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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

#491

Post by marrone12 »

smileysteve wrote: post #233
julienb_sea wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. You just made college out of reach for everyone that isn't already wealthy, exacerbating inequality and further entrenching class boundaries. To be clear, I agree with you, rip out the loan guarantees and let the private market deal. But progressives would never allow this.

> You just made college out of reach for everyone that isn't already wealthy Immediately yes, fortunately, there is a supply and demand curve, so if you cut the demand for a bunch of colleges that already exist; then the price should find a new equilibrium. Of course, as is the science of economics, time and outside influences matter.

So what do you say to all the people for who college will be out of reach while the market "equalizes"?

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

#492

Post by mikekchar »

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…

I'll just throw this out here: for IT you almost don't want your in-house trained people to stay very long because it's pretty important less experienced people to get a variety of different experiences. I would say that people who stick to their first job for a decade or so tend to become under performers and I don't think it's generally because they can't find another job. Breadth of experience is really valuable in this field.

I've often thought it would be amazing if you could do the equivalent of professional football (soccer) lending of players. Lend a developer to another company for a few years with the expectation that they will come back. If they decide to stay then the borrowing company give some compensation. But it would mean having very strict contracts that limit the freedom of workers, so it's almost certainly a no go. I wish there was a way to make it work, though...

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

#493

Post by Varriount »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #77

UChicago 2011 graduate here. When I attended, I paid about $20k/year in tuition, given that I had various merit scholarships, worked for the university, and that my siblings also attended school. My parents were in for a RUDE awakening in my fourth year, however, when my brother graduated his undergraduate program...UChicago found out via a survey, that I was now the sole college attendee, and without warning they ja…

What do you mean by grade deflation? I've heard of grade inflation (mostly in the context of college admissions), but not deflation.

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

#494

Post by wtvanhest »

lazypenguin wrote: post #472
wtvanhest wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is what they are earning without burdening thousands of students with unsustainable debt over their careers than I'd argue nothing is wrong with it. For example if the salary is 100% from NIH grants and the prof makes 500k, more power to them. If the prof makes 100k and all their salary is funded by student loans, then they should decide whether their livelihood is worth the externalities they are creating. I…

150k/year. Let’s assume the professor teaches 4 units per semester and maybe 2 in the summer (or research or some equivalent). Comes out to 15k/unit. Let’s say 15 students per unit just to represent smaller classes comes to $1k/unit/student/year. Each unit is like 3hrs/week for 12 weeks on average. So comes out to something like $28/hr. Doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Average course load for a student is like 6 unit…

$12k a year is completely unacceptable.

Other costs are also unacceptable. Colleges charge $500+/month for shared rooms. And require freshman to stay in them.

Nevermind the fact that your math misses several major cost categories like building maintenance, fringe benefits for professors (+30% of salaries at least).

In your hypothetical example, students are paying $20k/year before getting ripped off on the cost of the dorm and meal plan.

If a prof is making 150k, class sizes need to be 300+ and they need to teach 1,000 kids a semester

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

#496

Post by L_Rahman »

Varriount wrote: post #493
WhompingWindows wrote: post #77

UChicago 2011 graduate here. When I attended, I paid about $20k/year in tuition, given that I had various merit scholarships, worked for the university, and that my siblings also attended school. My parents were in for a RUDE awakening in my fourth year, however, when my brother graduated his undergraduate program...UChicago found out via a survey, that I was now the sole college attendee, and without warning they ja…

What do you mean by grade deflation? I've heard of grade inflation (mostly in the context of college admissions), but not deflation.

Grades are determined by curves. There's no absolute scoring in most university classes, especially in engineering and science programs.

Professors usually draw something similar to a bell curve along the grade distribution and set the average to be a particular grade. Grade inflation would be setting the average to something high (as practiced at Harvard this is usually an A-).

Grade deflation which both U Chicago and my alma mater Johns Hopkins are notorious for has professors set the average grade to a B-/C+. In classrooms full of students who have excelled their entire life, where the average represents a pretty high standard of work and achievement, setting the average to a B- is grade deflation.

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

#497

Post by L_Rahman »

sorenn111 wrote: post #7

One thing I find crazy is the very same institutions that are generally very left leaning, decry income inequality, and espouse generally liberal views then turn around and having tuition costs that having been rising at rates so far above inflation. Student debt is a major issue in the US and the ever increasing costs of tuition are a MAJOR culprit in pushing this crisis. Where are these costs coming from? How can y…

While this is true of its peers, no one has ever accused the University of Chicago of being left leaning. The unrestrained neoliberalism (deregulation of consumer protections, unwinding of antitrust policy) that characterizes our time is literally called the "Chicago School" of economics.

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

#498

Post by closeparen »

claudeganon wrote: post #383
kansface wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most colleges/universities are nonprofits and they still charge tens of thousands per semester. I will also point out that the European model is not free, universal college degrees for all - access is restricted behind rigorous entrance exams. Such a system would be politically untenable in the US wherein a growing movement wants to do away with all entry tests. What would actually happen in practice is that we would…

I think Americans need to be a little more discriminating about tossing around “non-profit” without qualification. Many public and private universities are essentially hedge funds with schools attached to them. This money is used to do everything from real estate speculation to handing out patronage jobs to well-connected elites (and often not to running the schools well or humanely, e.g. all the labor issues around…

It’s a non-profit because the investments, the real estate, the patronage jobs, and the shortchanging of staff all serve the institution itself. Surplus enables it to expand or execute better on its mission. A rich dude can’t invest in the university hedge fund and then redeem for a suitcase full of cash. Only the university itself can do that, and instead of a yacht it’s going to buy a research vessel, and instead of hosting kickass parties it’s going to study fish. And if hiring the customs inspector’s son gets it out of port faster, then so be it. But overpaying for custodial services isn’t going to get the fish studied any better.

Economic inequality is an important problem but it’s not the only problem. It’s okay to sometimes accumulate and deploy funds to other ends.

Universities don’t act like specific cost centers of governments, they act like governments.

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

#499

Post by gnicholas »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #473
gnicholas wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AEI report on 'administrative bloat' in higher education: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/diversity-and-other-administr...

AEI is a hard-rightish conservative think tank. I’d be wary of trusting anything they publish about money and schools.

You're right that they're libertarian/conservative in this regard. But they've published a number of articles with relevant facts about the growth of administrative roles in higher ed, and the associated costs. I haven't seen those facts questioned anywhere — have you?

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

#500

Post by Glyptodon »

ineedasername wrote: post #486
Glyptodon wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got in to University of Chicago, but the finances were rough. They expected my parents to pay around 30% of their (combined) income in tuition after scholarships and loans. Presumably this would have dropped when my brother entered college a year after me, but given that I got into other schools that cost less than half as much it wasn't really a question. My parents didn't really know what to tell me because on on…

>mostly benefiting the rich and very poor Not quite just the very poor: U Chicago gives free full tuition to students from families making under $125k. But as for the very poor at nearly every other private college, the picture is more bleak: The average private is in the ballpark of $35k. Maximum grants from the feds and state of Illinois total about $16k. That's not enough. However, it is generally plenty for atten…

When I was accepted that ($125k) policy didn't exist or we'd have been included, though in the upper half. I'd likely have chosen to go there if it had existed then.

That said it sounds like the general situation I described is somewhat true overall.

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