University Proposes Tuition Based On Major

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has proposed "differential tuition," a tuition structure that varies based on your major. An engineering major for example, would now pay considerably more than an English major. Liberal Arts majors would presumably get their education for free. From the article: "Charging different tuition rates for different courses of study is a growing trend among public research universities across the country. According to research by Glen Nelson, senior vice president of finance and administration for the Arizona Board of Regents, only five institutions used the practice for undergraduate students before 1988. As of this year, 57 percent of 162 public research institutions did so, including the University of Iowa and Iowa State University."

Comments

Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[Sonny Yatsen]

We're a country that's lagging behind on STEM (science, technical, engineering & math) education and experiencing somewhat of a shortage of people from the technical fields to fill jobs in our country because our educational system is a joke. What's the best way to go about remedying this? Why, yes, it's clearly to penalize people who want to study STEM majors by making them pay more for their education than for someone who wants a degree in comparative literature.

If you want to charge STEM majors more money for their degree, then fine, but don't go crying when you start attracting less talent to your school and your research grants start to dry up. In the short run, you'll raise a few bucks. In the long run, you're killing your most productive and profitable departments so you can have a tiny shortfall today.

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[RazzleFrog]

I agree. They should charge more for majors that aren't likely to end up in getting a job in a related field after college. That would make Latin majors pretty much the most expensive.

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[RazzleFrog]

The tuition is based on credit hours. So if you took an engineering class you would pay the engineering class rates.

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[digsbo]

Want to fix it? Make student loans subject to bankruptcy laws. That would reduce the number/amount of loans granted, and make colleges price-sensitive. As it is, the lenders have little incentive to consider whether a given loan is likely to pay off (since they either get to collect on it despite bankruptcy or get a federal payoff), so there's no incentive to limit lending to what can reasonably be paid back.

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[magarity]

I agree as well. As someone who teaches in academia on occasion, the university should reverse their thinking. It should be significantly cheaper to get a degree in a field where their is demand.

You want to lower prices where "their" is demand? You obviously teach neither economics nor English.

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[Solandri]

It should be significantly cheaper to get a degree in a field where their is demand - the STEM degrees - and should cost significantly more for all other degrees.

The problem is insufficient competition. Education is not a commodity, even though it probably should be. School name and reputation plays a disproportionately large role in prospective students' selection. Consequently, the competition for supply of education isn't all schools combined, it's just the 1 or 2 schools the student really wants to get into.

Schools have realized this and started to exploit it for financial gain. Freed from the normal constraints of supply and demand, tuition prices are no longer tracking closely to the cost to provide an education. They're more closely following what students are willing to pay. Increasingly, students are factoring in future potential earnings into what they're willing to pay. If you're going to go into a lucrative field like medicine or law, your future earning potential is much higher so students are willing to rack up $150k in debt to get that education. (I should mention that the easy availability of student loans, as noble as they are in concept, is accelerating this process.)

So how much students are willing to pay for a major is going to be roughly proportional to how much they can earn after graduating with that major. Graduates with STEM degrees will tend to earn more than liberal arts majors, so they will be willing to pay more for it. The proposal in TFA is just a reflection of this. Simply wishing it were the other way around will not make it so.

The solution is to artificially make top-level education available at the cost to provide that education, not at what the student is willing to pay. You'll end up having to subsidize it though so you can attract top-level professors away from schools making a lot more money per student. So this becomes a public university. Yes, that's right, a conservative slashdotter advocating public universities. In this case, you're using one market distortion (government funding for a public university) to try to cancel out another market distortion (a school essentially having a monopoly on students wishing to attend it).

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[Daimanta]

I work in Zimbabwe and I make 23-figures!

Re:Discouraging Science and Technical studies

[Obfuscant]

The original purpose of public universities was education for the public good, as a conservative as well, I see little public good in graduating 50 history majors for every electrical engineer. Yes the engineer will make more out of college, but they will also contribute more to the economy a through their work.

The original purpose of public universities was not to prepare people for the most lucrative jobs available. It was to provide an education to create a broad knowledge of subjects and a well educated populace.

Those 50 history majors will have a better understanding of where we came from and more understanding of where we will be going. As in "those who don't know history tend to repeat history". That's not a comment about being able to pass the final exam and needing to retake the class, it is a statement pertaining to repeating the mistakes of the past because you don't know they were tried before and failed. Chamberlain tried appeasement to prevent war, and that attempt failed. Those who don't know that, and why it failed, are likely to think about trying it today and a lot of people could die because they didn't know history.

If you want training for a job, go to a vocational school or community college.

It is my personal belief that societally, making STEM degrees cheaper to obtain is good for all parties involved and represents a solid investment by society.

You can, of course, make "STEM" degrees free by simply handing them out to every person who visits the appropriate website. I don't think that this would be a "solid investment" in anything at all. The degree program needs to provide the education first, the paper last, not the other way around. If that education takes more time (five years vs. four) or harder classes (quantum chemistry vs. "efficient use of aquatic resources") then that's what it takes.

I'm simply flabbergasted by the compaint a previous commenter made about STEM classes being harder and something needed to be done to keep people from dropping out because of it. What an idiotic way of solving the problem of lack of STEM degrees.

And then this from the GP:

The solution is to artificially make top-level education available at the cost to provide that education, not at what the student is willing to pay.

You are overlooking the tiny detail that the cost of a college education is heavily taxpayer subsidized and most, if not all, public universities. The students are already not willing to pay the price being charged in many cases; making the price equal the cost will simply drive more students away. It certainly will not solve the problem of too few STEM students, since the actual cost of STEM educations will be much higher (to pay for lab equipment and facilities) than it is today.

Descrimination...

[__aarvde6843]

The most unfortunate thing is that poorer people will start to study, not what they are good at/like, but what they can afford...

The Univ. of Mich. has been doing this for years

[TheSeventh]

When I was an undergrad studying computer science at the University of Michigan, they wanted me to pay the higher engineering tuition level, even though my CS degree was in the college of Literature, Science, and Arts.

Therefore, I didn't declare my major until halfway through my second-to-last semester. Why pay the higher level tuition for all the LS&A courses they required me to take as well? Engineering level tuition for French, Creative Writing, and my Race & Ethnicity Requirement? I don't think so.

English major here, actually using my degree

[sandytaru]

You'd be amazed what a great background a technical writing degree is for IT. If it's got an instruction manual, I can run it. If it doesn't have an instruction manual and I figure out how to run it, I can write an instruction manual for others to use it. This is a valuable skill and I've become a vital part of my office because it's not something the rest of the techies know how to do, let alone enjoy.

Re:Such a great idea

[pla]

Because, while you sit out on the quad exposing valuable and fragile organic matter to sunlight and moisture and engaging in mental masturbation over the use of dwarves in Spencer...

The "much more expensive" engineering students work their butts off in labs developing school-owned IP that the school can then license. The engineering grad students spend their weekends searching and applying for sweet grants, half of which goes straight into the school coffers. The engineering students will then go on to someday develop your next car, airplane, refrigerator, television, while you in 20 years will simply join your students on the quad for the sole purpose of perpetuating a useless major.

You cost less on the short term, but both to the school and to society, you net out to a loss; The engineers cost more on the short term, but actually make the school money, and improve our world (DOD contractors notwithstanding) with their careers.

Don't get me wrong, I very much value a solid liberal arts background for everyone, especially engineers; But if you don't take those underpinnings and apply them to a real set of useful skills... Why bother?