What is the point in a rise in tuition?
I fully understand that the bigger the school gets the more money they'll need for certain sectors on campus to improve and broaden, but still.
I am a student at a private university in Michigan. I went to a public university last year and my tuition for the entire academic year was roughly $5,000 (with small sized scholarships and an athletic scholarship paying some as well)
Paying out of the pocket for only $5,000 is not that hard to do...a small loan if need be. Here at my current university I am 1 of approximately 4,000 students and a majority of the students are males.
Recently we had Republican Mitt Romney at our campus holding a rally and gave a lot of students the chance to meet a presidential candidate...
Cost of tuition here? About $34,000 a year.
I do not come from a family that is "loaded" but I do not come from a family who is poor or anything. I am an only child and my mom makes too much money for me to even be considered for financial aid. I literally get not even 1 penny for financial aid and they expect me to just think that $34,000 is nothing...just a wad of money in the pocket.
Our govenor, (ick) Jennifer Granholm recently signed an act saying that all collegiate students recieve a grant (don't pay back) for $2,100 which in my university..every penny counts.
When I say my tuition is nearly $700 a credit hour that doesn't sound HORRIBLE, but when I graduate I will have student loans of over $100,000.
Why can they jack up the prices so drastically?
What makes private colleges be able to charge so much? What do we even need the money for?? We only have 5 buildings on campus, the campus is only 75 years old and in comparison to other universities..it's just a baby.
Rise in tuition wouldn't be so horrible if you didn't have to purchase college textbooks as well. Text books can easily set you back another $400+. My first semester of college my mom spent $450 at my campus bookstore for my books. When I went to sell them back at the end of the semester they were willing to give me $27.50. Yes, I said that right... Twenty - seven dollars and 50 cents. What a joke. I kept my books and told the lady behind the counter to keep the money because it was not worth it. I ended up selling my books back online at half.com and had gotten almost $200 back for them. Given I still lost out on $250, but it is better than $27.50 I would have gotten at the book store.
What does everyone else pay per credit hour at their university??
You think it's fair for a person taking 5 credit hours to pay the same as someone taking 15, when the person taking 15 is using more resources?
Private universities charge more because they don't get money from the state. So, they have to find private donors and whatnot to pay everything, from the electricity in the building, to the teacher salaries. Whatever they can't get through donors, they pass on to the students, and so you have to pay over $30K a year for schooling.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
First of all, public universities have lower tuition than private universities because the public university's tuition is subsidized by the state. That $5,000 you were paying didn't cover all of the costs of your education (I'm assuming that this is in-state tuition). The state covers a large part as well. Compare the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.
As well, with public institutions, they are less dependent on endowments because they have government budgets to fall back on. Private universities are dependent on their endowments, on tuition and on gifts from alumni or other benefactors. If they are short of money, they don't can't rely on state legislators in making up the difference or to subsidize the costs.
Ironically, as more money has been made available for tuition, the costs have also gone up. Part of the problem is that this increase in money isn't increasing the efficiency or supply of higher education. If you increase the demand (by making more money available) without increasing the supply, you increase prices.
What can Universities do to make instruction more efficient? On-line classes are one way, particularly for the 101 introduction classes (intro to economics, sociology, psychology, etc.), greater use of TAs and adjuncts in a tutoring model, the abolition of tenure (at least at teaching universities as opposed to research ones), more machine graded tests (ie, multiple choice rather than open-ended), e-books, and some others that don't come to mind.
Some of these suggestions automate part of the process of higher education. Automation brings efficiencies (it is cheaper to have a machine build 1,000 widgets rather than have a human build 1,000 widgets) ,but they are not without controversy, and the unions that professors belong to oppose many of them (as have unions in regards to most forms of automation). So, I don't see things getting better anytime soon. This is not something that can only be legislated, and frankly, a greater emphasis on trade schools would alleviate much of the pressure (carpenters, plumbers, etc. do make good money, more than students who graduate with a bachelors in a behavioral science background (psychology/sociology).
At my university, we are only allowed to take four classes a semester and our tuition is raising next year to $50,000! Only $37,000 of that is "tuition" the rest is the housing, the meal plans, and such. We figured it out and that each 1-hour of instruction costs over $300 (most courses are 3 days a week). I find it ridiculous that our tuition raises $2000 to $3000 a year!
I agree with you that college tuition is getting out of hand!
The reason why the cost of tuition is so much is because this provides a way of control over the individual. The government does this for many reasons. For instance, during Vietnam the cost of tuition was very low. It allowed students thus to speak out and not be held down by the economic ties. Noam Chomsky made a comment similar to this in one of his talks. It's just another way to control your life. By having an outstanding debt owed, you have to worry about getting a job so you wouldn't try to do anything too crazy.
+mspin
that i agree with. others left comments saying how government helped out public institutions and yes, i knew that and how we're more independent at my private university, but i totally agree with your statement. I have never looked at it like that before I suppose.... It is control and makes the person buckle down a lot more becuase you want great grades and post-graduation you need a stellar job in order to pay the debts back.
While I'm sure the cost of higher education has gone up since the Vietnam war, I also want to point out that you do have to take into account inflation. When comparing gas prices, you can see that gas prices haven't gone up nearly as much as they seem to have, and the highest point was actually in the 80's, or something. I can't remember the exact characteristics.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
i agree with you the statement also. i am still a student in high school but i know for a fact that the public institutes do get help from the governments and the public universities in the state you live in give you a discount because your parents paid taxes.