High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993 • Hacker News Board

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#211

Post by suture » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

j_walter wrote: post #191

suture wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuition in the University of California system increased by an infinite percent from 1960 to 1980. It used to be tuition free. Had it remained tuition free it would have been cheaper and better overall for society.

I think many people are for tuition free for a certain amount of people based on merit. However it shouldn't be just a 5th-8th year of high school...like it seems to be becoming. When an admissions rate of a large public university can reach 95%+...we are no longer selecting the best students that will actually gain anything from going to college.

Too many people are going to college but now that colleges are run like a business this isn’t going to change. With declining state support we need more clients and the tuition money they bring.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#212

Post by pnutjam » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #82

Loughla wrote: post #16

I mean, yeah. But also, the expectations placed on colleges have grown exponentially. Retention staff, student life staff, counseling staff, new innovative (read: Expensive) programs, the 'experience'. These all cost money. My experience of expectations of college in the 90's - can I drink? Do the faculty let me miss if I need to? My experience of expectations of college now - is my child safe? Can s/he access approp…

Quite true. Additionally, there are raised expectations around wanting a perfect experience. My college in the 90s was block wall room with bunk beds and communal bathroom on the floor. Today everyone wants a private bedroom, shared kitchen and hang out area in their quad. This costs money and space too. At the same time, we now refuse to give deserving teachers tenure and everything is adjunct and basically gig work…

Yeah, this is not the case in any of the colleges my kids looked at, dorms are the same they were 25 years ago.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#213

Post by suture » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

derbOac wrote: post #180

suture wrote: post #30

State funding per student has steadily declined since 1987. Tuition rates have risen in response. I don’t claim all of the tuition increases have come from the decline in funding but the decline in public funding contributes to the increase. Public colleges are more and more being run like businesses. According to this research, public funding for higher education has declined in response to increased welfare and Med…

I think the blog post might be onto something, but I agree that I don't think it's all of it. My friend and colleague were just talking recently about how something happened around the mid to late 1990s in the US with college, but it's really hard to put one's finger on one thing or even one set of things, or why they changed around the same time. It's like higher ed just started getting insane around then in several…

Thanks for your well stated response. I agree with the sentiments and beliefs. Nicely put.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#214

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

satao wrote: post #188

scottcodie wrote: post #184

I often think about the role of universities in the education process. It seems that universities are just profit maximizing entities. They don't care about student's education unless it impacts their reputation or ability to make more money. They give the bare minimum support to teachers to teach as well as bare minimum investment in processes like admissions. Seems like universities are doing exactly what you'd exp…

in academia education is secondary to research... we make the mistake of thinking they it serves an education purpose, but in reality their focus is on research. this is what matters for their funding, their public name, etc etc

At research universities, sure that is a big part of it. The professors are paid largely from research grant awards that they bring in, and about half of that award is skimmed off the top by the university for "overhead."

There are many small colleges that are not research-focused. They teach. They make their money from tuition and gifts, and possibly other federal grants but not for research.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#215

Post by lovich » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #55

toast0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If degree holders go on to make wages much higher than those without and many taxes are progressive, a subsidy on degrees will be paid for substantially by those with degrees (who may have had their degrees subsidized), and degree subsidization may have positive ROI for the government in terms of future tax revenue from those who got degrees. If you're worried about administrative and sporting expenses, you could cho…

Here's the problem. I have no formal education and I pay the same rate of tax as a degree holder. Even under this system, I am subsidizing someone who has had considerably more privilege than myself.

Subsidizing others in a society is kind of a feature and not a bug

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#216

Post by j_walter » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #195

j_walter wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about things you already have...like say health insurance. I went back for an MBA ~2009 while working a full time job. I was forced to pay an extra ~$300 per term for health care even though I already had it through my work. No way to opt out. When my tuition was ~$2,500/term...another $300 doesn't seem like that much except I was paying out of pocket so every dollar counted.

I believe you are confusing the student health fee with health insurance plan and they aren't the same thing. Student health fee goes into paying for the on-campus student services like the athletic fee, computer fee, etc. I haven't been a student in years but I do remember walking into the clinic and getting seen by someone right away. The services under that fee are kind of unique to student lifestyle: birth contro…

This was a student health fee that also covered health insurance for students (dental too). It was a basic program through Aetna Student Health. Also included urgent and basic services on campus as well as mental health services.

I was also an online student that only attended on campus class for 1 weekend per semester. It made no sense to make everyone pay the fee that included significant amounts of benefits that weren't needed by online students (the online MBA program was structured toward those currently working). This was on top of the $41 fee that I paid for the "Rec Center"...which again would never be used by me since I was an online student.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#217

Post by veilrap » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #192

Agamus wrote: post #24

"The solution is and always has been to cut the fluff from the academies. For context, go add up the salaries the 'student services' area of the expensive school of your choice. Having worked for one such office for ~15 years, the most appalling part was that they are largely antagonistic toward the faculty and mission of the schools. The waste is dizzying." I made the above comment on another thread with a similar t…

I work at a well known public uni. We can get state and federal funding for anything that aligns with democrat political talking points. We cannot get funding for basic tech and projects. We have a program where students design and build actual tech related directly to their degree and future employment, and we have to beg people to fund us. The school nor grants will find us in any way yet we are entirely bound to a…

My experience in higher ed is exactly the opposite. Funding is quite easy to get for STEM research projects through grants and other research programs.

Projects that just "align with political talking points" tend to be much more challenging to fund because there's significantly less money available in those domains.

Economically, an educated populace produces positive externalities on society. As such it makes sense for the government to fund and subsidize it to some extent because it produces a good ROI for both the society and the individuals.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#218

Post by secabeen » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #36

lizknope wrote: post #10

So where is the money going? If the price of something is increasing faster than inflation then I expect something in return for the extra money I am paying like a bigger house, faster computer, whatever. I went to college in the 1990's. Are college students getting a better education or experience for all the extra money they are paying? I've seen my university's new classrooms, student center, library, dorms, etc.…

The money is going into a bottomless pit of administrative and bureaucratic overhead. Universities are caught up in a zero-sum competition for the top students (and athletes). To attract these students they invest in massive infrastructure projects (new buildings and renovations), often with the support of earmarked donations from wealthy alumni. These new facilities must then be staffed with administrators and maint…

> The short answer is: administrative bloat. That's where all the money is going. Universities employ far more non-teaching staff than ever before. A large bulk of this staff is essentially dedicated to marketing the university to prospective students, a zero-sum competition with other universities.

Do you have a citation for this claim? The Ed department publishes higher-ed expenditure data, and it doesn't show "far more" administrative expense on a real per-student basis compared to 10 or 20 years ago:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_334.10.a...

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#219

Post by GlenTheMachine » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

Wait, the claim doesn't match the little data presented and the primary claim is not examined or supported.

1) The Omnibus bill passed in 1993, but from the graph tuition was already increasing at 200% greater than inflation, and appears to have started in the mid 1980's; and

2) Why would the fact that the loans are now from the government mean that universities no longer had to compete on costs? The bill ultimately goes to the student in either case.

Re: High tuition costs mostly stem from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1993

#220

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, May 31, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

scottcodie wrote: post #184

I often think about the role of universities in the education process. It seems that universities are just profit maximizing entities. They don't care about student's education unless it impacts their reputation or ability to make more money. They give the bare minimum support to teachers to teach as well as bare minimum investment in processes like admissions. Seems like universities are doing exactly what you'd exp…

> It seems that universities are just profit maximizing entities.

Most universities are nonprofits; universities tend to be research maximizing entities, with teaching as a distant second function.

There are institutions with teaching- (as opposed to research-) centric models, but they tend to do at most undergraduate, vocation, and/or professional education, not academic graduate education, and (somewhat ironically, in context of the comment above) tend to be far more likely to be profit-centric businesses.