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Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

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Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#21

Post by anoonmoose »

vorpalhex wrote: post #19
snarf21 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should start limiting tuition by making it be tied to the first year salary of students graduating from the same school with the same degree. If you want federal money, that is the rule. And room/board must be optional, you can't be forced to live on campus.

That might work for Computer Science where grads can be employed quickly and at very solid wages but it won't meaningfully apply for most fields like business, chemistry or physics.

Then those schools will be disincentivized to charge people for degrees that won't pay for themselves, which is good

which will result in more people going into degrees where people can be employed quickly at solid wages, which is good

which will result in a scarcity of people going into the fields you mentioned, which will increase the wages in those fields which will incentivize people to go into them

this, like most things, is a supply and demand problem, and we have created too much supply in certain areas

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#22

Post by dnadler »

anoonmoose wrote: post #21
vorpalhex wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might work for Computer Science where grads can be employed quickly and at very solid wages but it won't meaningfully apply for most fields like business, chemistry or physics.

Then those schools will be disincentivized to charge people for degrees that won't pay for themselves, which is good which will result in more people going into degrees where people can be employed quickly at solid wages, which is good which will result in a scarcity of people going into the fields you mentioned, which will increase the wages in those fields which will incentivize people to go into them this, like mo…

They will also be disincentivized to offer those degrees at all. Which, IMO is definitely not good. Obviously these issues are nuanced and complicated...

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#23

Post by supahfly_remix »

vsskanth wrote: post #13

Is there a website that tracks tuition fee history for colleges ? Don't know if I'm imagining this but it looks like in state tuition has doubled for my state school (virginia tech) compared to what I paid in 2011 for grad school. If this is true, that is a pretty big increase.

Try https://tuitiontracker.org or https://github.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/blob/master/d...

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#24

Post by bluGill »

snarf21 wrote: post #11
djsumdog wrote: post #4

> cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students I find it insane tuition is that high. I finished grad school before 2010, and at least with the smaller state schools I went to, total cost of tuition and books was in the $3k~$5k range. Boutique schools like Vanderbilt were like $25k+ (per semester). I had a friend who got a free ride there for graduate school, and he said it wasn't really that different than our st…

I think we should start limiting tuition by making it be tied to the first year salary of students graduating from the same school with the same degree. If you want federal money, that is the rule. And room/board must be optional, you can't be forced to live on campus.

Is college a form of jobs training or a way to make yourself better?

There is the disconnect, because both are true in different amounts for different people.

If it is just jobs training you are correct. We shouldn't have "under water basket weaving" type courses because there is no market for that. There is some need for art, but only in the context of art is useful to make better marketing materials, so the degree should be offered by the business school in context of marketing courses. History is useful to make you a well rounded critical thinker, but if you are going for a history degree it should be sponsored by the school that will eventually give you tenure as a professor.

If you just want to make yourself better: art is very interesting as a subject. Have fun learning it. Likewise history is interesting even if there are no job prospects. However because these are no job prospects (this generalization is of course false - but true enough for discussion) you shouldn't be getting such a degree if you cannot self finance it from your current job.

Both of the above arguments makes for a worse world in my opinion.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#25

Post by swebs »

djsumdog wrote: post #4

> cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students I find it insane tuition is that high. I finished grad school before 2010, and at least with the smaller state schools I went to, total cost of tuition and books was in the $3k~$5k range. Boutique schools like Vanderbilt were like $25k+ (per semester). I had a friend who got a free ride there for graduate school, and he said it wasn't really that different than our st…

>Federally subsidized student loans need to GO AWAY. They've allowed students to enter into debt, the only long term contracts kids under 18 can legally sign, for something they can never declare bankruptcy on.

I think that's something that many people would agree with, but how do we go forward with making that happen?

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#26

Post by hardwaregeek »

It’s interesting seeing how tuition costs influence students. I go to a school infamous for its high price. And truth be told, I don’t think I could advocate going here barring some serious prerequisites. One of which is having some idea of what to study. The classic idea of college being a place to mess around and figure out what to do with your life is absolutely delusional with tuition so high. Go figure out what to do with your life without it costing 40k+ a year.

That said, I have a feeling this isn’t a controversial point. A lot of my classmates come in seemingly focused on a particular career or field. The issue is that there’s no conceivable way they can be certain of their field this early. I’ve talked to far too many undergraduates who have decided on CS without knowing if they like programming. I have too many classmates who decided to major in chemistry or do pre-med because they liked their high school chemistry class. With these students, what happens if they discover they don’t like their major? For the undecided student, they’re unlikely to get far in a subject they don’t like. They’ll leave after a class because they’re not set on it. A decided student will likely feel that they’ve committed and realize too late that they do not want to work in their field. In my view the worst situation is to realize you hate your major junior or senior year.

I’m not sure about solutions. I took a gap year and worked as a programmer. The gap year had a lot of benefits but maybe the biggest one was knowing that I could actually see myself as a programmer and that I’m competent at it. A gap year is a privileged option though. In general cheaper tuition and more involved guidance could work. Most majors should have an initial class that outlines the potential career options and the less than pretty parts of the job. I suppose that pushes the school into a more vocational role, but alas if you’re paying so damn much, getting a career out of it is pretty necessary.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#27

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

yostrovs wrote: post #18
rootusrootus wrote: post #12

As a parent, I'm not-so-secretly hoping we will see some correction. Especially with the proliferation of online options. If I sent my kid to Oregon State to get an online CS degree, they'd pay the same tuition as if they were on-campus. If they went to somewhere like ASU for the online CS masters, it is similarly overpriced. Meanwhile, I'm just about to finish my Georgia Tech masters in CS for under 10K for the enti…

Though the online classes can be scaled fairly easily, administrators seem to follow a different rate. The growth rate of college students is slower than of administrators. Their pay is also up there so the total payout is also growing fast.

This is essentially Parkinson's Law. The common one you hear about Parkinson's law is about work filling up time but really if you read the original from 1955 it talks about "the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while the British Empire declined". And causes for this being: "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals," and "Officials make work for each other."

If you've ever worked at a large corporation you've seen this in action. Universities and government are no different. Bureaucracy keeps expanding, corporations address this problem by random acts of cancelling entire divisions/products and layoffs.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#28

Post by fabian2k »

underseacables wrote: post #5

Incredible! Now how about those exorbitant fees and the price of textbooks!?

You might have to discourage professors from requiring specific textbooks to achieve this. To me this seems like a mostly US-specific phenomenon, while textbooks were somewhat expensive here in Germany, not to the same degree as in the US. I think my most expensive book was 80 EUR, most were cheaper than that. And almost no textbooks were actually required in the courses, most of the time you were free to choose between several options, and using older editions was not an issue.

If the courses require specific textbooks in specific editions, the students don't have a choice and have to accept excessive prices.

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#29

Post by daniellarusso »

bluGill wrote: post #24
snarf21 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should start limiting tuition by making it be tied to the first year salary of students graduating from the same school with the same degree. If you want federal money, that is the rule. And room/board must be optional, you can't be forced to live on campus.

Is college a form of jobs training or a way to make yourself better? There is the disconnect, because both are true in different amounts for different people. If it is just jobs training you are correct. We shouldn't have "under water basket weaving" type courses because there is no market for that. There is some need for art, but only in the context of art is useful to make better marketing materials, so the degree…

If it is a way to make yourself ‘better’ - why not allow the loans to be used for other types of betterment, like physical and dietary health?

Or, is there a way to make oneself better without relying on tens of thousand of dollars of debt, which cannot even be waived via bankruptcy?

Re: Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition

#30

Post by jdmichal »

vsskanth wrote: post #13

Is there a website that tracks tuition fee history for colleges ? Don't know if I'm imagining this but it looks like in state tuition has doubled for my state school (virginia tech) compared to what I paid in 2011 for grad school. If this is true, that is a pretty big increase.

This is a site that someone else posted on another thread. Looks like they have historic data back to 2010-11, for both undergrad and grad.

https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/trends/virginia-polyte...

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