(I had a longer comment typed up but it got eaten.) I don't like the higher sticker prices because it makes scholarships and financial aid packages much more do-or-die. Say there's a class with an...
(I had a longer comment typed up but it got eaten.)
I don't like the higher sticker prices because it makes scholarships and financial aid packages much more do-or-die. Say there's a class with an awful, tenured professor that gives everyone a low grade freshman year, that could be the deciding factor in whether the student comes back next semester. There's also the risk of administrative financial aid fuck-ups where suddenly the student needs to pay the inflated sticker price for reasons outside of their control (speaking from experience).
I get the admin advantages. It makes it harder for students and families to compare prices for different schools. It also lets universities do some serious price discrimination by milking higher-income families to pay for scholarships for lower-income students. The problem is some poorer families won't even bother applying because they see the sticker price and don't know how much they'll actually have to pay.
The price discrimination is the biggest factor, especially when most states won't provide sufficient funding for public universities via taxation. If proper progressive taxation provided for that...
The price discrimination is the biggest factor, especially when most states won't provide sufficient funding for public universities via taxation. If proper progressive taxation provided for that gap, this whole song and dance could be dropped.
My university charges on the order of $20k a semester for in-state, $35k a semester for out of state. If you amortize the granted financial aid by the university across the student body, it comes out to $1,000 per student. It's actually distributed roughly in half, to needs-based and performance-based, up to full tuition.
That in-state tuition would be $10,600 in 2000. The actual in-state tuition in 2000 was $6,600.
However, in 2016, in-state tuition was $15,800. Normalizing that against 2000 gives us a tuition of $11,300.
So tuition has gone down relative to 2016, to the tune of $500 2025 dollars. Which is kind of a big deal, because with 40,000 students that translates to a loss of annual operational budget of $40,000,000.
Like, we're trying our damndest. But you can't squeeze blood from a stone.
Since the 2014–15 school year, the cost of attending a public four-year university has fallen by 21 percent, before adjusting for inflation, according to College Board data analyzed by Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
In the 2021–22 school year, 82 percent of first-time, full-time undergraduates at public four-year schools received aid, as did 87 percent of those at private institutions. Only students whose families make more than about $300,000 a year and who attend private institutions with very large endowments pay more than they did a decade ago, Levine said.
The bad news is that no one seems to have heard the good news. Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. think that universities charge everyone the same amount, according to a 2023 survey by the Association of American Universities.
While the claim of the story may be right, I don't have facts either way. IMO, the cost of education is higher today versus years past and like any investment the ROI on Bachelor’s of Education...
(I had a longer comment typed up but it got eaten.)
I don't like the higher sticker prices because it makes scholarships and financial aid packages much more do-or-die. Say there's a class with an awful, tenured professor that gives everyone a low grade freshman year, that could be the deciding factor in whether the student comes back next semester. There's also the risk of administrative financial aid fuck-ups where suddenly the student needs to pay the inflated sticker price for reasons outside of their control (speaking from experience).
I get the admin advantages. It makes it harder for students and families to compare prices for different schools. It also lets universities do some serious price discrimination by milking higher-income families to pay for scholarships for lower-income students. The problem is some poorer families won't even bother applying because they see the sticker price and don't know how much they'll actually have to pay.
The price discrimination is the biggest factor, especially when most states won't provide sufficient funding for public universities via taxation. If proper progressive taxation provided for that gap, this whole song and dance could be dropped.
My university charges on the order of $20k a semester for in-state, $35k a semester for out of state. If you amortize the granted financial aid by the university across the student body, it comes out to $1,000 per student. It's actually distributed roughly in half, to needs-based and performance-based, up to full tuition.
That in-state tuition would be $10,600 in 2000. The actual in-state tuition in 2000 was $6,600.
However, in 2016, in-state tuition was $15,800. Normalizing that against 2000 gives us a tuition of $11,300.
So tuition has gone down relative to 2016, to the tune of $500 2025 dollars. Which is kind of a big deal, because with 40,000 students that translates to a loss of annual operational budget of $40,000,000.
Like, we're trying our damndest. But you can't squeeze blood from a stone.
This was also titled "What If College Got Cheaper and No One Noticed?" at some point.
Mirror: archive.is
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While the claim of the story may be right, I don't have facts either way. IMO, the cost of education is higher today versus years past and like any investment the ROI on Bachelor’s of Education offers the lowest lifetime -55.43%; and this fact is what college's are facing a head wind.