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Education The Almighty Buck

Purdue University Will Freeze Tuition For the 9th Straight Year (wlfi.com) 153

Posted by msmash from the taking-a-stand dept.
schwit1 writes: Purdue President Mitch Daniels announced Saturday night the university would freeze tuition for the 9th straight year, holding it at 2012 levels through 2021-22.

If Purdue can do it, why can't everyone else?
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Purdue University Will Freeze Tuition For the 9th Straight Year More

Purdue University Will Freeze Tuition For the 9th Straight Year

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  • Because they understand that most of them will die (Score:3)

    by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:33PM (#59735946)
    In the next few decade, people will not pay huge fee to stand in class but will learn online. University will not disappear entirely but few will remain. Either those with good program or affordable. Better start now to cut the cost.

    • Not everyone's a socially anxious sociopath, buddy (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:10PM (#59736092)

      Normal people *like* to be around normal people. Around the world, higher schools are where people get their friends and social skills and colleagues for their future life. And, at least in my time, it was that amazing time of a lot of great parties, sex orgies and group activities you will never be able to do again, later in life.

      I'm sorry if everyone's an asshole where you are. But according to studies, that is a mainly US and partially European thing. (Somebody actually overthrew what we thought we knew about human social behavior, because he noticed that all of the experiments had been done with US studends, and decided to simply repeat them elsewhere in the world. Turns out we're really selfish and sociopathic, compared to the global normal.)
      No offense. I'm western/European myself.

      • There is nothing about University that enables all that.

        It turns out that 18-25 year olds, University or not, party, engage in risky behavior, etc. Friends in the trades did the same thing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          Agree...same thing happened in the military when I was 18-22. Though penalties could be a bit stiff.

    • student loan bankruptcy laws changing will kill them unless costs go down by a lot.

  • I would guess being Purdue, the tuition was probably already sky high. Even frozen at 2012 rates, its likely still higher than a typical public universities tuition today. Freeze the tuition for some time to let all the other public universities tuition to catch up to your own. That way you don't stick out like a sore thumb when someone does eventually crack down on the rates these universities are charging. Another thought, their enrollment was dropping due to the tuition rates, so freeze it till everyone

    • Google says it's about $24k/yr including room and board + books. About $9k for just tuition.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        Purdue has always been a bit of a bargain. That's less than my alma mater currently, also state university but not as highly regarded. Currently looks to be around $30k/yr for living on campus, which just seems crazy. I actually looked at Purdue back in the 90's because their out-of-state tuition was way less than that of my top tier in-state school I was looking at. Ended up at the school I did because it was closer to home and after meeting with the bio and chem chairs and getting a tour of their new scie

    • There's also a wide gap between the stated tuition on the website, and what students are actually paying. Possibly the sticker price hasn't changed, but I wonder if that gap has narrowed over the years.

      • Probably tacked on an Administrative Fee. In Louisiana they created a program called TOPS where in-state students got free tuition if their high school GPA was average. Now 15-20 years later the "Administrative Fee" they charge those students who have free tuition is higher than the actual tuition they charged before the program existed.

        • Purdue has an 'engineering differential fee'. So engineers pay a 'little more'. I haven't investigated if this has gone up over the years.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by guruevi ( 827432 )

            Pretty much all colleges do that. NYS forces their private universities to a certain number as well, so they raise the rates of on-campus housing and other 'services' and 'administrative costs'.

    • They probably have a few decades worth of administrative detritus that could be slowly excised to offset the tuition freeze. One examination of why college now costs so much found that the professor to student ratio had remained relatively fixed over time, the number of administrative positions relative to students had absolutely ballooned. Worse yet these people probably stunt the development of the students by taking care of all these things that the students should be learning and that they’ll need

    • For out-of-state, it is quite expensive, but UVM is even more. And it's not too far from UMass for in-state. Both UMass and UVM have had tuition increases every year. Whereas Purdue has had all fees (including room and board) frozen since 2012. I didn't realize this when my son decided to go there, but every year was the same price, and it made budgeting easier.

    • Purdue is not sky high, for in state. 9992, IU is 10681. So cheaper than the other big Indiana public school.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by godrik ( 1287354 )

      Yeah, pretty much this.

      According to google, 18-19 numbers of somewhat comparable schools (public, similarly ranked, and not in massive metropole like seattle, or downtown DC)

      Purdue: In-state 9,992 USD, Out-of-state 28,794 USD
      The Ohio State: In-state 10,726 USD, Out-of-state 30,742 USD
      Stony Brooks: In-state $10,175 Out-of-State $27,845
      Florida State: In-state 5,656 USD, Out-of-state 18,786 USD
      U of Georgia: In-state 11,830 USD, Out-of-state 30,404 USD
      UT Austin: In-state 10,610 USD, Out-of-state 37,580 USD
      U Mar

  • Because of Mitch Daniels, that's why (Score:5, Informative)

    by timholman ( 71886 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:56PM (#59736036)

    If Purdue can do it, why can't everyone else?

    Because Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue, is an absolutely exceptional individual who is truly committed to managing costs and improving education at Purdue. The students and faculty like and respect him. He had some opposition when he first arrived, because some faculty thought that a former politician with business experience was the wrong person to run Purdue. Since then he has won nearly everyone over.

    Other schools can't do what Purdue does because they are run by administrators who are completely mired in faculty or identity politics, or who run the campus like their own personal fiefdoms, or who are focused solely on securing their "legacy" on campus by hiking tuition to pay for lots of brand new buildings, while simultaneously starving the department budgets to pay for them. Anyone with experience in higher education should recognize the type.

    • Re:Because of Mitch Daniels, that's why (Score:5, Interesting)

      by benf_2004 ( 931652 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @02:04PM (#59736360)
      As a Purdue employee, I can tell you that Mitch having won "nearly everyone over" is not true, Most of the folks who work here think that Mitch is only keeping tuition frozen to maximize his incentive pay and create his own legacy. Students regularly complain about how some services on campus (e.g. mental health counseling) are in a sorry state while Mitch keeps getting paid more and more every year. Most other colleges and universities aren't doing this because it's fiscally unsustainable. We're doing it because Mitch can maximize his own pay, claim victory, and then leave his successor holding the bag.

      • Re:Because of Mitch Daniels, that's why (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fenrif ( 991024 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @02:14PM (#59736400)

        Universities should not be in the buisness of providing mental health counceling. They should be in the buisness of higher education.

        • It's highly cost effective for institutions to offer mental health counseling because it supports the ability of students to continue being students (and paying tuition). 5 years of tuition vs. 1 semester of tuition is a big difference compared to the cost of counseling services.

          Not to mention the benefits to the student and society (a college degree vs. no degree, and access to mental health care), which is why institutions exist in the first place.

        • We'd love to do that, but there's a lot of folks fighting like hell to block any other attempt to provide mental health counseling. Take a look at just how shitty your insurance coverage for mental health is, keeping in mind that once-a-week for years is a pretty common way it's consumed.

          So if you'd like the universities to stop, you're gonna have to start someone else.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          Unfortunately, mental health cases in students do not just affect the student with the issues. They affect nearly everyone around them. And they also take a tole on staff and teachers who must put up with them while trying to do their jobs. In the long term, it is probably cost efficient to provide mental health counseling and referral.

        • Normally I'd agree with you. But (1) the U.S. doesn't have universal health care, (2) college represents the first time many students no longer fall under the umbrella of their parents' health insurance, and (3) I wouldn't trust college students to be able to manage their own finances, much less purchase their own health insurance. As a result, most colleges offer health insurance for their students. And since insurance is simply pooling together everyone's incidental costs and averaging them out, treatm

    • Sorry, this is not true. The advertised tuition price is not the real tuition price because there are discounts. Many universities are raising their discount faster than they are raising the tuition because there is a shortage of students. Purdue is surely shrinking their discount, leading to a cost increase.

  • If Purdue can do it, why can't everyone else?

    Because not a lot of universities have endowments and trust funds the size of what Purdue has.

  • Oh kid... (Score:3)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:01PM (#59736046)

    It's not that they can't.
    It's that they can not! And don't want to.

    Just like evil people always make stupid people believe they're just dumb people. :)

    Remember Fight Club? That scene where they get random people to start a fight?
    Almost all of the evil on this planet can happen, because good people cannot believe somebody could be that evil, and that it could be that big. Takes forever, before they accept that it's just evil, and not just stupidity. They even made up a nice comforting mantra: Hanlon's razor.

    They've got no conscience. Think of them like all-robot Daleks:
    You need to stop paying so much, for them to stop taking so much.

  • ...and while it sounds great, it's been a disaster for funding the needs of the educational mission of the university:

    https://badgersunited.org/key-... [badgersunited.org]

  • Non profits exist. If they can to it why can't everyone else?
    Michael Phelps won Olympic Gold medals. If he can do it, why can't everyone else?

    Many people out there have a functioning brain. If they can, why can't whoever posed this question?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Apples v. Water Buffalos.

      This isn't rocket science, nor the Olympics. This could easily be duplicated.

      • That's the ticket isn't it. Someone (including you) assumes there are only Apples completely ignoring the water buffalos eating them. Just like wondering why one group does something why every other doesn't. I mean forget size differences, course differences, prestige differences, donation differences, faculty differences, research program differences, income differences, success of the fucking football team differences, yep all universities are the same right!

        I'll lump your response in with the original st

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          I didn't say there weren't differences, but your comparison was about as idiotic as could be. You either have your head in the sand, or a vested interest in the status quo.

  • Have tuition rates really been rising rapidly? (Score:3)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:33PM (#59736196) Homepage

    Using this college tuition rate chart [ed.gov] and using the "current dollars" column (which I assume means "not compensated for by inflation"), I see that public university cost in 1995 was $6,256. 20 years later it was $17,237. That means it has increased by about 4.15% per year. That's high only because inflation has been about maybe 2.3% over that period.

    But that doesn't sound totally crazy. That doesn't sound like "universities have been gouging and OMG nobody can afford college" kind of prices. What am I missing? Or is the problem that wage growth hasn't kept up? US minimum wage is 7.25 now, -vs- 5.50 in 1995, but at 2.3% growth it should be 9.71. So... it's now harder for a college student to use minimum wage to pay for college? But that varies by state [ncsl.org]... Maryland has $10.10 as the minimum wage, California $13, a bunch are in the high $9 range. I wonder how state college tuition rates compare to minimum wages in those states...?

    Sorry for the inner monologue post here. I'm just sharing my thinking so someone can correct me on this.

    • Maybe 2% increases above inflation doesn't sound like a lot, but if sustained for 25 years, well look at it, after compounding it more than doubled.

      Now I'm not saying that all or most of today's college debt situation is due to tuition increases at public universities. Millenials wound up in a very bad employment market where riding it out by staying in school longer and taking out education loans was the best way to get by.

    • Now check the tuition of the popular private universities with the sought-after degrees that guarantee very high paying job upon graduation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/... [ed.gov]

      According to this chart, the cost has more than doubled including inflation.

    • Your chart doesn't go back far enough. The period most people are comparing to is the 1960s/1970s.

      Also, your chart doesn't reflect who paid that tuition. For example, in University of California campuses in 1960, the state paid that tuition for in-state students. Which means the students directly paid $0 (there was something like $200-$400 in "fees" the students paid).

  • Rising costs: rising admins, not faculty (Score:3)

    by neurocutie ( 677249 ) on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:59PM (#59736336)

    Looking at the root cause of rising university costs it becomes apparent (at least in many institutions) that the funds spend on faculty are either stagnant or rising only slight while the costs (and numbers) of university administration has skyrocketed. Not unlike the fed gov't, those in control of the budgeting tend to expand and spend rapidly, while the real heart of the service/institution (university == education, research) hardly grows at all.

    • My wife is an adjunct professor, and believe me, the money isn't going to her. She teaches multiple classes of over 20 students, and makes about $17k a year. She couldn't afford to do it if not for my engineering salary, and really only does it because she loves it. In fact, when a full professor retired several years ago, she and several adjuncts were hired to replace that person. Between the four of them, they probably make less than that one professor, and they carefully shave her hours so she qualif

    • This is false. Many universities have been laying off their administrators, or finding that they are unable to hire new ones because they cannot pay enough. In reality, health care costs are rising, but student numbers are falling because of low birth rates. University administrators are paid far less than their counterparts in the private sector.

      A few rich universities do spend too much on administration.

      • You don't even support your "This is false" assertion with the slightest bit of logic. You argue that admin is being paid less than private sector, but that has nothing to do with the NUMBERS of administrators being hired by university, let alone how that compared with the numbers (and costs) of faculty being hired.

        Look at, for example, https://www.forbes.com/sites/r... [forbes.com]

        "...administrative spending comprised just 26% of total educational spending by American colleges in 1980-1981, while instructional spending

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by godrik ( 1287354 )

      (I work at a state university)

      Yeah, that's not wrong. But it is a complicated situation. Some example:

      Because in the US, everything has to be competitive (otherwise we'll be socialist and we can't have that), you end up with universities making stupid expenses to attract student to that university: better gyms, newer roads, nicer food halls. And the state legislatures themselves are contributing to that. To me, that's somewhat of unnecessary expenses.

      Also the increase in the number of students has caused a

  • I'm not sure holding tuition constant means that much. Having just helped two kids complete their bachelor's degrees, I found advertised tuition is like the MSRP of a car. It's the maximum you might pay but most people pay less. Many people pay substantially less, all the way down to $0. More meaningful might be "Min/mean/median/mode/max/total tuition collected from students, net financial aid.".

    This is not to say that Purdue is not doing a great job holding down costs. They might be and kudos if they are.

  • - Increasing healthcare costs is the main reason
    - Increasing IT costs
    - Reduced government subsidies

    Also, the advertised tuition price is not the real tuition price. There are discounts. If the real price goes down due to low demand, the advertised price does not go down because that makes the college look desperate, and it makes it easier to raise prices later. Currently, low birth rates and high employment are making demand very low. So discounts are growing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      At least for public unis, the state supported ones have had their funding cut as pols campaigned on reining in college costs. So the cut the college funding, being simple-minded folk whom the voters were stupid enough to believe. The state schools then turned to their main source of income, students. Then the pols campaigned on those naughty colleges turning out elites at increased tuition. So they decided their states could be run by dingbats who eschewed elite education. And now we have a crop of state ad

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