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U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

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Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#401

Post by AnimalMuppet »

maxerickson wrote: post #114
vonmoltke wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like that line, either, but it's not an excuse to get personal and nasty.

It's a nasty line. Really, I think this site underestimates the value of "Go fuck yourself" when someone says stuff like that. Being polite isn't going to help them pull their head out of their ass.

That approach is against site guidelines, and for good reason. If one nasty comment is grounds to engage in a flamewar, this place is going to lose any ability to have a reasoned conversation.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#402

Post by [deleted] »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #294
_bxg1 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reasonable" is relative. Tuition at U.S. "public" universities is still around $10k per year, even if you're in-state: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universiti...

The "real median household income" in the US is $76k [1]. This means that $10k a year for university is far from being unreasonable considering that a family has 18+ years to save for it if they decide to do so. That's $185 a month (3% of income), ignoring inflation and interest rates, to get $40k in the bank on the day your child turns 18. It is therefore not a question of affordability but a question of priority fo…

[deleted]

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#403

Post by jlawson »

chimi wrote: post #140
wholepointofcc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you FrozenTuna for your input but I was specifically thinking of physical people, as opposed to companies. I also meant a more specific application rather than a general iteration on the (perfectly valid) idea that if one can make more money with a value now, rather than later, and this opportunity cost is larger than the interest rate minus inflation, then the deal is good. Student loans would be a good exampl…

Companies are people, legally speaking, but I see your point. See ours: Imagine yourself as a company and the same debt equation applies. Companies, like you, need tools to produce goods and maintain their operations. You, if you're a programmer, need a computer. You don't have $1000 to buy one, but you have a credit card. You know, you can bill your hours out at say, $100/hr writing code. You need to write code for…

Companies aren't people, legally speaking. This is a bizarre myth that just gets repeated as a sort of mindless anti-corporate shibboleth.

Companies are legal entities which can sign contracts, hold debt, open bank accounts, etc.

So are government agencies, unions, churches, mosques, guilds, charities. Does that means these are all people, legally speaking? For some reason nobody says 'the IRS is a person, legally speaking'.

Companies cannot marry, vote, file taxes as a human, get a passport or driver's license etc, because they are not human, legally speaking. They're just legal entities, as people also are, but of different types.

Don't get confused about the words used in the legal world around 'natural persons' etc; legal usages of words don't carry their common meaning and there are lots of examples of this you know.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#404

Post by dragonwriter »

garmaine wrote: post #117
pastor_elm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear how these schools operate. They charge high tuition for people with a lot of money and cover the costs for people that can't afford it. >With over $159 million in financial aid distributed this year, UChicago is committed to ensuring that its students graduate debt-free and prepared for lifelong success, no matter their chosen major or background prior to enrolling in The College. UChicago is a need…

Financial aid is code for student loans. If they meant a scholarship they would have said so.

> Financial aid is code for student loans.

No, especially at well-funded not-for-profit private universities, “financial aid” often includes generous need-based grants (not scholarships, which are merit-based) that reduce the amount that must be met from student/family resources (including loans) substantially for non-wealthy students (not unheard of for it to be down to $0 for the poorest who manage to get admitted, and that's not just tuition but sometimes housing, books, etc.).

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#405

Post by csa »

garmaine wrote: post #117
pastor_elm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear how these schools operate. They charge high tuition for people with a lot of money and cover the costs for people that can't afford it. >With over $159 million in financial aid distributed this year, UChicago is committed to ensuring that its students graduate debt-free and prepared for lifelong success, no matter their chosen major or background prior to enrolling in The College. UChicago is a need…

Financial aid is code for student loans. If they meant a scholarship they would have said so.

> Financial aid is code for student loans. If they meant a scholarship they would have said so.

At many of the high-stocker-price elite schools, grants are also a very real part of financial aid.

Grants effectively look like a scholarship but are typically need-based rather than merit-based.

Looked at another way, grants can be used as a discount on the tuition sticker price.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#406

Post by AnimalMuppet »

rayiner wrote: post #271
jdsully wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate a little on why that's relevant? Is the extra money providing materially better education? Is it somehow impossible for Chicago to lower their costs?

It's a reference to the "land of the free" dig. The U.S. already spends similar amounts of public money on higher education as Germany, etc. (As a %-age of GDP). We don't have free universities, however, because our universities spend vastly more money. That has benefits for students. In my own experience, going to an expensive private law school was a much nicer experience than going to a rigorous, but more spartan,…

> We can debate about whether that's a good use of money...

It's not. I can get a gym membership for $10/month. And I'm not going to college to get a degree in physical fitness.

And, your argument doesn't hold numerically. Say 440 euros/year = $500/year. That's 1/200 the cost to the student of the University of Chicago. So Chicago spends 5 times as much per student; it still looks insane from the cost/benefit perspective.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#407

Post by dragonwriter »

jlawson wrote: post #403
chimi wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are people, legally speaking, but I see your point. See ours: Imagine yourself as a company and the same debt equation applies. Companies, like you, need tools to produce goods and maintain their operations. You, if you're a programmer, need a computer. You don't have $1000 to buy one, but you have a credit card. You know, you can bill your hours out at say, $100/hr writing code. You need to write code for…

Companies aren't people, legally speaking. This is a bizarre myth that just gets repeated as a sort of mindless anti-corporate shibboleth. Companies are legal entities which can sign contracts, hold debt, open bank accounts, etc. So are government agencies, unions, churches, mosques, guilds, charities. Does that means these are all people, legally speaking? For some reason nobody says 'the IRS is a person, legally sp…

> Companies aren't people, legally speaking.

Yes, they are.

> So are government agencies, unions, churches, mosques, guilds, charities. Does that means these are all people, legally speaking?

Yes, all those things have legal personhood.

> Companies cannot marry, vote, file taxes as a human, get a passport or driver's license etc, because they are not human, legally speaking

Being human, legally speaking, is different than being a person, legally speaking.

> Don't get confused about the words used in the legal world around 'natural persons' etc; legal usages of words don't carry their common meaning and there are lots of examples of this you know.

But since you are literally discussing what things are legally, your plea to ignore legal usages is...bizarre.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#408

Post by paulddraper »

DuskStar wrote: post #311
Ancalagon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on the broken employment system in the US? Honestly just curious.

If I had to complain about things, it would be these: 1. Lack of workplace training - very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience, partly because there's nothing preventing someone from jumping ship for better pay once the training is complete 2. Credentialism - the things that actually matter in hiring are either difficult or illegal to test for (conscientiousness, knowledge, intelligence), and so d…

> very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience

Yes and no.

Most HVAC shops will pay for technician's training.

Most dev shops pay for technical conferences.

Most managers have access to management seminars and training.

Expecting an employers to pay tens of thousands of dollars seems weird, but many employers do pay on a smaller scale for skills training.

> degrees are used as proxies instead

Though conventional wisdom is that a degree doesn't matter 5 years after graduation.

Nor does it seem that prestigious positions are even that picky in practice. Yes, there are a number of Harvard, Stanford, Yale alumni in Congress, but other seven of the top 10 colleges for Congress members are public state schools. [1]

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/the-top-10-colleges-f...

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#409

Post by paulddraper »

moduspol wrote: post #107
Finnucane wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at one local university, and my wife works at another. One thing we've definitely noticed (and this is a widespread problem) is that the administration is becoming more top-heavy. There are cutbacks in faculty, support, and teaching staff, more reliance on adjuncts (academic temps, basically), and so on, while central administration grows. Expensive new buildings contribute, but less than people suppose. But t…

I worked for five years at a private university a few years ago, and my experience is similar, although to add a little: It never felt like a plan or conspiracy to make administration costs bigger. It's just very easy to do when you have more money coming in, year after year. In another economic environment, you'd get a "hard no" because the money isn't there. But when there is, expenditures become just another barga…

> These kind of things just happen when you can keep bringing in more and more money and so can your competitors.

Yep. If appetite and available funding grow year after year, even the most honest of colleges will have a hard time not expanding costs.

Fortunately, it's still pretty easy to get a 4-year degree from a solid school for Pricy, but still far less than the $1m extra lifetime earnings.

Re: U of Chicago projected to be the first U.S. university to cost $100k per year

#410

Post by [deleted] »

secabeen wrote: post #341
eindiran wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that most (yes, most) students at the University of Chicago receive financial aid, what you're seeing is a sticker price. The school is using the high sticker price + financial aid to perform very efficient price discrimination[0], so they can get a lot of money from people who can pay. It is effectively a sliding scale fee [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination [1] https://en.wikipedia.org…

Yes, this. The nameplate tuition is paid by a vanishingly small percentage of students. What I think each school should do is publish data showing what the median tuition paid is, and the quartiles. That would help a lot to fight this perception that "tuition is going up every year!"

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