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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

#531

Post by yowlingcat »

sodosopa wrote: post #424
yowlingcat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 100k in debt grad student becoming an adjunct and needing food stamps not to die of starvation in poverty is a pretty stark reality. One would have to be tone-deaf to pretend it does not exist.

Pick a major which ensures your financial survival. Spending 100k on a degree which cannot ensure survival is a hell of a way to learn that lesson.

I don't disagree with you, but when that cost is underwritten and inflated by nondischargeable, government-guaranteed debt that's the product of a decision made by folks scarcely old enough to vote or serve in the military -- it just feels wrong.

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

#532

Post by blaser-waffle »

Finnucane wrote: post #88
bryanlarsen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex Tabarrok disagrees: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/bl...

That data is only for public universities.

Arguably those are the only ones we should care about -- they're getting our state tax funds.

Private Uni's are, well, private. They can charge what they want, and if the average Pell Grant or other DoE loans aren't enough that's not the Uni's problem.

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

#533

Post by o09rdk »

Ancalagon wrote: post #170
o09rdk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former tenured professor. I think your impression is generally spot-on although there's nuances and it's more complicated than that. In general, universities are suffering from many of the same pressures as other fields. Nonprofits are being run as profit-generating centers, and the implicit promotion track goes from faculty to senior faculty to administration, if you're even on tenure track. The administration salar…

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

I think in general I mean that people are seen as cogs in a machine, rather than individuals to be trained, and there's no safety net from the government, either in terms of real retraining or advanced education or life benefits or anything.

HR gets a million applications, people are evaluated on what boxes can be checked off rather than their skillset, etc.

With regard to the educational system, the problem is that degrees are seen as signals or credentials (to use the language of the article) rather than as a background. That's admittedly a fuzzy distinction, but it really reduces the degree to the degree per se rather than the host of courses and experiences the person during college. So, we talk about "useless degrees" without recognizing that someone might have had equivalent coursework and experience without majoring in something else per se. In the end it doesn't matter.

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

#534

Post by eindiran »

angry_octet wrote: post #504
eindiran wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a graduate of Uchicago (from shortly after you), and to offer a different perspective, I'm still paying off my loans (and will be for another 6 years), but I'm incredibly glad I went. I thought the undergraduate experience was perfect, and about half of my friends from around the world are people I met while I was there. I did get much worse marks that I had ever gotten before, but the University being very diffi…

So how does having more realistic grades (i.e. not everyone gets B or above) feel when it comes to graduate admissions? I went to the university with the hardest admissions score for EE, some of the brightest people I've met, graded on a curve, and yet for graduate admissions I'm competing with people who took much easier classes and ALL have much better marks. The GPA system is just insane really.

It helps a lot if the university you're coming from had a reputation for difficulty and grade deflation. Academia is incestuous enough that people will usually be clued into that.

Barring that, having excellent rec letters and GRE scores, having been published or done research in a lab, having written an undergraduate thesis etc can all help provide signal that you'll make a good candidate for the department you're applying to. I don't know much about EE departments, but generally grad school admissions will be more holistic and thoughtful than undergrad admissions.

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

#535

Post by Communitivity »

Not Harvard, not Yale, not MIT, not Cornell...but U of Chicago? Why would they be able to charge so much more than the other big name schools? It may very well be they have a specialty they are the best in that I'm not aware of.

Also, if you are in Maryland take advantage of the MD program that lets you pay your kids college while they're in high school and lock in the college price as of when you enroll in the program. At the average 8% rate of college price increases you could save around %57 of the money you'd pay otherwise.

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

#536

Post by angry_octet »

eindiran wrote: post #534
angry_octet wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does having more realistic grades (i.e. not everyone gets B or above) feel when it comes to graduate admissions? I went to the university with the hardest admissions score for EE, some of the brightest people I've met, graded on a curve, and yet for graduate admissions I'm competing with people who took much easier classes and ALL have much better marks. The GPA system is just insane really.

It helps a lot if the university you're coming from had a reputation for difficulty and grade deflation. Academia is incestuous enough that people will usually be clued into that. Barring that, having excellent rec letters and GRE scores, having been published or done research in a lab, having written an undergraduate thesis etc can all help provide signal that you'll make a good candidate for the department you're a…

Well, I found UdeM pretty awful, difficult to talke to anyone, took a long time and really screwed me around. In retrospect I would say hard avoid based on the incompetence of the admin (DIRO specifically). It seems like if you're coming from overseas they really don't know what to do, and its impossible to get past the admin. In retrospect, talk to professors first, do admin process second, and allow at least 12 months for the process.

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

#537

Post by paulddraper »

haberman wrote: post #65
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…

Do colleges make their budgets public? When a program is taking too long to run the first step is to profile. What does the data say on college costs? > But that is a tangential problem, in that wealthy donors want to give big gifts for vanity projects rather than to, say, scholarship funds. In the past I've felt quite motivated to give to scholarship funds. It resonates a lot if you yourself relied on scholarships t…

Certainly public colleges have public budgets.

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

#538

Post by paulddraper »

JDiculous wrote: post #15
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…

Has the University of Chicago ever advocated for free college? Their economics department, home of the late Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys, is among the most right-leaning in the country.

That was then.

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

#539

Post by paulddraper »

misiti3780 wrote: post #71

As a US citizen, I see the US debt bomb ending it two different ways 1. Sanders/Warren get elected and somehow forgive 1.5 trillion in student loans and make education free going forward. 2. 2008 level crisis with (2) is the more probable I think universities tuition is way too expensive in our country, but I'm against (1) currently because I don't think retroactively forgiving debt is a good policy. The students too…

> somehow forgive 1.5 trillion in student loans

A more plausible outcome is that the law changes to allows student to end after bankruptcy.

Maybe lenders are made whole by the government; maybe not.

That provides relief to extreme cases, while not shifting an entire $1T+ of debt.

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

#540

Post by paulddraper »

jetpks wrote: post #237
asdfman123 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be angry because I lived in the cheapest apartment I could and biked as much as I could until I paid everything off. Had I been less responsible, I would get more money under debt forgiveness. The incentives are inverted. I'm all for wealth redistribution but messing with incentives is shown over and over again to be a bad idea. Also, my perspective as the kind of frugal guy that everyone else calls cheap is…

Because you suffered, everyone in perpetuity must also suffer?

> in perpetuity

How is "debt forgiveness" solving the problem in perpetuity?

Debt forgiveness applies only to past debt, not future debt, unless I am misunderstanding the words.

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