since the state is no longer subsidizing them, guess what? they’re not dirt cheap anymore #modusTollens</p>

<p>I was actually having a conversation about this was a professor of mine (who’s been very influential in the development of UCLA from what i hear) and he said that the tuition will likely continue to increase until it gets to 18k or so. I brought up the objection that students would have little incentives to go to public schools if they were expensive as private schools, to which he objected that UCLA and Berkeley ‘are among the best universities in the world.’ I’d agree with this, but i strongly doubt i’d be attending UCLA if it cost 18k.</p>

<p>He also noted that even if the state could increase funds, the university would probably keep tuition levels at what they were since it would be such a shock to everyone if they cut tuition by that much only to drastically raise it again.</p>

<p>as to the OP, you should really look up wealthy. Tuiton won’t increase to ‘a billion dollars a year.’ As was noted earlier, wealthy students don’t go to UCs because they’re the best school they were accepted into and can afford, but probably more in regards to the former, or personal stuff like location. But most of the wealthy students who attend UCLA or Berkeley can probably also afford to pay for each of their respective crosstown rivals: USC and Stanford.</p>

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<p>that assumes that private won’t also raise by 10k a year. If one doesn’t get scholarships, then a 22k/yr UC berkeley is still way cheaper than a 50k USC/Stanford w/o scholarships.</p>

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<p>What’s with this absurd generalization of “private schools”.</p>

<p>There are private universities far inferior to Berkeley and private universities that are better than Berkeley in almost every way imaginable.</p>

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<p>@caiacs</p>

<p>That’s right. Columbia is better, University of Redlanda is worse. Both cost about $40,000 a year (sticker price). What’s your point?</p>

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<p>I meant Redlands in my last post. Darned iPhone keyboard.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus
I tend to write in broad strokes. If there are majors in the sciences that are not in demand, there should not be policies pushing students toward them. That said, on the Cell and Molecular Biology issue, I don’t think you can just look at the employability of those with only undergraduate degrees. If 80% of undergraduates from CMB go to grad school, and if those with a masters or PhD in CMB are in great demand, then I think it makes sense to subsidize the major at an undergraduate level. I don’t know that this is the case–my point is to look beyond how many jobs are available for those with only a bachelor’s if a high number of graduates go to grad school.</p>

<p>As for engineering majors being capacity-limited… Perhaps additional funding would allow for increased capacity.</p>

<p>Continuing with my broad strokes comment, of course we should encourage students to pursue non-science but still in-demand majors like economics and applied mathematics. What I’m trying to move away from is the thousands of graduates in fields like English, history, sociology, psychology, political science, gender studies, art, etc., whose job prospects are minimal. They should be free to pursue those majors, but just not with quite as great a subsidy as they currently receive.</p>

<p>@webhappy
I’m not advocating raising tuition $10k on the poor. I’m advocating raising it $10k on the top 15% of UC undergraduates, who make over $180k per year and come from the top 5% of the general population. For these students, Berkeley at $20k is still cheaper than Stanford at $35k.</p>

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<p>webhappy you are pretty wrong about this:</p>

<p>“For the kids who come from really wealthy families, they would also choose a private school over UC-B (if they’re rich enough to not worry about the cost of tuition, they probably plan on coasting on their parents’ money and UC-B has a rep for having to work hard).”</p>

<p>You seem to think students who don’t care about money will always choose a public choose over private. Do you realize that Berkeley is ranked NUMBER ONE for Engineering and Chemistry and top 5 for almost everything else? There are many students who pick Berkeley over private schools including Ivies. I know some who have rejected Harvard/Yale to be here, and plenty of students who have rejected Cornell, Penn, Duke, etc. People on this forum seem to blow up “public” v “private” into these two absolute different categories (which I think caiacs was getting at), but a lot of people just don’t care at all. Going to Berkeley will give you a better education than many privates and even people with a lot of money WILL choose Berkeley.</p>

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<p>Well if in state tuition rises at Berkeley to around $45k, that’ll make me feel a lot better applying as an international applicant.</p>

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<p>^That won’t and shouldn’t happen. The idea behind in-state tuition is that the parents of students who grew up in California have been paying taxes for 18 years, contributing to the system, and are more likely to stay in California since they grew up here. Obviously no one could police such a system, but that’s the theory.</p>

<p>That said, it has been weakened in the past decade or so by things like AB540, which provides in-state tuition for all students who graduated from a California high school, regardless of citizenship, legal status, or likelihood to remain in California. In-state tuition has become more of a financial aid program than a discount for residents committed to California, if that makes sense.</p>

<p>I don’t want to get into a discussion of AB540, the DREAM Act, or illegal immigration. My point is that in-state tuition should only be given to students who have been citizens or legal residents of California for, say, the last 10 years, if it’s going to exist at all. Otherwise, it’s just a means to lower tuition for an additional class of people. You can argue that anyone and everyone should receive public financial aid, but I think it misses the point to give “in-state” tuition to students who are relative newcomers or do not have legal status, for whatever reason. Mine is as much a semantical argument as anything.</p>

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<p>State is broke, is raising tuition for all students - plus the extra $20K per year for out of state students, yet they are going to cut the out of state burden AND give grants to the illegal immigrants ?
Wow … This state is going to the dogs.
DREAM Act is just an insult to all the out of state and international students. UC claims that because it is subsidized by the state, those that do not contribute to the state tax/budget - should pay up, which I agree with. In that case, gimme back all the sales tax and income tax that I have paid to California, since you are requiring that I cough up with almost no benefits, while dedicating that money towards funding education for those who did not contribute to the state budget in form of income tax.
Self contradiction of the state residency and DREAM Act is just absurd.
One other thing. Think back to all the DREAM act demonstration/protests on campus - all of them had the Mexican flags on the frontline of those protest/demonstrations. What does that tell you about DREAM Act ? I don’t mean to be racist, nor am I a racist, but don’t you feel that the act was advocated by, and is a tool for only a certain group of people to have cheaper bill for their post secondary education?</p>

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<p>@nick_scheu: The thing is, it’s not an acceptable argument to say “Well, even with rising tuition costs, UCB is still cheaper than a private university, so middle class students should consider it a good option.” There’s a point where the price difference between UCs and private universities will become neglible if the UC system keeps on raising tuition fees. Students will go to privates if the difference between the UC and the private is perhaps <$5,000, because at a private university they can sometimes more personalized attention, smaller classroom sizes, and better quality of education. Also, there are some private universities that give generous financial aid to middle-class students, at a time when UCs are increasing tuition fees and still not giving financial aid to those same students. I know someone who got at least half their tuition covered by USC, but received no financial aid from the UCs. It would only make sense for middle-class students to go to the private university.</p>

<p>Also, when you say that in-state upper middle class students will still receive 75% coverage even with tuition hikes, I think that fact is misleading. Sure, they might get “covered” through unsubsidized ‘loans’ but that’s hardly coverage at all. You still have to pay those loans back after college plus interest. When I think coverage, I think of an actual grant or scholarship that covers your tuition, meaning you don’t have to pay for it, the state is.</p>

<p>Also, it seems that whenever there’s a debate about rising tuition costs, it seems international and out-of-state (OOS) students are the first ones to say “Well, look at how much WE have to pay for UC tuition, and we don’t receive any financial aid on top of it. In-state students should stop whining.” I find this argument to be ridiculous. Back when I was applying to college, I was considering applying to some state schools outside of CA. I realized that if I got into those OOS public universities I wouldn’t . I don’t know why out-of-staters who come to UCB would expect anything different.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t clear before. I’m not advocating a tuition hike for the middle class, I’m advocating one for the top 15% of UC undergraduates, which represent the top 5% of the general population.</p>

<p>Another part of our disagreement centers on the “sticker price” of a university. Because in-state tuition is $12,000 or so, people seem to think that it only costs $12,000 to provide an education. That’s not the case. The market price for a university education is $40,000 per year.</p>

<p>So when I say that right now the middle class gets at least a 75% discount from the cost of an education, it’s 100% true (well, rounded at least). A year’s tuition costs $40,000, but UC charges $14,000 at most (UCLA charges $12k). Any financial aid (on top of the automatic 75% subsidy) is just gravy.</p>

<p>Now of course middle class students get a discount from the full price of a private university. That’s why I’m only advocating such a drastic hike for the wealthiest students–they’re not only best able to afford it, they’re also the students who pay nearly the full sticker price at a private university.</p>

<p>As an example, I played around with the financial aid calculators for Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and USC. Stanford and USC use a similar estimator, but Cal’s and UCLA’s have fewer options. I kept the comparison as close as I could, but it’s not perfect. Anyway, here’s the total net cost of attendance for a student from a family earning $180k with $40,000 in cash and investments:</p>

<p>CURRENT
Stanford: $48,100
USC: $55,728
Cal: $32,634 (with tuition at $14,460 and room/board at $14,990)
UCLA: $30,156 (with tuition at $12,685 and room/board at $13,980)</p>

<p>PROPOSED (tuition at $20,000)
Cal: $38,174
UCLA: $37,471</p>

<p>So at minimum, UC would cost $10,000 less than a private university for students who, in the absence of a public university, would probably be attending a private. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me (although admittedly not as good as they have it now).</p>

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<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A decent percentage, but far from the majority, go on to medical or other professional school. However, the majority who do not face poor job and career prospects. Also, those who go for a PhD do not face a particularly good job market either; see [Education:</a> The PhD factory : Nature News](<a href=“http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html]Education:”>Education: The PhD factory | Nature) .</p>

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<p>History, political science, and psychology graduates find higher average pay than MCB (or IB) graduates. So do American studies, Asian studies, cognitive science, ethnic studies, interdisciplinary studies, legal studies, linguistics, media studies, and political economy graduates.</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Of course, job markets can change, so any policy attempting to chase job market demands with tuition subsidies for specific majors would require yearly maintenance. Remember that civil engineering and architecture went from boom (2005) to bust (2009) in just four years – if the state policy were to increase subsidies to induce students to study civil engineering and architecture in 2005, that would have just increased the number of unemployed civil engineers and architects when they graduated in 2009.</p>

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<p>However, one has to wonder about the financial habits of a household with an income of $180,000 but only $40,000 in cash and investments. $30,000 per year might still be “unaffordable” to such a household, since the low amount of cash and investments relative to their very high income indicates that they are spending almost every dollar they make.</p>

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<p>That’s really irrelevant to the point I’m making. If I had listed $1 million in cash and investments, that wouldn’t have made the cost at either the private or public universities any different. </p>

<p>The point of the exercise was to compare UC with private universities, whose tuition is set by the market. Both currently and under my proposal, even the wealthiest students receive a significant discount from the market price. Affordability is built-in to that market price, which is why I use it as a benchmark. If no one can afford a certain price, and therefore chooses not to pay it, the price will drop. </p>

<p>That said, you make good points on the major-based pricing issue. I’m not married to the idea; I just thought it was worth exploring. Based on what you’ve shown I agree that using the demand for a particular major as an element in determining the cost of tuition could not be practically implemented.</p>

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<p>Berkeley needs to completely revamp its image, and its approach to fundraising. It needs to focus 100% on endowment growth NOW. No more political stands, no more affirmative action, no more left wing agendas. The administration needs to do what is right for everyone at school, and that is to build a strong enough financial foundation that endowment returns can be plowed back into financial aid for all who need it. </p>

<p>No point “hoping” that the state will reinvest in higher ed. It won’t happen. Hope is not a strategy.</p>

<p>Unfortunately the Chancellor is pretty much useless at fundraising or in promoting the Unviersity as one of the top (private or public, who cares?) in the world. He has no connections, nor does he care to establish any.</p>

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<p>I totally agree with this. State, and the political agenda get only as much say as they are willing to contribute financially. Decline in state contribution (financial) should be met with decline influence from the state government
Berkeley should stop trying to be so politically correct - and focus on the excellence</p>