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Should College Tuition Vary By Major, Based On the College's Costs For the Major? (qz.com)
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.
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.
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Long ago, college dorms were more like Army barracks. Now they are private apartments. Food was served in a cafeteria, and you ate what they had today. Now they are more like food courts, and require far more staff. Students expect this kind of service, and if a school doesn't upgrade, they lose students to schools that do. It's overhead that has risen the cost of education, not the cost of professors. The difference in equipment and classrooms between engineering and liberal arts is small compared to the school environment costs.
We don't need 70% tax to cover it, just stop wasting it on dropping freedom around the world
The current administration suggested that, but the left seems to have problems reducing our role in NATO.
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And the answer is almost always "administrative overhead". Some universities have more new administrators than new instructors. . .
Several Links:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
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.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
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.
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.
**Life is too short to be serious**
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.
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