<p>"...elite institutions uniquely prepare their undergraduates with a broad education in the liberal arts, enabling them to think critically and to lead culturally enriched lives."</p>
<p>From today's Wall Street:<br>
Andrew</a> Manshel: How Top Colleges Squeeze Parents Dry and Spend the Tuition Money - WSJ.com</p>
<p>No real surprises in this, but the last paragraph sums it all up nicely.</p>
<p>I’m glad that someone gave me a refresher of basic supply and demand principles. </p>
<p>I could have written that. You probably could have written that. Most of the people who will reply to this thread could have written that.</p>
<p>you could probably say the same thing for most opinion pieces - but it sums things up nicely. “what’s oft been said, but ne’er so well expressed.”</p>
<p>I agree, QwertyKey, but have to wonder if those most notable for their posts on the “Harvard–Had No Idea Things Were This Bad” thread would agree that Amherst falls as an equal to the financially super rich institutions as mentioned.</p>
<p>I think it’s a great article. It’s honest.</p>
<p>It’s common sense, or at least Econ 101.</p>
<p>It’s common sense for the schools…for the students and the parents…not sure about that.</p>
<p>That article should have been written BEFORE the financial crisis and the loss of endowments by colleges. I’m not saying that colleges (or their financial managers) are not responsible for straits they find themselves in. But the solution the author proposes won’t fly. Raise the endowment payout? Some are doing so and risking more financial problems down the road.</p>
<p>Completely agree with Qwerty lol; it’s just Micro 101 in terms of colleges…</p>
<p>But it’s like kids and sports. If your kid wants to be competitive on the field or ice or?, the pressure to play all year long is fairly strong. However, the push back to not compete doesn’t change the reality that you MIGHT not be as competitive. What is morally right? Healthy for the growth of children? On and on. But, who blinks first to actually right the ship? I have no answer.</p>
<p>My problem with this blurb (as it’s not really an article) is that there is no charge to parents/consumers about pushing back or curing the “ill” or even if it IS an ill; It merely answers a fundamental question that somewhat condescends to readers, especially those who would be reading WSJ in the first place. And it offers as solution something that even I know is bad for long term financial health - spending my savings.</p>
<p>Well WSJ ain’t what it used to be.</p>
<p>good article</p>
<p>“It’s common sense for the schools…for the students and the parents…not sure about that.”</p>
<p>If it’s not common sense for the students or parents, they should read the first 10 pages of an intro Econ book. If it’s not inherently obvious (though it should be for anyone who hasn’t spent their life under a rock), it can at least be learned in Chapter 1.</p>
<p>It’s not common sense for students and parents because emotions are involved.</p>
<p>People don’t always use common sense. Paying fifty thousand a year or more for school may not be common sense.</p>
<p>Does anyone else notice that the columnist portrays professors in the same manner that many CEO’s are portrayed (“They do no work and get incredible pay and benefits”)?</p>
<p>Well, none of the parents I speak to from my kids’ high school don’t follow any of this…endowment payouts or how colleges decide who gets $$ or why colleges set tuition and fees the way they do.</p>
<p>So it’s not something I think most people in our country follow or are aware of.</p>
<p>Predictably, the article makes ‘labor’–the professors that actually do the work–into the bad guys, or at least the recipients of ill-gotten gains.</p>
<p>Here’s the best line:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ah yes…they’re poor and underpaid, but the fact that the work is ‘satisfying’ more than makes up for it.</p>
<p>I wonder how many other professions do we romanticize being ‘underpaid’? Certainly not Wall Street investment bankers–but I guess their work is not satisfying enough so they need ridiculously high salaries to compensate.</p>
<p>But the subtle message of the article is that the hard-earned money that you send as tuition payments goes to a small handful of senior professors who are lazy (teach 3 or fewer courses) and can never be fired (once tenure has been achieved). And those outrageous salaries–they’re over $150,000! What kind of work are they doing?</p>
<p>Watch out you investments bankers! You’re salary is high enough that you’re full pay–and your hard earned $400,000 bonus–why, it’s going to that lazy, tenured professor who should be more than happy living on peanuts with her satisfying work and all. What is this country coming to?!</p>
<p>While I do realize that the article targets ‘elite’ institutions, the reality is that most readers will associate the claims here with colleges and universities in general.</p>
<p>And they won’t associate that $150,000 salary with a small handful of senior professors at these elite colleges but with college instructors as a whole.</p>
<p>So readers will tend to think of college professors, in general, as lazy, overpaid invidivuals with lifetime employment who enjoy luxurious benefits at the expense of other hard-working people.</p>
<p>But the reality is that most college instructors make well-less than $150K.</p>
<p>After 17 years as a college professor, and before that 5 years in a Ph.D program, and before that 4 years in an undergraduate program (with two years in between doing something different), after several teaching awards, publishing at least once in the top 5 journals in my field, teaching about 100 students a semester with no TAs, sometimes reading close to 1000 pages of student writing in a semester, numerous committee assignments, supervising undergraduate and master theses, etc. etc. I am middle-aged, about to send my oldest to college, and receive the grand total of less than $55,000 a year in salary. And I’m one of the more highly paid members of my department (about the middle for my department).</p>
<p>But yeah, at least it’s satisfying work.</p>
<p>So how much does the author think a senior professor should get paid? 60-70K like a fresh BS graduate in Engineering?</p>
<p>And how many courses does the author think a professor should teach per semester? Maybe 10, that would only be 4 lectures per day.</p>
<p>And that million dollar retirement account? Far too much. 250K is enough for any academic. That’ll add 10K a year to basic social security.</p>
<p>The author seems to see supply and demand everywhere, except in the value of top academics that make a top institution.</p>
<p>So what will the future bring? If our society is increasingly comprised of haves / have-nots and fewer in the middle, that would suggest that the costliest, most prestigious schools will continue to charge high rates. What schools will the middle class (e.g. < $100K, let’s say) afford?</p>
<p>" am middle-aged, about to send my oldest to college, and receive the grand total of less than $55,000 a year in salary. "</p>
<p>Where are you? Out in the boonies?</p>