Why can't universities have a flat tuition where everyone pays the same?
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Anonymous
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Why do universities have to social engineers, giving free tuition to adults with low income parents and overcharging adults with higher incomes?
An adult with higher income parents more than likely has to finance the whole education with debt. Why does that adult deserve to be buried in debt when an adult who gets the same education, same career prospects, but parent make less, pays nothing? |
Anonymous
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The business term is "price discrimination" and extracting as much as possible from each tier of customer, based on their ability/willingness to pay.
For example, international students pay full fare (not eligible fro financial aid). You see the same with airlines, and even movie theaters. Why does the same movie cost half the price when you see it during the weekday matinee compared to Friday night? It's the same movie after all. |
Anonymous
| Another example is hair salons. Men's haircuts cost a lot less than women's cuts, partly because of willingness to pay. Most men simply won't pay as much as women do for a cut. |
Anonymous
| Because they’re liberals and enjoy using other people’s money to “change” lives. |
Anonymous
OP here - sorry, you are wrong. They are not maximizing extraction. If colleges wanted to maximize revenue and merit, they would not give adults with low-income parents free tuition. |
Anonymous
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Amen +1000000
This would solve so many problems. |
Anonymous
Let’s bring it to an extreme: STEM, CS, and Econ students should be paying 3x as much, and humanities students 1/3. After all, those CS majors make for a very crowded airplane. |
Anonymous
maybe but they should only fund the humanities programs by the lower tuition or the better idea is to charrge more to keep the department running |
Anonymous
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Universities could do that. If they did, though, they would miss out on lots of brilliant, creative, highly motivated students — the kind who add to a school’s reputation. Some of them would rather be known as excellent schools — with grads who change the world, than a less than top tier school, whose reputation is known for taking in students whose parents can pay their bills for them. Eventually, the school’s reputation as a quality institution craters, and top tier students and faculty will no longer seek them out.
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Anonymous
| If Harvard all of a sudden charges a flat-rate tuition of 90k while Yale charges 90k sticker price with generous income-based financial aid like it has always done, Harvard will find it difficult to compete with Yale for lower/middle-income but bright students. The denominator in Harvard's acceptance rate will drop significantly, making it appear to be much less selective. The GPA distribution and SAT range of Harvard's accepted students will also drop quite a bit, since it will be drawing from a much smaller pool of applicants who almost certainly won't all have near 4.0 and 1500+. This will likely lead to a drop in ranking, slowly killing the aura of Harvard. It will also gradually develop a bad rep as "the school for the rich and only the rich," which is horrible optics that will be hard to undo. Yale's model may not be ideal nor fair to DCUM UMC families, but the alternative as suggested by OP is almost certainly going to bring down a top private school like Harvard. |
Anonymous
Yes, only if admissions is a 100% test-based and iq-based meritocracy for the top 10~25 schools. None of this affirmative action shell game for pearl clutching white UMC to stay one step ahead of the next minority that threatens their seats. Complaining about higher tuition after getting accepted is a privilege that some groups of people don't even get to contemplate because they're systematically, holistically gatekept out. |
Anonymous
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.................
because college shouldn't be limited to the wealthy??? Jesus, op. |
Anonymous
| I don’t think the full pat kids are really subsiding the FA kids. Alumni donations and such are what cover the FA kids. And alumni wouldn’t give as much if there was no FA. Plus FA kids grow up to be alumni who donate and who pay full pay for their own kids to go to college. Like me. |
Anonymous
| Because universities are for the most part run by people with socialist tendencies, unless it comes to their salaries of course. |
Anonymous
| State schools do it to broaden their workforce. The very wealthy kids probably won't even be taking 9-5 jobs. The moderately wealthy kids will become lawyers and administrators. Necessary roles, but they won't grow the state economy. The middle class and poor kids, however, are the ones who have to hustle and help businesses grow. A win for the state. That is why they "social engineer". It is good for the economy |