<p>I have to disagree with you SS about the focus of the article. It is an attack on higher education in general, not just the 50K privates. I don’t think that the article is trying to claim that it is tuition at these schools that account for the increase in higher education tuition overall. I am curious, too, to see who benefits most from the governmental programs attacked in the article–students at these 50grand privates or students at state schools in general. </p>
<p>I bet that those who benefit most from the govermental programs that the article attacks are those who are going to state schools or schools with more modest tuition. And it is probably those students who have the most to lose. </p>
<p>I disagree with the idea that all we need to do is let the market do its thing and everything will work out–tuition will come down, more will go to school without loans etc because tuition is less. The idea here is that the current tuition meets the needs of the basics and then some (like leaded windows). </p>
<p>Here’s one reason why I disagree. Already market forces are at work at my U. Instructors are expected to generate a large number of credit hours–in other words, bigger classes are better. More students per teacher means more tuition dollars etc. per salary expenditure. So if we let market forces work, you would want universities will large lectures–that way you keep costs low and ‘paying customers’ (students) high.</p>
<p>But you can’t have an instructor teach a writing class with very many students–it just doesn’t work. So writing classes tend to be small. Who pays for that? And even for core classes such as history that should involve some writing do not, because of class size—it is better to have a large lecture class of over 100 students. So the product (education) you get is not as good.</p>
<p>I do know that there are studies which show that a significant impact on quality of education has to do with class size–the smaller the better. Also, first year students in smaller classes tend to make more connections with their U, have more an investment in their education, make higher GPAs and are less likely to drop out.</p>
<p>But small class size costs more. Yet few public Us want to invest the kind of money necessary to increase full time faculty to make this happen because it really is so costly.</p>
<p>About a decade ago, our U experienced a budget crisis because education here is supported by sales tax revenue. With a recession, there is less money. Our particular school in the U ended up losing faculty–not because the school had huge fancy buildings to support etc. but simply because over 96% of the school’s budget is in salaries. Our dean said that we could keep the faculty but then simply lose the entire phone service for the school.</p>
<p>The argument used in the opinion piece seems strikingly similar to other arguments against ‘government handouts’-- that the handout is being abused by immoral (note the ‘falling standards’ claim), lazy (teaching less) people who are using the money not for what it is intended for (education) but some luxury item (such as leaded glass windows). Didn’t we see the same attack on welfare moms?</p>