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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.
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.
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...
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**