Reply to Is It Really Gonna Cost $280K? OMG

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is the problem with price shopping for everything to the exclusion of everything else. We have done this to our k-12 education also. We want to get a great education for our kids but pay teachers pittance in salary. Teachers have to take jobs as waitresses in summer to make ends meet.  Maintaining and running a world class University with professors who can actually afford to live off their salary is expensive!! If the State doesn't subsidize it somebody has to pay the bills! What value do you put on smaller classes, easier time getting into required classes and other benefits at private colleges? And who should pay for it.

Imagine what would happen to tight state budgets and already overcrowded state schools if we had no private colleges?  The reason state schools appear cheap is because somebody is massively subsidizing them. But that may not last to long. Look at Wisconsin, IL, CA and many other states. The state is pulling back and the schools in these states are now facing a lot of budget problems

What some parents really want is for somebody else to subsidize their kids education. They want tax payers or private donors to be suckers. [b]They don't really want to pay the true price for a good education.[/b] They want massive subsidies but don't want any obligations for accepting those subsidies. [/quote]

Some of your points are valid but you're missing several big issues:

Many of the oldest and most prestigious universiities have endowments in the billions.  They no longer need the tuition dollars yet they are the very same institutions that keep setting the standard for cost of attendance, and hiking it year after year - because they can.  Simply put, many many of these private institutions do not cost the price of admission.  They charge what they do (undergrad now approaching $85K at some institutions; law schools at $100K) simply because they can and then those paying full freight offset the gap for those who need merit and financial aid.  For example, it does not take $100K for Harvard Law to teach your first year student.  There are 100+ students in one section being taught by one professor.  A first-year section has only four or five professors at one time.  Because Harvard is Harvard, and Yale is Yale, etc., they can charge whatever they want and some family will pay for it (plus buildings).  The SLACs and other universities then follow suit.  My lousy LAC is not Harvard but charges the same amount.  A Mercedes is not a Chevy but because market forces are what they are, the fees jump across the board for all institutions every year.  Decades ago, Harvard and Yale got caught in price fixing.  Now they just announce what the next year's fees will be and every other institution follows suit, down to the pretty little LAC down the street.  It's impossible for all these institutions to cost the same amount of money.  But so long as parents are willing to pay these obscene amounts of money, and so long as the INTERNATIONAL students are willing to pay this amount of money, the prices will continue to rise across the board.  This is why most private institutions have priced themselves out of existence for donut hole, MC and UMC families.  We make too much to qualify for financial aid; merit aid is not available at the most prestigious institutions but we are the ones left paying $75 to $85K a year, often to subsidize the poorer students.

As to the state institutions, I think it only fair that families who have lived in the state and have pumped tax dollars into the state should take advantage of their in-state options.  A multi-year requirement should be imposed however, so people can't game the system by moving into California and Virginia the year before applications are due to apply for in-state status.  You're also missing the argument that some state publics like UVA are almost self-sufficient, operating off a large endowment. For the other state institutions, they go back to their legislatures and ask for more cash.  The state (like California) turns around and taxes the MC and UMC to the point where they move out of the state.

Meanwhile California and Texas have decided to limit the number of seats available to OOS students to 20% (or top 10% of high school class) because residents are sick of paying big tax dollars and then finding out their kids cannot get into the institutions they have been paying for  years.

Smart parents are trying to get their children into the best in-state schools possible (and OOS where fees are significantly lower than privates) and saving for grad school.  Private institutions are rapidly becoming bastions for the ultra rich, the rich, the internationals and those on financial aid with no MC and UMC students.[/quote]

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