The raise in college tuitions

[Cassie]

unfair or no? your opinions please.

 

[John Bentley]

I guess it depends on which college, how much, and for what stated purpose. Some will be fair and necessary, and some not. Could you specify which college?

 

[crimresearch]

I saw a comment somewhere recently about a proprosed 'freeze' in college tuition....

Which made me think that the legislators in that state assumed that constantly climbing tuition was the natural order of things, and that any pause in the climb would require some unnatural intervention.

So I think it could be discussed as a general phenomena.

 

[John Bentley]

Rising costs (such as maintenance on buildings, teacher salary increases to meet cost of living increases, increases in fuel, food, etc., etc.) are unfortunately the natural order of things.

As I understand it, colleges have many funding sources besides tuition, but that is still a major source of income. In the case of colleges funded by trusts, donations, etc., tuition may be one of the only souces that can be adjusted to offset increased costs. So as a general statement, rising tuitions are fair unless they are way above the local inflation rate for the area of the country in which the college resides, and no reason is given as to why this should be so.

 

[drkitten]

As I understand it, colleges have many funding sources besides tuition, but that is still a major source of income. In the case of colleges funded by trusts, donations, etc., tuition may be one of the only souces that can be adjusted to offset increased costs. So as a general statement, rising tuitions are fair unless they are way above the local inflation rate for the area of the country in which the college resides, and no reason is given as to why this should be so.

Unfortunately, college tuition costs are usually well above the local inflation rates --- for example, the national average for tuition increase at public four-year universities in 2002-3 was about 10%, as was the average increase for 2003-4. There are a lot of reasons as to why this might be so, some of them (of course) hotly disputed.

One generally accepted reason is that tuition is one funding stream of many for most universities, especially for public universities -- the "actual" cost of educating a student at a typical four-year public university is usually much closer to the out-of-state tuition than it is to the in-state tuition. The difference is made up for by subsidies granted by the state legislature -- and the amount of state support, on average, has been dropping dramatically as state governments have been forced to deal with the budget ramifications of the recent economic downturn. If the cost of education is $15,000, of which the state "traditionally" pays half and the student pays half -- if the state suddenly drops its subsidy by $1,000 per student, the university will more or less be forced to raise tuition by that same $1,000 --- a 15% increase.

Similarly, the recent decline in the stock market has taken a hefty chunk out of the value of endowments and out of endowment income, which means that even private universities are forced to rely more on tuition as a method of cost coverage. (Again, $1000 less from the endowment means another $1000 from the student.) And the economics of giving have also not been good recently -- with donations down, the money has to come from tuition.

On the other hand, it has also been argued that salaries and costs for universities have been growing unreasonably fast, and are concommittantly driving up tuition. I haven't seen numbers on this to comment.

 

[LostAngeles]

unfair or no? your opinions please.

Where I'm currently attending, the fees (not tuition, if you're a resident, but it's really calling a rose a flower) have more than doubled recently, while classes have been cut. The current rumour/hypothesis as to why is that it's the only place that the Governator can squeeze money from since they won't let him kill TEH PUPPIES AND KITTIES.

Frankly, if they're going to keep raising them, then they can schedule a Linear Algebra class that isn't on Saturday or Tuesday nights for starters and they can find a way to keep the Calculus III class without the students either raising money to pay for someone to be registered up until census day or Calc II students slipping past the pre-requiste and registering up until census day.

Considering that it's a required course for a major and for certain subject transfers, you'd think they'd lower the bar for needed number of students.

But yeah, when we're paying more and they're cutting away classes or offering really crappy timing with the schedules, it sucks.

 

[kittynh]

A well educated population makes for a higher salaried population that you can TAX!!!

Having decent colleges and universities is imperative.

Raising the tuition is really bad. It makes it so that the middle class has a harder time attending. Poor, financial aid for you! Rich, well you can hack it. Middle Class, they make you take out loans which are a burden to pay back. Or you parents have to starve. saving money isn't much of an option. You pay what you can afford, and I know many a parent that has rushed out to get the new car before appying for financial aid. Also, having a smaller home to have more income to spend on college, big mistake because they take into account your mortgage payment.

Oddly enough, a study by Yale University found that in upper tier schools the number of middle class students was drastically reduced over the past 10 years. The rich and very poor now seem to make up most of the students at many top Ivy League universities. It's very sad. Also, lots of wonderful foreign students that pay full tuition!

I'm in the middle of paying $40,000 a year. Almost only a year to go!!!! Hurrah!!!! Then grad school

 

[drkitten]

A well educated population makes for a higher salaried population that you can TAX!!!

Having decent colleges and universities is imperative.

Only if you can afford the long-term planning and the lengthy startup time/costs. Many governments feel (correctly or not) that they can't. Having decent colleges and universities is an investment in the community; an investment that may or may not pay out (depending upon future events), and will almost certainly not pay out immediately.

There are also a number of other community investments that a government will feel pressured to make -- police protection, fire protection, national defense, health care, job creation, K-12 education. Most of these will also result in a better tax base (or at least prevent castastrophic loss of tax base), and will often have a faster effect than investing in higher ed.

 

[kittynh]

well and it isn't like private colleges are going any cheaper.

They are raising their tuitions too.

I think many European nations have well funded college programs, where someone can go practically for free.

In Kentucky, if you get a certain grade average in high school you can attend any state university at a very low price! My nephew is taking advantage of this, but fewer high school graduates in Kentucky choose to attend college than graduates in other states.

 

[gethane]

This is of course only anecdotal evidence, so worthless, but I worked at a university for 3 years. And I saw such tremendous waste I couldn't believe it. Although I was just one person, in one department, in one building, I saw waste approaching $50,000 in one year, just through my job alone.

Magnify that waste across even some of the departments, some of the buildings and it becomes a very large problem.

The waste that I am referring to was equipment purchasing of items that were 1) not needed (granted, this is just MHO) and 2) retired just a year or two after purchasing because another "system" was then decided upon.

 

[pgwenthold]

Unfortunately, college tuition costs are usually well above the local inflation rates --- for example, the national average for tuition increase at public four-year universities in 2002-3 was about 10%, as was the average increase for 2003-4. There are a lot of reasons as to why this might be so, some of them (of course) hotly disputed.

You have a nice discussion, but one thing that you neglect to mention, that is worth mentioning, is that despite these continual tuition increases, attendence still remains very high, and in many places is at near record levels. Hence, while there are always stories of how such and such a student can't afford to pay any more, the higher costs aren't making an impact on enrollment.

School administrators really have a hard time taking the claim that "students can't afford tuition increases" seriously when they are facing record high enrollments (requiring more personel and facilities).

Now, there is criticism of this position on the grounds that public institutions should be there to serve the public, and therefore need to be sufficiently "affordable". However, public institutions are regularly capping enrollment these days, anyway, so there is already a segment that is not being served (although it helps the university because quality of students is up). Second, all the public institutions with which I am familiar are still much cheaper than the private schools, and so it's not clear what "affordable" really means.

Given the size of classes at my school, it's hard to argue that it is not generally affordable.

 

[drkitten]

You have a nice discussion, but one thing that you neglect to mention, that is worth mentioning, is that despite these continual tuition increases, attendence still remains very high, and in many places is at near record levels. Hence, while there are always stories of how such and such a student can't afford to pay any more, the higher costs aren't making an impact on enrollment.

I'm not entirely sure that this is relevant for anything other than the explicitly for-profit universities such that the University of Phoenix. For example, rush hour traffic is usually quite bad in most major cities, which suggests that there are a lot of cars on the road. However, that's doesn't suggest to me -- or, indeed, to almost anyone else -- that motor vehicle licencing fees should be raised. If you look at how an arm of the government (such as the typical DMV) is supposed to be run, the idea is that the fees should cover the cost of providing the service, and specifically not that the fees should be treated as a way to gouge huge amounts of money from the clients lined up to use the services.

I can only imagine what my local government officials would be saying if the DMV decided, on its own authority, to raise the fees to register cars by ten percent each year, and then justified the raises by pointing out that people are still willing to pay. Most of my local government aren't even permitted to raise fees, even when the department is demonstrably running at a loss, without an extensive round of public hearings -- and often not even then.

Similarly, the University of PickAState has an implicit (and often explicit) mandate to educate the citizens of that state; the fact that they can get away with raising tuition without decreasing enrollment does not necessarily mean that they are justified in doing so. As an arm of the state government, they're in exactly the same position as the DMV with regard to fees.

As for private universities, like Harvard, they're mostly non-profit organizations that were ostensibly created for "educational" purposes. For the most part, they are granted various tax exemptions and privileges in exchange for the service they provide to the local communities. Again, the idea of rapaciously charging students "all the traffic will bear" isn't part of that agreement.

The question isn't whether universities can raise tuition year after year at a rate greatly exceeding inflation. They demonstrably can. The question is whether it is fair that they do -- or in other words, if they should. If enough people decided, for whatever reason, that they shouldn't be able to, the state/local/federal government could easily step in and change that. (If Harvard doesn't want to have legislative oversight of its educational provisions, then it can certainly re-incorporate as a for-profit organization.)

 

[CFLarsen]

I've said it before, and I am happy to say it again:

In Denmark, you don't pay to go to college.

In Denmark, you get paid to go to college.

 

[pgwenthold]

I'm not entirely sure that this is relevant for anything other than the explicitly for-profit universities such that the University of Phoenix. For example, rush hour traffic is usually quite bad in most major cities, which suggests that there are a lot of cars on the road. However, that's doesn't suggest to me -- or, indeed, to almost anyone else -- that motor vehicle licencing fees should be raised.

The problem is, you've turned the argument around. It's not that the increased enrollment means that tuition should be increased (see my comment about how there are other ways to regulate it, such as increasing standards for admission), but it does mean that objections that students can't afford to pay higher tuition ring hollow.

And indeed, tuition increases at PublicU, at least in my state, must be approved by the legislature. We go through it every year. The rational for the increased tuition is that the state support is not keeping up with the cost demands required to operate the institution, and therefore we need to generate more funding through tuition. Students object to the tuition increase on the grounds they can't afford it, while showing up in the university in record numbers. Their claims that they can't afford it are inconsistent with the fact that more people can apparently afford it than ever.

Similarly, the University of PickAState has an implicit (and often explicit) mandate to educate the citizens of that state;

I already addressed this. A university who is capping enrollment is already not fulfilling this mandate to educate the citizens of the state. There are already minimum requirements in terms of qualifications, academic and financial. By increasing the financial demands, the university is able to maintain more reasonable academic standards to serve the state.

 

[drkitten]

The problem is, you've turned the argument around. It's not that the increased enrollment means that tuition should be increased (see my comment about how there are other ways to regulate it, such as increasing standards for admission), but it does mean that objections that students can't afford to pay higher tuition ring hollow.

Well, I may have misunderstood you. But the problem with the line of reasoning that you're following is that it assumes that students are a uniform and homogenous mass -- that the students who are showing up in droves are indeed representative of the students who are complaining about unaffordable tuition.

And I don't see this as being the case. The problem is, simply, that demand for university education is increasing substantially. In a traditional free-market environment (U. Phoenix, for example), this does indeed suggest that prices are too low. But when you're talking about public service, the normal supply/demand curve arguments simply don't apply. The people with the greatest need for the service are precisely the ones who are squeezed out due to the increased demand.

 

[kittynh]

I've said it before, and I am happy to say it again:

In Denmark, you don't pay to go to college.

In Denmark, you get paid to go to college.

the only question I have is why so many foreign students with "free" educations come to the US to attend college and grad school?

Also, my daughters grad school will be free and she will get a nice stipend. If you do well with the first 4 years, the Phd. gets paid for.

But I've been confused at the number of European students. Is an Ivy League education and grad school education that much better in the US? Do Yale and Harvard really carry that much more weight than Dusseldorf U.?

 

[CFLarsen]

the only question I have is why so many foreign students with "free" educations come to the US to attend college and grad school?

Adventure. Trying something new. It is not, however, because American colleges generally are considered particularly better.

But I've been confused at the number of European students. Is an Ivy League education and grad school education that much better in the US? Do Yale and Harvard really carry that much more weight than Dusseldorf U.?

I vent to yale, too. I yust got out yesterday.

Sure, the name of Yale and especially Harvard carries a lot of weight. I am not sure about the academic standard, though.

 

[kittynh]

well for $40,000 a year I guess people in Europe are enjoying the Euro exchange rate!

I met two German students, and I asked, "don't you get a free education?" They were like, sure, but hey if mom and dad will spring it who cares? Plus they pointed out that they would improve their English, and the USA was farther from mom and dad!

But for $40,000 a year! Boy, the parents must really want the kids out of the country!

 

[CFLarsen]

well for $40,000 a year I guess people in Europe are enjoying the Euro exchange rate!

I met two German students, and I asked, "don't you get a free education?" They were like, sure, but hey if mom and dad will spring it who cares? Plus they pointed out that they would improve their English, and the USA was farther from mom and dad!

But for $40,000 a year! Boy, the parents must really want the kids out of the country!

I got one word for you: "Kinderunfreundlichkeit".

 

[drkitten]

I got one word for you: "Kinderunfreundlichkeit".

You should do something about that hair-ball problem of yours.