Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 135 posts

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#61

Post by itg »

jeffwass wrote: post #53
krat0sprakhar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The secret is that many elite colleges give such generous financial aid that only the extremely wealthy are paying full freight. But it still makes the college looks good to have an astronomically high sticker price. Unfortunately, this is not at all true for grad school. I'm from India and a large swathe of my friends from college are studying in the US without any sort of aid.

What subjects are your friends studying? I did my PhD in physics in the USA, and for all of my fellow physics grad students, we not only had free tuition but we were given jobs (they didn't pay much but it was enough to live on). Ie, students were either given Research Assistant roles from their Adviser's funding, or Teaching Assistant roles by the department. The lucky ttudents with fellowships didn't need to teach…

He probably means masters degree. I was looking at a few and couldn't find any that were fully funded. This was in stem programs at top schools.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#62

Post by [deleted] »

dikaiosune wrote: post #33
ollebro wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college in Sweden and had all that you had, I didn't pay anything. I received about 1000-1500$ a month for attending school from the government.

I like the way Sweden does many things, but: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Tax... It's political suicide in the US to raise taxes in any significant way, and so we suffer through the nonsense we've got.

[deleted]

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#63

Post by baking »

mdasen wrote: post #17
snogglethorpe wrote: post #3

One thing I've noticed about American universities compared with universities in other countries (Japan, Korea, UK), is that almost every decent American university I've seen seems to be really well-maintained, in that the campus is very clean, in good repair, frequently renovated, etc, even the out-of-the-public-eye spaces (grad student offices and the like). Japanese and Korean universities, on the other hand, are…

Economists sometimes talk about different types of quality: actual quality and perceived quality. There has been a lot of spending that has been directed toward perceived quality at American Universities. That includes a lot of new buildings, a lot of maintenance, etc. In a certain way, it becomes a race to spend more. The more you spend, the better students you can attract, the better your status is and your alumni…

>If you're fairly well off (parents earning $120,000/year), you can easily get a free education at one of the top schools.

It is great that Stanford was able to offer free tuition (not free education) to whatever portion of the 2,144 students they admitted this year had family incomes under $125,000 and "typical assets" but it is definitely not easy to get into Stanford. As a family with $140,000 in income and what I would consider to be typical assets (modest home, minimal retirement and college savings) we received no financial aid offers of any kind and were expected to be able to pay $65-70,000 per year at private colleges.

Luckily, my daughter found an excellent out-of-state public college that she loves and should graduate debt-free. Unfortunately, too many of her high school friends fell into the private school trap and are now either paying outrageous tuition or are stuck in a mediocre in-state public school.

To any parents now making college visits, ignore those press releases, insist that you visit as many public campuses as you do private ones, and that your children apply to as many public schools as they do private schools and you won't live to regret it.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#64

Post by gumballhead »

reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

I upvoted this comment because this is all very true and gets to be very expensive as enrollment rates increase, which was also mentioned in the article.

But, despite all of this expense, I don't feel like I got a great education while I attended a public university. My classes were taught by grad students and adjuncts in 400 person auditoriums.

I ended up transferring to a small private school about the size of my high school. The tuition was about four times what I was paying at a public school (though I didn't pay near that much out of my own pocket) and the quality of teaching was night and day.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#65

Post by cheald »

nickysielicki wrote: post #36
MCRed wrote: post #21

I think a more interesting question is, how has the ROI of college changed over the past 40 years? The cost has gone up much faster than inflation. The number of people going to college has also risen dramatically. This means there are a lot more college educated peers competing with you in the workplace. This means that the college degree is not as rare, and thus has lower scarcity value. Finally, I think it's quite…

One criticism I have of education systems is that they structurally encourage only superficially studying content. Let's take my compilers class as an example. I go to a 75 minute lecture 2 times a week and I do about 4 hours of homework a week. I do this over 18 weeks. That's only roughly 120 hours of study over the course of a semester. That's only as many hours as most full time employees work every 3 weeks! And t…

> if I handed you a résumé, without a bachelor's degree, but instead included my github profile and a list of books I've read cover to cover and some open source contributions, am I going to get the salary I am worth?

Speaking as someone who makes hiring decisions, a strong Github profile means more to me than the school you went to or the degree you have. When I hire people, I care about their ability to get things done and their ability to self-direct far more than their ability to do well on tests. Experience drives salary, not the education line item on your resume.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#66

Post by FLUX-YOU »

MCRed wrote: post #21

I think a more interesting question is, how has the ROI of college changed over the past 40 years? The cost has gone up much faster than inflation. The number of people going to college has also risen dramatically. This means there are a lot more college educated peers competing with you in the workplace. This means that the college degree is not as rare, and thus has lower scarcity value. Finally, I think it's quite…

You still need some sort of equivalency in the mind of the people doing the hiring before the MooCs move in -- something to get them past the mindset that only people who go to college can perform the job. Businesses also need to stop auto filtering people who don't have a degree, and that's something that you'd actually have to fight for to get removed, meaning most hiring managers won't be arsed to take up that fight. Most sane places will realize that actual code is more indicative of skill than the degree (this is before you've met the person), and we thankfully have free tools to accomplish that goal.

It would be fine if college were something optional and there could be a carefree debate. The degree in America is quickly turning into something that is required for decent employment, but can give you a very difficult financial situation for a long time if the reward doesn't meet the cost.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#67

Post by chrisBob »

reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

The extra features are all based on how US students choose a school. Here undergrads go to the school with the beautiful student union, the gym with a juice bar and climbing wall, and want to live in a room near the nicest 24 hour dining hall with made to order stir fry and sandwiches. Having granite countertops in the dorm room also helps.

This is just how the select the specific university though. The target group of universities will probably be something like "City school in the North East", "Private college with small class sizes", or "Ivy with good greek life".

As a contrast ask a Chinese person how they pick which university to go to in China. You will immediately get a confused look and the answer: "The highest ranked one you can get in to". My co-worker couldn't even imagine picking based on anything else.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#68

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chrisBob wrote: post #67
reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

The extra features are all based on how US students choose a school. Here undergrads go to the school with the beautiful student union, the gym with a juice bar and climbing wall, and want to live in a room near the nicest 24 hour dining hall with made to order stir fry and sandwiches. Having granite countertops in the dorm room also helps. This is just how the select the specific university though. The target group…

Which one? PKU? Qinghua? Shanghai Jiaotong? It is not such an easy choice anymore, and the universities in Beijing have poor facilities compared to Shanghai, making it difficult for them to attract shanghainese to come here to Beijing to study.

Even chinese students these days want heated and air conditioned dormitories, a shower in their dorm (at least on their floor! Definitely not in a separate building), and clean water to wash with. Or screw it, the ones that can will just go to some 2nd or 1st tier school in the U.S. or UK anyways so they aren't wasting their time.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#69

Post by jakejake »

reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

Some people treat college like a four year vacation with planned activities. In which case the price is really quite cheap.

Looking back, I was guilty of this attitude at various times.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#70

Post by benihana »

xorcist wrote: post #50
adventured wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden also doesn't have universities that match up to the US when it comes to a ~$50k tuition tier. $50,000 per year is a lot, and buys you access to the best universities on earth, most of which are in the US. Harvard's tuition is around $44,000 for example.

Sweden is a country with the population of New York, but have one (sometimes two) universitites in a global top ten ranking of their respective subjects. So if you must compare to something US, do it with a large city.

How about don't compare a European nation to a large city, do it to the US equivalent: A state.
Post reply on HN