The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#71

Post by jostylr » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

jakejake wrote: post #69

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.

There is no need to feel guilty.

In general, many people need to detox from a childhood that lacked sufficient freedom to explore and become a full human being. Their internal programming then takes college and its new freedom as an opportunity to rectify that. It is quite a reasonable approach given our K-12 schooling setup and its intense control of children's time during the day.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#72

Post by cowsandmilk » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 12:54 PM UTC

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…

Some might even argue more run-down buildings allow for better science. When you believe your building is cramped and in bad shape, changing its form slightly to get an experiment working is more acceptable. Cutting holes in walls, exposing beams to add supports for chemical reactors, and general experimentation. At least that's the idea behind the fetishization of Building 20 at MIT[1-3].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/31/science/last-rites-for-a-p... [2] http://newsoffice.mit.edu/1998/b20main-0401 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_20

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#73

Post by pdkl95 » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:07 PM UTC

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…

> implementing a C compiler for MIPS in java, using a shitty lex library

Interesting - when I took that course in the late 90s, I had to implement a java compiler for MIPS in C. With a shitty lex library, of course.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#74

Post by drabiega » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

swimfar wrote: post #35

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 know Europe is a diverse place, but I've studied at three universities in Europe (Germany and France) and at each of them I often had problems with computer access due to the labs being used for classes. This was an issue even as a graduate student. Access to professors outside of class was also difficult. Where I was at in Germany, the professors would have about 4 hours per week scheduled where they were availabl…

My experience at a State School in the US sounds more like your European experiences than your US experience.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#75

Post by eric_the_read » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

baking wrote: post #63

mdasen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is some evidence that where you actually attend university doesn't matter. This paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics suggests that what matters is where you apply, not where you actually end up going: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/dalekru...

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#76

Post by pconner » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

I don't think amenities are that big a factor in college choice. For people I know, price and prestige of the school are weighted way more than other factors such as location or quality of the school's buildings.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#77

Post by mcmancini » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

seunosewa wrote: post #58

Animats wrote: post #4

The short version: "A major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration."

What's responsible for the constant expansion of university administration?

Partially, regulatory compliance.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#78

Post by sp332 » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #39

morcheeba wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the article is from Boulder... they just started on a $63M rec center renovation and they have a pool in the shape of a buffalo. There are only 30,000 students, so right there is $2,000 per student on a portion of the facilities that isn't involved in teaching. http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_25916902/cu-boulder-bu...

It an expense, not necessarily a cost. Their property values just rose for example. Over time the equipment ages which leads to breaking, and replacement because it's not state of the art anymore. If you expect it to last 20 years, then you can write off 1/20th every year, which are your actual costs. Meaning it's $100 per student per year, which is reasonably cheap because those are essentially your costs to have st…

If you're not planning to sell property, high property values are bad because they just increase your taxes. There's no upside.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#79

Post by jakejake » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

jostylr wrote: post #71

jakejake wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no need to feel guilty. In general, many people need to detox from a childhood that lacked sufficient freedom to explore and become a full human being. Their internal programming then takes college and its new freedom as an opportunity to rectify that. It is quite a reasonable approach given our K-12 schooling setup and its intense control of children's time during the day.

It's kinda too bad that the expected path is to go right to college after high school. Because,although it can be a lot of fun, it's an awfully expensive way to "detox" if one isn't even taking advantage of the school and its resources. I might have been more productive being a ski bum for a couple of years before heading to school.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#80

Post by minikites » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

pacifist wrote: post #5

It didn't make sense to me until I read this: from the article: "Some of this increased spending in education has been driven by a sharp rise in the percentage of Americans who go to college." from the comments: "The money PER STUDENT was slashed. That is what matters for the cost to each student."… "This is an elaborate lie, to justify what is indefensible without the help of such lies."

I'm always suspicious when I read articles like this that claim to tell the "real story" when "everyone else" is lying, so I looked up the author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Campos

> Campos is perhaps best known for his 2004 book The Obesity Myth (later published as The Diet Myth) which reviews medical research on the association between higher body mass and health. Campos's contentions that obesity is healthy were praised by some sociologists and critical theorists, and overwhelmingly criticized by medical, epidemiological, and statistical researchers with professional training in empirical research.

So he's a professional at this kind of manipulation.