What would be the more effective way to combat tuition hikes?

[skrlvr]

Here's an interesting report about a small LAC, Oglethorpe, which had some financial problems starting in 2005 but was able to recover from those problems by 2011.

Oglethorpe University

Here's something it says about affordability:

"It is a challenge to continue to keep the university affordable, but Schall knows it is in OU’s best interest to do so. The university is highly tuition dependent, as its roughly $20 million endowment supplies but a thin piece of its $25 million operating budget. Still, OU’s cost per student is right around $15,000, which is impressive when compared against other small liberal arts colleges."

I found the 15K number interesting.

I have visited this university--it's very small, and there are some interesting older Gothic buildings on campus. At the same time, there are older dorms--dorms which were built in the 1960s, that truly look horrible. The athletic facilities are also meager, and I imagine most big time suburban high schools with football teams have considerably better gyms than this college.

They are also building a new campus center, and again, from what I hear, the old campus center was in bad shape, and there were plans to renovate or build anew, and I think it made more fiscal sense to just build anew. So it's not just frivolity here again.

What is interesting is that the response to their financial problems has been to increase enrollment--more students mean more tuition dollars--and they did build two new dorms to accomodate the new students. So in some cases, the nice news dorms aren't just frivolous. The university is still quite small, and they hope to get up to 1500 students.

So while the school is affordable, there are limitations. There are only about 99 faculty members, and close to half are only part time. Still, though, students feel they have good relationships with faculty members. And the number of majors is limited--only 29 majors, and not surprisingly, the course selection is limited.

What's also pretty impressive about this school is that it's a small, not well known LAC that was is terrible financial straits just before the recession and, given some of the things that have been said here on CC about small LACs, the impact of the recession, and the prediction that many LACs would not survive, this LAC has actually thrived and done better.

I guess my overall point is that affordability will come with some costs.

For some of the elite, very selective LACs, their response could be to start to limit what they offer both academically and non-academically, but they are not choosing to do so. In fact, their response is to go from need blind to need aware--admitting students based on their ability to pay. I'm sure it won't dilute the academic credentials of their student body. And again, it's better for them to have more tuition dollars.

So that's another way to survive these times. Here are some articles about Grinnell and Wesleyan, which have fantastic endowments:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2...-financial-aid

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2...hical-concerns

From the artilce about Wesleyan:

"The type of education Wesleyan offers is expensive. Three-fourths of its classes are 20 students or smaller, and they are taught by highly qualified academics who don’t come cheap. It has a beautiful residential campus that includes and amenities that students have come to expect from a top-tier institution. And Roth said he is not willing to sacrifice any of that to make the bottom line. “It would be foolhardy to maintain that commitment if it meant we had to reduce the quality of education they want access to,” he said."

[Time2]

Attend an affordable college reasonably within your parents financial means. Attending a pricey 'name' school is no more of a guarantee of success after college then attending a local community college is a guarantee of failure. Frankly, once you are on the job, most people where you work won't even know (or care) where you went to college.

[Catria]

Can an American public school student government authorize a student strike (or have the student body vote for one)? Quebecer, Latin American and European student unions can actually engage in collective bargaining.

CSUs and UCs may consider a full-scale strike if the tax plan is rejected. CUNY may also consider that course of action. I bring up these examples because they went the furthest down the path to an unlimited general strike. CUNY went on strike 3 days in total, while CSUs and at least UCSC and UCLA (maybe Berkeley as well) went on strike on March 1st, punctual strikes in both cases. They're just one step removed from an unlimited general strike. Said path is acknowledged by many to go down as follows:

Letters to legislators -> Petitions -> Flash mobs -> On-campus protests -> Off-campus protests -> Punctual strike -> Unlimited general strike

[soccerguy315]

I don't understand how you can strike if you are paying money to the school...

you can refuse to attend the school, but that is not a strike.

How can you say "this is too expensive" and then turn around and write a check, when you have other options? Obviously it's not actually too expensive.

[ucbalumnus]

A true student strike would be if every student submitted a notice of withdrawal at the very last possible moment to receive a tuition refund before the next term began, and then actually went through with sitting out the term.

[GMTplus7]

Students at a public universities are not workers who are providing goods or services in exchange for wages. They are net recipients of public aid (i.e. tuition is subsidized by taxpayers), so what is the point of going on strike for a few days-- so they can stop getting a subsidized product?

LOL, it's like if my kids threaten to stop receiving free room, board, clothing, entertainment & chauffeur service from me unless I raise their allowance.

[GMTplus7]

@ucbalumnus,

Refusing to buy a product is a boycott, not a strike

[Time2]

^^^ I agree. You chose to go there and pay their tuition and knew when applying how much it would cost. You are not employed by the college, you are attending as a student.

If you thought their tuition was too expensive perhaps you should have chosen a different college to attend.

[Dad_of_3]

When the supply-demand situation is such that the seller is turning away a good proportion of potential buyers, there isn't a market driven way to keep charges from escalating, especially since financing is relatively easily available. And any organization that has the ability to collect increasing amounts of money will invariably find ways of spending even more, spiraling to a reason for increasing charges again in the next cycle.

One way (albeit unpopular in many constituencies) would be to clamp down on how much funding is available, leading to fewer people being able to afford the escalating charges, forcing the universities to pay more than lip service to controlling costs. The popular way would be for the government to provide more direct support to the schools and increased loans and loan forgiveness to individuals, thereby kicking the can down the road by alleviating the current problem in exchange for a much worse one years later.

[thisislife]

Simple, take away private loan non-dischargability . Then Sallie Mae wont give a 19 year old a 40k loan to study game design .

As long as money is easily available, the price of school will keep going up

[soccerguy315]

Interesting and relevant article: Meet the High Priest of Runaway College Inflation (He Regrets Nothing) - Julia Edwards - The Atlantic

Since Trachtenberg took over in 1988, he had boosted the school's endowment from $250 million to $1 billion and built many state-of-the-art facilities, such as computer and research labs. The profusion of comforts didn't just stimulate students' minds; it also fulfilled their every whim--a change that drew a more selective, more intelligent group of applicants and sent the admission rate plummeting from 75 percent to 37 percent. "It was a very soothing, very beautiful experience and gave me a great sense of satisfaction about my tenure as president," Trachtenberg wrote in his memoir, Big Man on Campus.

Trachtenberg's students funded this triumph. When he became president, they paid $25,000 (in today's dollars) in tuition, room, and board to attend; by the time he retired, they paid $51,000. Trachtenberg made George Washington the most expensive school in the nation. The burst of cash powered his agenda, but the freshmen who borrowed to enroll--46 percent of the class--during his final year graduated with an average of $28,000 of debt.

[GMTplus7]

But students had changed since he and Small shared their hovel. Now they expected more from their schools--and they were willing to pay more for it

The article should be revised to read:
But students had changed since he and Small shared their hovel. Now they expected more from their schools--and they were willing to borrow more for it

[GMTplus7]

hey, I like this suggestion by one of the readers of the article:

You know what would stop the tuition increases really quickly?
Requiring that schools issue the loans and discharge them if their students can't pay.

[lake42ks]

Limiting tax deductions to 17K per family may dry up donations to big name private colleges that in turn drives tuitions down to the state school level, no?

[skrlvr]

But loan default rates at GWU are very low--at least for federal loans. If you check IPEDS, the 3 year default rate is 1.5%, at least in fiscal year 2009.

Harvard has about 1% in default, 27 students in all.

Even some less selective schools, such as Sewanee, although they have a higher default rate percentage--3.6%--have a small number of students/graduates in default--only 5 for Sewanee.

Tulane is higher at 5%--88 students in default. Oglethorpe is even higher at 9.6%, but only 24 total are in default (similar to Harvard, but with a much smaller number of students overall and smaller number taking out loans).

Perhaps data private loans would drive the rate up higher.

But if schools were responsible for issuing the loans and then discharging them if a student/graduate could not pay, one way to go would be, as schools are now doing, to fill up the class with wealthier students instead of students on aid--Sewanee could just admit 5 less students who would need loans, and 5 more students who could be full pay.