Should College Tuition Vary By Major, Based On the College's Costs For the Major? (qz.com) 537
Registered Coward v2 writes: Vault, in a blog post, discusses whether colleges should base tuition on the actual cost of providing the education rather than on a one-price-for-all-credits basis. Their argument is based on a Quartz article that shows engineering and science degrees cost schools a lot more than liberal arts degrees for a variety of reasons, including higher professor salaries and equipment/infrastructure costs. As a result, those majors are subsidized by the cheaper ones even though they also have the highest earnings in aggregate. The new paper on the topic estimates that it typically costs the universities more than $62,000 to educate an engineer (including professor salaries, facilities fees, and administrative costs), while an English or business major costs nearly half that. Quartz has a chart embedded in its report that shows the cost of education by major at the University of Florida. There's also another chart that shows the earnings of past graduates, up to age 45, minus the cost of each degree. According to the paper, even though it costs more for an engineering degree, it pays off.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Community college and state colleges should be free, like it is in civilized countries.
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I agree here.
Differentiating the cost depending on type of education would cause only those that already have a good economic situation to actually pick the more expensive educations. Especially some educations in technology and biology may be a lot more expensive than an education in art or sociology due to the need for qualified equipment and material.
Subsidize via Taxes (Score:5, Informative)
Switching Majors (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only should the costs be the same but the article nicely explains why: those getting science, engineering etc. degrees generally earn more and so will pay more tax. This extra tax should be more than enough to offset the cost of their education and is also a good way to justify why higher salaries should attract a higher rate of tax.
Eighty Percent of students switch majors at least once in the United States. The more of an obstacle you create to that, the less likely you are to have people studying what they want to study. Also, the more expensive you make it to teach chemistry or computer science, the fewer kids will take a side class in chemistry or computer science.
There would be some advantages, though. It would make it easier to take a few early, basic courses where they take one professor and have 80+ students in the class. And it would make it easier for someone to get a minimal degree in something that doesn't cost the school much to run. But that's a small set of people you're helping, at the expense of STEM education and the ability to switch majors, etc...
The best solution is probably to have a few inexpensive-degree-only schools for people who absolutely know they want to major in Shakespeare, but still keep tuition flat across majors or relatively flat at most schools.
Wrong Focus (Score:3)
The biggest problem I can see is that Universities have become status symbols for the states and the employees of the University.
The focus isn't on providing a quality education to the students of that state, but on Bling. Bigger stadiums, prestigious facility, glimmering campuses, etc. Eighty percent of the students at a university do not benefit from these things one iota.
What use is it to your average student have Nobel Prize winner at your University? They likely only "teach" one or two classes and thos
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The whole point in getting a degree is Credentialism. So a more prestigious University gives a shinier credential.
Quality education? Be careful. If they catch you acting like you actually want to know stuff they'll accuse you of being a nerd. If you take 5 years to get a four year degree because you take extra courses that don't match your 'degree track' your counselor will be upset about it because it will statistically count against the school.
Re:Wrong Focus (Score:5, Interesting)
Most superstar Research professors bring in money through NSF grants rather than use College money (besides their salary). Those grants are used to pay the college for the tuition of the grad students working for the professor so the college actually makes money from superstar researchers. It also helps to attract undergrads to a college who are attracted by being able to attend a class with a Noble laureate.
Similarly large college teams make money from the ticket sales and are net profit for the colleges.
College education costs are going up because they are beginning to reflect the real cost. Earlier academics were underpaid for their worth (they were paid in respect) and govts picked up a large portion of the tab for colleges (these direct grants to colleges as opposed to research grants are disappearing)
Also with a large strata of society which never went to college beginning to go to college a lot more scholarships are being handed out. This is compensated for by charging higher tuition to the rest so the sticker price of college tuition is going up. Many of these students have gone through low quality high schools and are not ready for college and end up taking 6 years to pass what used to be 4 year college hence also driving up their costs. Sad part is even those who could graduate in 4 take 6 so as to enjoy the party atmosphere of college and these folks are not on scholarships so end up paying for 6 years all of it at the higher sticker price.
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You were correct up to that point. The cost of tuition for a student is about the same as the resources that he or she consumes. So adding more students doesn't cause the college to "make money". It just causes them to have more students. Even if one extra student doesn't cause an increase in the number of faculty required to teach them, by the time you fill a lab with students, you'll end up bringing in extra resources, making the bene
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Dr. Richard Smalley taught Chem 102 at Rice. (Nobel Prize, Buckminnister Fullerene). his Co-Laureate (Dr. Curl) taught freshman chemistry lab
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Private schools can choose to set tuition however they want, that's one of the perks of being private. But, if you receive public funds, aka tax money, tuition should be fair to all students, not how much some administrator can gouge out of you. I agree with some of the other posters, that if you're a US citizen then a US college education should be free as it is likely that all citizens with benefit from your education. Society receives a huge benefit from public K-12 schools and if there's a benefit to
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
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While that is funny...
I'd much prefer that college was free - like it should be - and is in most first world countries - and that instead, the sponsored state/federal institutions didn't offer feminist dance theory or gender studies - and that you could instead elect to go to a private institution for some crap like that.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
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the workload from college is often high enough that getting a part-time job would make their education and performance suffer.
It's really hard to be sympathetic about that when I, and most of my classmates, worked part-time jobs all through college. Also, summer jobs. Seriously, in most cases, working a part-time job just means you party less, not that your education performance suffers.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
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One thing you completely missed in the above is the rise of the administrative class in education. They cost more than teachers do, and is a large part of why college is so expensive.
With regard to "screaming conservatives" I think you'll find that most of them object to basket weaving 101, gender studies, etc, rather than education in general. Tennessee (even our democrats are usually on the conservative side of various debates) offers two years of community college for no cost. We pay for that mostly
Re: No (Score:4, Informative)
It's really not. I've seen too many people in college that really have no aptitude for anything, come out with a lot of debt, and then we have to hear about how they're overburdened with debt and it's somebody else's fault.
Besides, tuition is already very heavily subsidized in the US. When at community college, I recall seeing a Korean student's receipt and she paid something like $9000 for 12 credit hours whereas mine cost $700 for the same.
$700 was at the time (2004'ish) enough to make you say "well, let me think about it" vs "it's free so let's go to college whether it makes sense or not" but not so much that you needed a loan.
I also think we should get rid of student loans because they put upward pressure on tuition rates, making the super expensive colleges even more expensive even after the subsidies.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because school is free doesn't mean you don't have to get accepted. Thats the way it works in those countries that have higher admission standards. Of course part of those higher standards are likely driven by the fact that they get more applications because more people can afford to go, meaning they end up turning away a higher percentage of people.
The thing is, if state schools are free, private ones cant cost what they do now or they would have practically no students... or only students who couldn't get into the state schools. Prices would have to fall to the point where the school could show that the outcome for student is worth the cost of paying tuition in order to attract the best students.
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And some obscure useless degrees should come at a price defined by Graham's number.
More trades / tech schools are needed and not 4 ye (Score:5, Insightful)
More trades / tech schools are needed and they should not be locked in to the 4 year system.
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I think the cost should be inversely proportional to the stupidity of the degree, and the likelihood you'll come out of the course knowing less than you did before you started it. For example a course in mathematics or physics should be free. A course in feminist dance theory or gender studies should cost at least $500,000, possibly more.
This is funny, but it also points out a fallacy that a lot of people make about what going to college is about. University is not a trade school. Much of what we're trying to teach, even in 4-year state schools' engineering departments is how to think and how to evaluate a breadth of ideas. If you just want to take classes on how to program, go find a MOOC and build experience by contributing to an open-source project. Being at University should not only give you skills, but it should also teach you how to
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm fine with that - at the least I think our world has changed since the high school diploma became the de facto public education cutoff and I believe that we would benefit collectively from having public education at least through associates/trade school.
But the expectation of what you get for free needs to come way down. There are so many amenities on college campuses today that are just not necessary to the educational mission. I don't mind people using their own money to pay for these, but I think we'd need to take a serious look at how tax dollars are spent if it becomes entirely publicly funded. At the end of the day, you'd be subsidizing the entertainment of the top 50-ish % of the population that actually continues school after high school.
Re: No (Score:2, Insightful)
But that would devalue my degree. It'd also increase housing prices.
I say no!
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Community college and state colleges should be free, like it is in civilized countries.
I'd like to se that as well, perhaps with a sliding scale where your GPA determines how much of a tuition discount you get. First year us free and then on above some number it's free, and so on done until failing students pay full freight. Of course, you'd probably need to have some forced curve so grade inflation wouldn't make everyone an A student. Of course, if it's totally free then that would increase demand and costs to the point where you'd have to make admissions that much harder. That is not necess
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Perhaps they should be harder to get into. There is no reason that someone who is going to be a hairdresser or a sales clerk needs a college degree. Ability, not money, should determine which of our population is educated to a higher level.
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Perhaps they should be harder to get into. There is no reason that someone who is going to be a hairdresser or a sales clerk needs a college degree. Ability, not money, should determine which of our population is educated to a higher level.
I agree, and that is what we see at US schools where state programs offer free tuition - the applicant pool gets better as students who might have gone elsewhere apply there because of the free tuition. Unfortunately, the college degree has replaced the high school diploma as the base qualifier for many jobs; even if it's simply because so many more people are getting them now than say 20 years ago.
We've also undervalued skilled trades to the point that educational programs in them have languished although
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Except....not all students are educated equally. Students from inner cities and the sticks do not generally get a good education because the tax base to support it is not there. When they get to college, they need remedial work but that isn't really a substitute and they continue to struggle. Not educating them means they will be a drag on the rest of society, a notion that has never entered the head of a libertarian or conservative Republican. The Democrats flip the other way and think gender studies is so
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I like what someone suggested above- cost is determined based on your grade point average. Maintain all A's and it's free. Have all C's or a C average and you pay full price. If you can't maintain a high grade, perhaps you shouldn't be in school.
I also think the USA should do away with socialized sport. College sports moves focus away from academics in Universities and moves it on athletics, giving scholarships and grants to people who really don't belong in University and are taking the place of someon
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I also think the USA should do away with socialized sport. College sports moves focus away from academics in Universities and moves it on athletics, giving scholarships and grants to people who really don't belong in University and are taking the place of someone who could actually use a degree. The socialized sports program is an unnecessary distraction from learning and education, what universities are supposed to be about.
I disagree here . While the major revenue sports get a lot of publicity, schools offer many other sports that have real student athletes. College is about learning how to function in the world beyond just learning a skill, and sports provide a lot of experiences that are as valuable as what yo lean in the classroom. personally, when I look at a resume i give preference to someone whose played a team sport or been involved in other activities beyond class such as writing for the school paper, etc. over someo
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C'mon, man - I'm not going to bullshit you and claim that the ivory tower perfectly mirrors what the working world wants; but college athletics have nothing to do with anything in the real world.
College sports is a money-grab, period. Sure, the sports at bottom-tier schools may not directly bring in much revenue - But take a look at what any college sends its alums when begging for money. New library? One pa
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College has long been a kind of social finishing arena, with education as kind of a secondary accomplishment for many.
It wasn't that long ago that nobody needed a professional degree, even for a lot of occupations we would assume were necessary. In a lot of places you could practice law if you passed the bar exam, and a law degree wasn't required. Even basic medicine wasn't that complicated because there weren't many things that could be done anyway besides give pain killers, set bones and close and clean
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we first find out why college is so expensive and fix that?
If you think it's expensive now, just wait until it's free.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
And the answer is almost always "administrative overhead". Some universities have more new administrators than new instructors. . .
Several Links:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
https://www.thestreet.com/stor... [thestreet.com]
Baumol's Cost Disease (was: Re:No ) (Score:3)
The real answer is Baumol's Cost Disease [wikipedia.org], and it's why all services get expensive faster than overall average inflation. It's also why products get expensive slower than overall inflation. $6 T-Shirts at Sears are cheaper, inflation adjusted, than they were when I was a kid in the 70s (6 bucks today was 2 bucks in 1981 and pennies before 1974). Meanwhile, have you hired a couple of musicians for a wedding lately? Freaking expensive. Education is a service, not a product, and there have only been the slighte
You mean "forced to pay, whether you attend or not (Score:2)
Professors don't work for free. Heat and air conditioning aren't free. Network admins and admissions staff don't work for free. There are three options:
A) Enslave professors, network admins, etc, to reduce costs.
B) Those who get the education pay for what they get.
C) Force everyone to pay for it, whether they go to school or not.
Currently we have a mix of (b) and (c) - people who go to school pay (back) some of the cost. People who can't amd don't go to school for whatever reason are forced to pay some of
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Sure. And lots of people think that C) is a perfectly reasonably option. You don't have to agree of course with any of their ideas of course, but they tend to think things like:
* A better educated population benefits society as a whole. So those who don't attend university benefit when other do - they get better doctors, better engineers designing and building their infrastructure and so on.
* The part of the role of government is the pooling and allocation of resources. Pooling some of everyone's money so t
Taxes (Score:2)
You are advocating (c), force everyone to pay for college, whether or not they attend.
This sounds fair when you look at taxes. Those earning more pay more tax and usually at a higher rate too and generally a university degree leads to higher paid jobs. Even those who make lots of money without a degree e.g. Bill Gates etc. need to be able to hire people with degrees to do so so they still benefit from having those people available. Indeed all of society benefits from having nurses, teachers etc. with degrees even though these are not high paying jobs.
Indeed the UK which recently tripled
Re:You mean "forced to pay, whether you attend or (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have kids, but I pay taxes for other people's kids to go to grade school for free. I have paid those taxes all my life, and I get nothing for it myself. In fact, much of my property tax on my house goes to pay for local education. But I am perfectly happy with this because education should be free in a civilized society. It is too important to to make it something people have to go into debt for. If we were not spending around $600 billion a year on bombing the middle east and occupying the rest of the world with military bases, it would be very easy to make community college free for everyone.
You get quite a bit out of those taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
You get a better society, a society where your neighbours' kids have a better understanding of the world, a better future, better job prospects, less likelihood to rob you, and a long great etcetera.
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I get nothing for it myself
That is not really true. Government by mere existence protects property. People with more property use more of the government protection. I am not just talking about homes. The financial instruments you own, the retirement funds you have saved, etc are protected by government enforcing contract law and settling civil disputes. People don't write rubber checks a lot because, they are scared they will end up in jail. It makes all businesses efficient, that improves your stock market returns and improves your
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This. The financial situation of a student or his parents should not impact the choice of education the student makes.
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We don't need 70% tax to cover it, just stop wasting it on dropping freedom around the world
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The current administration suggested that, but the left seems to have problems reducing our role in NATO.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah because its NATO operations that are costing us so much money compared to the wars we have stared all on our own, or the 6.5 trillion dollars that the Pentagon can't account for... or all the money spent on the F-35 the plane nobody wanted.
It has nothing to do with the fact that NATO is all thats standing between our presidents Dom, Master Putin, and the Scandinavian countries he really wants to invade.
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Apparently the Left has a problem with name-calling as well. If objectifying women or minorities is bad, so is objectifying the competition.
Hint: this is why we got Trump. . . [spectator.co.uk]
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If that's not in your life plan. How about the fact that with accessible education you raise the average IQ of our society? That means the total number of inbreds at the polls would be far fewer, our society would make more informed decisions, and we'd end this race to the bottom.
For me, it's worth a few % tax for my kids to go through college and for them to not have to deal with the b
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A capable workforce that will continue to provide for a decent society and actually might advance the cost of living? That sure as hell beats just people capable of menial work where actual economic booms don't happen.
Look at the southeast part of the US. Education isn't common there. Neither do booms happen. The entire region has been in a depression for decades. Now look at CA, NYC, Austin, and other areas where there are educated people. Said areas are booming. Notice the correlation?
Yes, you may
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
So I'm taking "Human Anatomy and Physiology II" in a summer session and one of the Ladies in my class has a 13 year old daughter who's too young to stay home all day on her own and way too old for daycare. The lady asks the instructor if her Daughter can sit in on the class because of the above and the Instructor agrees. In lecture she asks a few intelligent questions, in lab she dissects her fetal pig like everyone else. Eventually we come to the first hour exam, the Instructor hesitantly hands her a test and she get a C on it. At this point she's pretty much a student like everyone else, she finishes the course with a C+. The Instructor, who's the Science Dept Chairman, get her retro-actively enrolled, credits her for the course, and transfers the credit back to her middle school.
In 1980 that was pretty amazing, now most Colleges have dual enrolment programs so High School Students can get College credits before they graduate. The confidence in public education has deteriorated to the point a High School Graduate with out being able to check "Some College" on a job app is really in YMMV territory..
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing eh? No police or fire protection? No water or electricity? No libraries? No defense or disaster services? Airports? Railroads? Nominally representative government? (Well, nothing is perfect.)
Sucks to be you, I suppose.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually if you are in the 35% bracket you need the police and the military to protect you from being eaten alive by the masses. So most of the govt budget is spent on you. Social spending is nothing compared to the law enforcement and military budget.
You're making 6 figures and you get nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. nobody has killed you and taken your stuff
2. your savings [denominated in dollars] isn't subject to rampant inflation
3. your job exists because of a large, diverse, functional economy
4. no other country has invaded ours and destroyed our economy
If you think #1-#4 are easy, then please point me to the other country which manages all of these at lower taxes.
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Colleges and universities have a lot of waste. For those who had graduated you probably will get notes saying they need your support to build a new building. While during peak class times 20% of the rooms are being occupied. And would be much cheaper to renavate then build. Especially because of most majors with today's technology you just need a spot for wi-fi and perhaps a place to charge.
Sure there will need to be some lab areas with some specialty room requirements but for most degrees of study most
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Best comment on this post.
Perhaps there should be a mandatory high school class covering how much college costs, the actual cost when interest and minimum payments are made, and average earning potential of various degrees (gender studies vs engineering, for example). And a little education on how permanent student loan debt is would be nice too: it survives bankruptcy, and is near impossible to get "forgiven" with processes politicians keep talking about.
A lot like the "truth in lending disclosure" you ge
Include all costs (Score:5, Insightful)
If the university has any research, the overhead from funded research will help offset the cost of undergraduate education, as well as graduate.
Then, there's the costs of athletic programs, Don't forget that, and assign it to the right departments...
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If the university has any research, the overhead from funded research will help offset the cost of undergraduate education, as well as graduate.
Why would a university do this instead of using those funds to do more research? This suggestion makes no sense.
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>Then, there's the costs of athletic programs,
For college, athletics should be an entirely separate organization. They should have to pay for the rights to use the school's name, and otherwise be self-supporting. With all of the ticket sales, merchandizing, tie-ins to professional sports, etc - that should make it a profit center. Athletic scholarships should likewise be paid from the athletic organization, paid directly to the student as an offset to normal college costs. Nets the same to the schola
Engineering degrees already cost more. (Score:5, Interesting)
They already charge more for Engineering degrees. It's called "lab fees" rather than tuition. Another good one is "Engineering major surcharge" that I had to pay.
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I always wondered about library costs, STEM at least at the undergraduate level doesn't actually need one.
True, you can get all the research papers you need online these days, just log in with your uni id to get access. If you've ever wondered why it costs $$$ to get the same papers when you're out of university, well the STEM journal publishers give all university students free access, obviously...
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How can you miss the opportunity to use the the "chips" instead of "fries" and be english for a minute there?
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It's normal in other countries that charge too. In the UK the tuition fees are set per course and the university can decide how much they want to charge. There is a cap but it's very high.
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If you think the cap is high, just look at what they charge overseas students (and yes, STEM courses are much higher)
http://www.undergraduate.study... [cam.ac.uk]
Not all colleges! (Score:2, Interesting)
This is just one data point - the University of Florida system. It says nothing about how much education costs at other colleges/universities.
Logically, education cost should be highly correlated to class size. Does UoF have smaller engineering than English classes by chance? That would explain the difference. But at the university I went to, English classes were the small and labor-intensive ones.
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Your English classes were labor-intensive - and I also saw a basket-weaving class working particularly hard and dextrously.
I'm sure the industriousness of all participants in their respective English and basket-weaving will weigh in during their job-search to offset the fact that they pursued those majors.
They already do (Score:5, Informative)
Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
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^^ This. Professors who earn high salaries do so because they bring in significant grant money. I know the public wants to believe that the engineering professor teaches 1 class a week using notes from 1975 and earns three times what the English professor, on the cutting edge of knowledge and feelings, writing a very important novel that will change the world, makes. But the truth is that the engineering professor has $2M in grants and half goes to the university; he covers every penny of us $200k salary
But... (Score:2, Insightful)
People in technical majors are going to be subsidizing liberal arts majors the rest of their lives, why not let them subsidize technical majors while they're in college?
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Sure, but without movies and music and websites created by liberal arts majors, there's no need for 95% of electrical engineers anymore.
"Should" implies a moral judgement (Score:3)
The word "should" in the headline seems to imply a moral judgement. I don't see a moral case here - the different colleges are free to try different pricing schemes and see what the market bears. If the market isn't healthy enough to pick and choose winners, then lets concentrate on fixing the market.
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OK, but we have many non-theoretical markets that do a pretty good job at being efficient. I've heard some pretty good arguments about some industries, like health care, where it is claimed that it will never resemble a free market and so we should control supply and costs differently. I might buy that, but not for colleges.
Apparently the authors never heard of lab fees (Score:2, Flamebait)
How much in lab fees does a typical liberal arts major pay for?
Majority of college cost is not for education (Score:5, Interesting)
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No kidding. My dorm. for my first three years, was small and tight, with no choice whatsoever of furniture: it was a fitted compartment for two people. Built-in pull-out bed (de-facto sofa by day), set of drawers with mirror, built-in U-desk with two positions and fixed lights.
Looked at the same dorms now: the desks are gone, the beds are mobile, and you can get a single (it was only doubles in my day. . .)
Likewise, the cafeteria now offers Vegan, Gluten-Free, International, Kosher, and Halal as everyday
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And there is a separate room and board charge for those dorms and cafeteria. This article is about tuition.
It's overhead that has risen the cost of education, not the cost of professors
It's primarily
1) Sports - the "famous" football and basketball teams have coaches and staff paid in the millions/year. Even with teams that are not "top tier", the coaches are paid extremely well. http://deadspin.com/infographi... [deadspin.com]
2) Administrators - University administrators are now being paid several times what top professors get. University President/Chancellor/whatever you want to call it is now
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Please at least do SOME research.
OK, let's do SOME research, shall we?
The Huge schools with huge expenses make huge money.
Only a small minority of them. How about we listen to the NCAA, who probably knows more about college sports (and is an advocate for them) than just about any organization. Here's what they say [ncaa.org].
Only 24 FBS schools generated more revenue than they spent in 2014, according to the NCAA Revenues and Expenses of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report. That figure jumped from 20 schools in 2013, but it has remained relatively consistent through the past decade.
[...] Those 24 schools, at the median, generated about $6 million in net revenue. [...] But those 24 schools are a minority. Many more schools saw their expenses exceed their revenue, requiring their colleges and universities to cover the shortfall. The median FBS school spent $14.7 million to help subsidize its athletics department in 2014, up from a little more than $11 million in 2013. That level of spending isnâ(TM)t unique to FBS schools â" median Football Championship Subdivision and non-football schools spent roughly $11 million to help fund athletics in 2014.
In other words, out of the 128 FBS schools, around 15-20% actually have profitable athletic departments. Overall among Division I schools, athletic departments tend to run a median deficit of $11 million each year.
LSU football for example pays the short fall for ALL other sports.
Yes, in a small minority of programs this is true. Football and
Flip that around. . . (Score:2)
. . . . since most students are paying for college via Student Loans, why not link the interest rate and terms on the loan, to the risk of it not being paid back ?? I suspect there would be far fewer students studying for jobs that simply don't exist.
i.e. Want to study South American Feminist Literature ? Rate on the loan is 21%, No unemployment deferments. Et cetera. Want to do purely academic studies ? Get a scholarship, or pay for it yourself. And on the flip side, very nice terms for areas wher
Education should be free (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be exactly one deciding factor dictating whether or not you can get a degree: Your brain.
Most European countries follow that idea. My university gets stormed with new students every September and their solution was quite simple: Radical testing. 3 semesters in about 10-20% of the students remain and most of them actually finish.
If you got a LOT of people wanting a degree and you're not dependent on them paying you, you can test brutally to eliminate anyone who isn't willing to put in time and effort above and beyond anyone else, and what you get in the end, holding a degree, IS the best you could possibly get. Everyone who isn't perished.
Who said that "free" cannot end up in ruthless competition that makes any cold blooded capitalist beg for mercy?
Re:Education should be free (Score:4, Informative)
My university gets stormed with new students every September and their solution was quite simple: Radical testing.
If the States tried that, I'd expect mass lawsuits from inner-city students who fail the test and don't get accepted because of "discrimination".
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, tests discriminate against dimwits.
But there's a way for them to get degrees. Stuff a thermometer right up your ass, and you'll get almost 100.
Administrative costs (Score:5, Insightful)
(including professor salaries, facilities fees, administrative costs)
Maybe it's time to take a good, hard look at those. Especially the "administrative costs".
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be more curious about the facilities fees. In CS at least its not like 20-years ago when the majority students needed a computer. We really don't need anything beyond the classroom compared to arts degrees which need a library.
Maybe some physical engineering or science programs need actual tools and materials but math and comp degrees do not.
I say go for it, increasing exclusivity (Score:2)
is a feature, not a bug. We have too many CS graduates from mediocre schools as it is.
Still, though, I'm surprised we were weren't already subsidizing feminist basket weaving.
It seems kind of absurd, given that schools already give things away to the people who add value to the school. It is the STEM majors that add value to the school. So will they do away with scholarships, too? I doubt it.
If it's a for profit college (Score:2)
Then the costs of providing tuition will impact the cost to students, though it won't be the only factor and is unlikely to be one of the major factors aside from providing a floor to the price in most cases.
If it is not a for profit college then the relative prices of courses should just be reflecting whatever the goal of that non-profit is.
Heh (Score:3)
If they did this then there would be free college for anyone getting any type of social justice "studies" degree....
The question is premature. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing you have to establish is what is the basis you want to judge by: The good of society? The good of the students? The good of the faculty or the administration? The good of human knowledge as a whole? These all lead to fundamentally different ways of evaluating the question.
I should point out that not every institution of higher learning has the same purpose. A for-profit institution like University of Phoenix exists to turn its proprietors a buck. The very reason for an academic department to exist is to be a profit center, and if it can't pull its weight, either due insufficient pull (Classics) or excessive weight (engineering), it doesn't have a right to exist. At the opposite end of the spectrum are Jesuit colleges which exist to glorify God by cultivating each individual student's God-given talents.
I see no intrinsic need for all majors to cost the same. But the whether it's a good idea depends on your mission, your strategy for accomplishing it, and the resources at your disposal. It may well come down to what you can afford to do.
I *did* pay more for engineering. (Score:4, Informative)
At my university (in Canada) 20 years ago they charged different rates depending on the college offering the class. I just checked the current fees and they continue to do this. At the low end is Arts at $192 per credit unit, Computer Science is $219, Engineering is $227, Applied Music is $290, and interestingly Law is $420.
Inevitable (Score:2)
What a brilliant idea! (Score:3)
Force even MORE people out of STEM, you know since we have such a glut of STEM grads... and don't have tons of companies looking to fill positions that have people retiring at a faster rate than graduates are coming.
That STEM equipment that they complain costs so much? Yeah, that's the stuff used to produce research that the schools WANT from professors. You know, to get the name of the school out, and the reason professors HAVE to publish stuff alongside teaching classes. It's just an added bonus that it can be used to teach students as well.
Quartz report? (Score:3)
I mean, I searched that entire article for any mention of 'education', 'tuition', or even 'florida' and found nothing. Did someone post the wrong URL?
Re:Quartz report? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, you did pay for it. And you'll be paying for it the rest of your life.
What's your tax rate again?
The Tax Office would like to have a word with you (Score:2)
If you're working in Sweden and aren't paying for the universities, the Tax Office would like to have a word with you.
Re: (Score:3)
Because 16 and 17 year olds are not mature enough to go away to college. Rather the standards for High schools need to be pulled up and kids need to be held back in grade till they are at the level that they can go to college without needing remedial courses.