What I don't understand about the whole education sector is these massive endowments. If they're so big and managed so well, why is there a need to charge so much in the first place?
Last I read, those endowments have many restrictions on their use.
US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#52Certainly every university should cut them if they’re no selling brand and access to an alumni network.
Harvard/MIT/Stanford can get away with it because they can get you into Google/Goldman/McK purely based on their screening. The market pays a high price for that.
Schools with more open admissions policies can’t expect to charge much more than Coursera for similar offerings.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#53The Pandora’s box here is that far too little of these “fees” actually went to in-person instruction vs. bloated admin and other things not directly linked to core educational activities. Unless universities slash those bloated admin and other costs then they’re not really in a position to be giving everyone a “remote learning” discount.
These fees aren't for bloated admin. They support resources like the library, general student use fitness facilities, techology, and other student focused items. I get why students want to stop paying these fees during the pandemic since they can't use many of the resources. The issue is that most of the costs for these resources are fixed, mainly personnel and facilities. If you cut the fees, the university would ha…
My university had a dozen computer labs that were never utilized to capacity, (One in a dedicated, multi-story building), and a library that was far bigger than any of the other buildings on campus. And, of course, all the accouterments necessary to run a physics, a chemistry, a biology, an engineering department, etc, etc, etc.
All-in-market-rate-no-discount-no-subsidies-international-student tuition was ~100,000 CAD/4 years.
It's true, though, we did not have a stadium that could sit 60,000 people, or two olympic-sized swimming pools, or four-star-hotel-accomodation dorms that we were for some reason forced to live in, but we also weren't paying $100,000/year in tuition.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#54People just don't understand on here. It isn't like buying a loaf of bread.
Kids want to go to college. It's an exciting time in everyone's life, you get to go away somewhere, meet knew people, all while earning a degree, which because of the corporate worship of our nation, is now required to get a job.
And you wonder why fees are so high? And tuition skyrocketed?
No one shows anger towards the corporations which don't train anymore for their BS job in their BS department which doesn't do much of anything. We ignore the corporate bloat and regulatory capture across the entire spectrum for the select few corporations that have our politicians in their back pocket.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#55What happens to students who were financing their tuitions through athletic scholarships? Or by working on campus?
They become advocates of better educational public policy, because they’re currently (sadly) out of luck, casualties of a broken educational system.
Yes it’s great that they’ll join your pet political cause, but what about right now?
They need to get their degree and graduate.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#56I read this article a different way: instead of being under pressure to cut tuition, schools just realized they can cut a bunch of amenities and students will still pay their tuition, and even more. With that knowledge, they might as well keep it that way forever and pocket the extra income. Students will complain, but until they start dropping out, tuition can apparently be driven up endlessly. It's a lucrative business.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
They become advocates of better educational public policy, because they’re currently (sadly) out of luck, casualties of a broken educational system.
Yes it’s great that they’ll join your pet political cause, but what about right now ? They need to get their degree and graduate.
It’s unreasonable and counterproductive to call for bandaids when the jugular is bleeding out.
What a time to be alive when a functioning educational system with universal access and financial support is spoken about as “a pet political cause.” Some of us consider it a foundational component of a developed country, and the pandemic has laid bare the need.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
These fees aren't for bloated admin. They support resources like the library, general student use fitness facilities, techology, and other student focused items. I get why students want to stop paying these fees during the pandemic since they can't use many of the resources. The issue is that most of the costs for these resources are fixed, mainly personnel and facilities. If you cut the fees, the university would ha…
The easy solution is for Unis to take an L for once and to cover costs with their enormous savings from the last 30 years of exponential growth. Those fees obviously are over actual cost to cover contingencies, a pandemic was inevitable on the time scale of a university. They probably should have gotten insurance, what do those admins do anyway if not plan for things such as this?
It’s exempted from insurance but yeah they should have some reserves
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#59What I don't understand about the whole education sector is these massive endowments. If they're so big and managed so well, why is there a need to charge so much in the first place?
Endowments aren't slush funds that can be used for anything; they are frequently restricted towards specific purposes, like an endowed professorship/endowed chair. See, for example: https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU%20Files/Key%20Is...
"A typical endowment consists of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individual funds. In most cases, the donors who have created these funds have set restrictions on how their donations may be spent. In 2007-8, about 78 percent of endowment assets at public institutions were under such restrictions; an average of 55 percent of the resources contained in private university endowments were restricted (See National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) 2008 Endowment Study). In such cases, money restricted for research in a specific subject, for example, may not be applied toward student financial aid, and vice versa. Donations are typically restricted to fund student scholarships, conduct specific kinds of research, finance specific programs to enhance undergraduate and graduate education, create professorships in specified fields, develop or maintain teaching and research facilities, or improve a wide range of campus activities, including the arts, public service, student housing, and athletics."
However, other articles go on to note that money is fungible, making the restrictions less onerous than they appear. If, for example, a specific restricted endowment fund is restricted to providing scholarships, it still reduces the amount of scholarship money the university has to provide out of general funds by the amount the restricted endowment provides, freeing up that money to be used elsewhere.
Re: US universities under pressure to cut fees because of remote learning
#60The Pandora’s box here is that far too little of these “fees” actually went to in-person instruction vs. bloated admin and other things not directly linked to core educational activities. Unless universities slash those bloated admin and other costs then they’re not really in a position to be giving everyone a “remote learning” discount.
These fees aren't for bloated admin. They support resources like the library, general student use fitness facilities, techology, and other student focused items. I get why students want to stop paying these fees during the pandemic since they can't use many of the resources. The issue is that most of the costs for these resources are fixed, mainly personnel and facilities. If you cut the fees, the university would ha…
"The number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, vastly outpacing the growth in the number of students or faculty, according to an analysis of federal figures."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-grow...