- You'd think the "cost per student" metric was a good one -- and certainly the, perhaps, twenty top schools cited are generally excellent -- but I see many potential problems. As always, the "devil is in the details" -- for example:
[QUOTE=""]Ivy university X serves unlimited grilled salmon and beef tenderloin in student cafeterias (to increase its yield in comparison to Ivies Y and Z), whereas state flagship A generally serves burgers, salads, and other standard fare. Let’s presume those are all elements of “student cost.” Do salmon and tenderloin ensure better educational/leadership results?
Similarly, SEC flagship A has drastically reduced its number of intercollegiate sports (both men’s and woman’s), concentrating on revenue (football and basketball) athletics. Obviously, that greatly reduces “cost per student.” However, it also substantially decreases the number of undergraduates who participate in intercollegiate sports, which many believe provide very valuable nonacademic educational experiences (leadership, teamwork, self-discipline, self-sacrifice, time management, etc.).
Huge public university A has many more commuter-students than its identically-sized counterpart – university B – in the adjacent state, due only to the two universities’ locations (A in a big city, B in the countryside). B necessarily spend a great deal more on dormitories, food service, etc. than does A, but do those expenses correlate to better educational/leadership outcomes?
Big Ten mega-university X has an average class size >150 undergraduates, whereas most-selective LAC Y’s average class size is <10. Y probably incurs greater faculty costs, but X requires TAs (consequentially postgraduate programs, major additional scholarship costs, and much more). How does that fit the “cost per student” metric?
These four examples are ONLY the “tip of the iceberg.” Cost per student would appear to be a good yardstick, but I’m not too sure it is practical and viable, as the foregoing examples may demonstrate.[/QUOTE]
- I'll respond to your second question using actual Duke information (my tenures on the Annual Fund Executive Committee and on the Alumni Association's Board/Executive Committee provided access to this sort of data). As expensive a Duke's tuition may seem (approximately $65K next year for undergraduates), every single student is subsidized in the $20 to $25K range annually; this is NOT grants, scholarships, and so forth, rather it is the difference between actual cost accounting-based expenses and full tuition on a per student basis. That additional funding comes from individual annual giving, from corporate donations, from philanthropic institutional charity, from endowment proceeds, from research grants, from governmental and private/commercial subsidies, and so forth. That's the answer to your second question (although you specifically cited Yale and WU/StL).