<p>As a new academic year begins, growing scrutiny of record tuition and fees is drawing new attention to the longstanding cycle of subsidies like these on which American colleges and universities depend *– but which they would rather not discuss.</p>
<p>Rich kids subsidize poor kids. Out-of-state students subsidize in-state ones. Humanities majors subsidize science majors. Freshmen and sophomores subsidize juniors and seniors. Undergraduates subsidize graduate students. And international students subsidize everyone.</p>
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<p>Prices are restrained when people pay directly for what they consume.</p>
<p>The article starts off describing a Berkeley student who is paying 2.5 times as much as other students…because the student is from Washington. And it’s just not fair that she has to help subsidize other, poorer students from California. </p>
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<p>I’m trying to understand why life isn’t fair for this young woman (who has an excellent in-state option at a fraction of the cost, or for the international student mentioned later in the article who feels that the university is taking advantage of him and other internationals (who could’ve found lower-cost merit options). :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I’m a lifelong California resident and UC graduate. Richer students supported me once upon a time; now my taxes and donations support poorer in-state students. I’m glad to do so. Supporting out of state and international students…not so much.</p>
<p>Is this news? I remember in a college economics course when the instructor was discussing the concept of price discrimination, and used college financial aid and scholarships as an example.</p>
<p>I think it’s a valid point and one that might be addressed at a private college. OTOH, parents of gifted kids and regular kids have long maintained that some kids cost the public school district a lot more than others. There was a severely hyperactive kindergartener in my son’s class who has required an attendant to stay on task every single year he’s been in school. It hardly seems fair that my kids were routinely in classes with 30 or more children in them because the district couldn’t afford any more teachers, and yet there were kids with one on one attendants. However, I think the usual response is that it’s the responsibility of the state to provide everyone with an adequate education – which is different than equitably or fairly distributing resources. I imagine the rhetoric on the state college level is much the same. (It would be easier to argue that my tax dollars were being spent on the hyperactive kid and not my own and therefore were being ‘redistributed’ – isn’t it basically the same thing?)</p>
<p>Once upon a time, even out-of-state cost at UC was inexpensive, so UC served as an attractor for out-of-state students who often settled in California after graduation and helped grow the California economy.</p>
<p>So, in the conservative dream world, we end financial aid as we know it (since financial aid is driving up the full pay cost to subsidize lower income students) and student loans (because easy access to loans means that college tuition and fees can rise, since families have easy access to money), lower taxes and thus state funding for higher ed (because clearly rich taxpayers are funding college for the poor, non taxpayer) and then college tuition will become affordable??</p>
<p>Affordable for whom? In this world, you’ll see a lot less middle class (and middle class in this country is around 55-60K for a family of 4) students in 4 year universities. </p>
<p>And the article certainly undermines the point that the main driver here is price. If the out of state student had a cheaper in-state option, then if it were merely price, the student would chose the in-state option. But there are a lot of factors playing into this decision.</p>
<p>I think you have to separate out public and private. I have no problem with public state universities charging more for internationals and out of state students. Publilcs, on the other hand could set their own tuition. The impetus to add a layer of tuition discounting is not something that the private schools have to do. For them it’s a free market and they can set rates, discount tuition etc. in anyway they want to. Clearly those private schools “crunch the number” and figure out who they want to admit and how much they want to discount the tuition and they must surmise that that meets their business objectives better than say finding a fixed price level for the college education.</p>
<p>His complaint about big freshman intro classes “subsidizing” junior and senior classes is pretty lame. After all, can’t we assume that most of these freshmen will eventually take smaller junior and senior classes?<br>
I’ve noticed in Great Britain, they do charge differing amounts of tuition and fees for different courses of study. Some US schools are dipping their toes in by charging studio fees, and requiring purchase of supplies beyond the normal books and software for some classes.</p>
<p>I think this only applies if you are pricing commodities, i.e. 87-octane gasoline sold at an Exxon station vs. 87-octane gasoline sold at a Chevron station. No one really cares about the brand. They just want it cheaper.</p>
<p>College, on the other hand, has a large element of being a vanity product. Customers perceive that it’s worth it to pay a higher price for the prestige of Berkeley, instead of going cheap and just paying for community college. That girl mentioned in the article, from Washington State, who whined about paying Berkeley tuition is a good example. She could have stayed in Washington and paid Timex prices. No one held a gun to her head to make her go to California to pay Rolex prices. No tears for her. Don’t even get me started about the whining int’l student…</p>
<p>College customers have themselves partly to blame for the tuition prices spiraling out of control. Unlike for 87-octane gasoline, where customers don’t care whether the gasoline pump has flashy chrome adornments, the customers do care whether their college has fancy dorms, deluxe gyms, gourmet food in dining halls.</p>
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<p>I thought the articles’ use of airline airfares as an analogy was totally non-applicable:
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<p>Airlines don’t charge passengers different ticket prices based on a the customer’s financial means or different life skills, i.e. when Expedia sells an $89 fare to 2 different customers, Expedia doesn’t know if the buyer is a doctor or a ditch-digger. Airline tickets are priced according to how much travel timing flexibility a customer wants.</p>
<p>For me, the biggest “unfairness” is the huge difference between IS vs. OOS tuition. </p>
<p>The justification that IS tuition should be lower because the parents pay taxes is a red herring. There are plenty of:</p>
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<li>IS residents that pay no taxes and send their kids to school</li>
<li>IS residents that pay lots of taxes but have no kids</li>
<li>OOS residents that pay lots of taxes (property taxes, business taxes, user fees) and get squat in return</li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s not fool ourselves. The tuition difference exists to pander to IS potential voters (both taxpaying and non-taxpaying). OOS parents can’t vote.</p>
<p>There are questionable policies in college pricing and financial aid. But public universities charging more for out-of-state students is fair. And if the Washingtonian in the article is financially overburdened, then why did she not go to a school in Washington? Because Cal is “Cal”? Is Cal’s political science department 2.5 times better than UW? WSU? Western, Eastern, Central? Hard to measure but I think not.</p>
<p>I recall a recent thread on this board by a kid who has lived in state all his life w his tax-paying parents. Now that his parents have to move to another state, this kid gets hosed w OOS tuition. What’s fair about that?</p>
<p>Lower IS tuition has nothing to do w being a taxpayer, but whether you & parents can vote in the state.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the unfairness of IS vs OOS pricing. Public colleges get some (significant) portion of their funding from state taxes. The vast majority of those taxes are paid by state residents. I know of no IS residents that pay no taxes (there are sales taxes and property taxes in most states). There are many IS residents who have no children but they gain the “advantage” of having a good school system. There are some OOS people who may do business in a state. To think it is anything other than a business decision is wrong.</p>
People on public assistance and are renters pay little in the way of taxes. Yes, you can argue that they pay sales tax, but so do OOS tourists.</p>
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so we should penalize families who are contributers?</p>
<p>I am not advocating to scrap subsidizing college tuition w public money. I see having an educated populace as a public good. It contributes to a economic virtuous cycle. </p>
<p>I am just pointing out the inconsistency in the logic of having such a HUGE difference btween IS vs OSS tuition.</p>
<p>No one should be allowed to go to college for free, and public universities should stop paying room and board for students who live within commuting distance of a campus.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought it would be better to have some sort of system where if you spent X many years living in the state in the last Y years you qualify for in-state tuition.</p>
:D</p>