Fifty-two Schools top 50K tuition mark.

[taxguy]

I was reading in the Chronicle of Higher Education that just over fifty schools have tuition and fees that exceed fifty-thousand dollars per year. The most expensive was Sarah Lawrence ,which had tuition and fees in excess of $55,000.

What I can't understand is what can possibly be worth over $50,000 per year and why it can cost that much? Yes, I know there are amenities provided to kids such as gyms, pools, movie theaters, and building maintenance and computer rooms and costs of admission personnel etc. However, let me put this in perspective.

.I can get a private quality tutor in five subjects, three days a week, for the thirty six week year, which is a typical year for most colleges , PLUS get a subscription to the top health club in our area, which includes a pool, plus get a new computer each year, plus pay for a year's housing and food for substantially less than $50,000+ per year.
Moreover, this would be one-on-one teaching, which would be MUCH better than the large classes provided by universities today, which are much more cost efficient.

How can it cost universities this much to operate? I just don't get it. They must be giving away enormous amount of scholarships and fellowships in order to require this kind of pricing or just blowing the money or must have a huge amount of inefficiency. Admittedly, there are maintenance costs to buildings and grounds keeping, and costs for admission personnel,but these costs ( especially on a per-student basis) shouldn't be huge enough to warrant this discrepancy.

[John2698]

Actually, its 50K for tuition, fees, room, and board. That food and housing adds up!

[Dean J]

Here's a new entry from the NYT's The Choice blog about room and board rates. Those fees have reached $15K at some schools, though some are in locations where cost of living is very high.

[dadinator]

The $55,000 for Sarah Lawrence is not just tutition and fees (which are $41,968 this year), but include room and board.

The same would be true for all the other schools on the list.

Yes, they are offering large need based scholarships. For example. Sarah Lawrence gave need based aid to over half the entering class, with the average scholarship/grant award being over $25,000.

[John2698]

What I find stunning about Sarah Lawrence is that 40% receive NO financial aid, which means that 40% of their students are paying $200,000 over four years.

I guess that's New York for you.

[fireandrain]

Yes those figures include room and board. But they do not include books and personal expenses, which add up to another $3000 or so. Which would bring Sarah Lawrence's total cost a little closer to $60,000.

Being realistic, if your kids weren't in college, and weren't living at home, they would have to pay something for room and board. Although probably not as much as the colleges charge (and this depends on geography). So it might be more realistic to compare tuition + books + fees.

One thing I would think is very expensive is keeping up to date with technology. Computer labs with relatively new computers, for example. All that lab equipment for science classes.

[momofthreeboys]

The tuition discounting alone points toward a wacky price/value equation. It will be very interesting to watch the next decades to see if the inflation in college costs can withstand market pressure. I suspect kids that leave college now with burdensome loans due to today's costs are going to think twice about putting their children into that position.

[berryberry61]

What I find stunning about Sarah Lawrence is that 40% receive NO financial aid, which means that 40% of their students are paying $200,000 over four years.

Thats called the sucker syndrome. Get those who can to pay more than full freight to subsidize others the school is discounting tuition for. Its cost shifting at its best (or worst) depending on your perspective.

[Wildwood11]

^^ I agree with momofthree, I think by the time the next generation reaches college age...things will have come to a head, and higher education will have gone through a huge transformation. With the internet and technological advances, at some point people will realize that it is much more cost-effective to get an online education, which will include discussion groups and one-on-one dialogue with educators. Sure, the traditional college experience will be missed, and there will always be a wealthy niche that will choose that, but if current rates of tuition inflation continue, the industry will sink itself.

[jessiehl]

I can get a private quality tutor in five subjects, three days a week, for the thirty six week year, which is a typical year for most colleges , PLUS get a subscription to the top health club in our area, which includes a pool, plus get a new computer each year, plus pay for a year's housing and food for substantially less than $50,000+ per year.

Do you get lab access, supplies, and safety training with the cost of that tutor? Do you get studio access and supplies (if you're in the arts/architecture)? Do you get research opportunities? Does your tutor come with a career center? An academic advisor? How about a medical center, or a counseling center? Do you get audiovisual equipment? Is your tutor qualified to teach the cutting-edge, highly-specialized classes in an academic field? Does that computer that you buy every year come with expensive licenses for important design/science/engineering software (e.g. Matlab, SolidWorks)? Does it come with a printer and ~infinite paper/ink supplies? Does your housing come with a cleaning service? Do you get access to dozens of competitive and non-competitive sports and hundreds of funded clubs of all sorts with that health club?

Mind you, that doesn't mean that I don't think that colleges could cut costs somewhere, but I think the quoted paragraph is ignoring a huge part of what colleges provide.

[LongPrime]

The Price that you {parents} pay to get the kid out-of-the-nest.

[LongPrime]

The Price the Child pays to to-get-Freedom

[dbwes]

We have been discussing this list in another thread too.
Yes, the article does keep stressing the amount of aid kids get ("average grant of $23,000" -- that kind of thing) which instead of making me feel better about these stated COAs, just makes me think even more that the whole system is really goofy and that someone is still paying full fare (airline seating, anyone? Even businesses are trying to save on those full fares these days.)

[qialah]

The biggest expense at universities is salaries.

If you think you can hire 5 PhDs even part time for less than $50,000, good luck to you.

[PaperChaserPop]

I just learned that OOS cost for UC Berkeley now exceeds $50K.