<p>“Classes in engineering and the sciences eat up a disproportionate portion of college resources. But schools that charge students a premium to study them might be making mistake.” …</p>
<p>[Should</a> Colleges Charge Engineers More Than English Majors? - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic](<a href=“Should Colleges Charge Engineers More Than English Majors? - The Atlantic”>Should Colleges Charge Engineers More Than English Majors? - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>I think there should be more government support across the board. Tuition costs are already sky-high. Continually increasing tuition, even in in select majors, at a faster rate than median income is increasing (as has been going on for the past few decades) is an untenable situation.</p>
<p>What fraction of a school’s grant and patent money comes from the engineering and science faculty compared to the rest of the college?</p>
<p>I’d like more government support too but I don’t really want my state income taxes to go up either. Sort of sharpens the thinking when there’s no easy out.</p>
<p>Our state university charges a premium per credit hour for classes taken in the engineering college. They are trying to recover some of the extra costs but not at such a high rate that it discourages students from the engineering school.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the article yet, but I’ve thought about the issue before. Ideally, I don’t support the notion of charging STEM majors (undergraduates) more than Humanities or business majors. Besides, I’d guess that colleges maximize their “profit” margins when it comes to the Humanities because Literature, History, Sociology, Anthropology and even Mathematics courses typically don’t require expensive lab equipment or costly experiments and projects. Moreover, large public universities can load a Humanities required core class with 200 students, while trying to teach engineering or chemistry in a class of that size is problematic for any school.</p>
<p>My university (in Canada) did just that a few years ago…</p>
<p>I think the government should step in here and say no way. Here we are falling behind the rest of the world in technical areas, trying to urge young Americans to pursue a STEM major or career, and now we will discourage that even more by charging more for the classes?</p>
<p>Valid argument, Nick. We can’t just keep depending on immigrant visa holders. That won’t solve the U.S. problems in STEM education. And eventually, the best and brightest from the world will choose forgo opportunities in America and remain to exploit their acumen and drive in their own homelands, particularly Indians and Chinese.</p>
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I think you need to consider the competing interests and responsibilities here. If classes in discipline A cost more to offer than classes in discipline B then it is not unreasonable to charge more for them - and this is where universities are right now. If the government and national interest are in encouraging enrollment in discipline A, then there needs to be a national program for addressing that cost.</p>
<p>So perhaps schools should charge more for lucrative degrees, but perhaps federal funding (grants, not just loans) should be higher for those degrees as well. That way costs are being addressed appropriately and so are national interests.</p>
<p>Raising tuition for engineering education is not a bad idea if it helps improve quality of faculty. Their salaries are so much lower than what people make in the industry. No wonder more or more classes are being taught by non-native English speakers. I think English departments should start offering classes to help STEM students comprehend various (Asian) flavors of English.</p>
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Don’t forget that academia has some benefits (notably research freedom and tenure) that industry cannot match. Academia draws a pretty good slice of the top talent as it is, I think you would have to increase salaries a lot to see any significant change. The increase in foreign professors in US universities has more to do with the relative standing of American institutions than anything else.</p>
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<p>Frosh chemistry courses are typically among the largest lectures at any school, but they have to be broken up into small lab sections for the lab portion of the course. It is the labs that make such courses more expensive than something like introductory history, economics, psychology, etc. courses or frosh calculus courses.</p>
<p>If the differential tuition is based on the cost of offering the courses, it makes more sense to charge by the course, rather than major or standing, to account for non-majors taking the expensive courses, students who change majors after taking more or less than their “fair share” of expensive courses, etc…</p>
<p>Depends on the school.</p>
<p><a href=“https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/146569/17/Finance%20and%20Operations%20Committee%20-%20Fully%20Allocated%20Cost%20of%20Mission%20Activities%20Part%20II.pdf[/url]”>https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/146569/17/Finance%20and%20Operations%20Committee%20-%20Fully%20Allocated%20Cost%20of%20Mission%20Activities%20Part%20II.pdf</a> (pg 19)</p>
<p>Calculated per-FYE costs at the College of Science & Engineering were second-lowest at Minnesota.</p>
<p>Hmmm, that’s pretty interesting, given that the College of Science and Engineering has a lot of engineering majors relative to what should probably be less expensive math and computer science majors. It is not surprising that the College of Biological Sciences is relatively expensive, as is CFANS (agriculture and natural resources). But CSOM (Carlson School of Management) is expensive for some reason, even though undergraduate business courses are not obviously expensive ones.</p>
<p>That table also indicates that the Morris campus is relatively expensive, which is not too surprising given that it is a LAC model campus. But what is interesting is that it is being heavily subsidized for both in-state and out-of-state students (it has no out-of-state additional tuition).</p>
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Business faculty are the highest paid outside of professional schools.</p>
<p>This is really discouraging for anyone who wants to pursue becoming a doctor or practically anything in health-care. Or engineering. “Hey look, we need more engineers and health-care professionals! So let’s raise prices so only those who can afford a spike in tuition or get full-rides can enjoy the wealth of opportunites and happiness of chasing their dreams!” Besides, who can afford a spike in tuition? Bill Gates? Practically no one can. I think it would be the worst for anyone hoping to go to medical school, since doctors already have a hard enough time paying their loans off.</p>
<p>I’m assuming schools want to do this because the general public think that since STEM jobs are “hot” and where all the jobs are at, more people are going to enroll into these programs and this would give them more money. I think if colleges want money, they should charge more money on business degrees, since that’s where practically everyone goes… or Psychology, teehee. Or just popular majors for the most part. Most people are too scared to go for Science because of the terrible job market for scientists and bad pay, too scared for Engineering because the major is too “tough” and they “want a life”, hate Math, or don’t want to work on machinery in general. This is the majority of people, especially with my generation who complains about Algebra roughly every single day, but love their English classes.</p>
<p>If I’m correct, isn’t their some universities in the US that charge per credit already instead of tuition? That doesn’t sound TOO bad… Or is it per class…</p>
<p>Let’s just rely on China and India more and more guys, that sounds fantastic! Hopefully we don’t get into a war with them, we might be screwed!</p>
<p>There are already lab fees for classes like chemistry and physics that have lab components. Also, some of the big expensive toys aren’t usually bought solely by the school, but are usually part of a science grant/research funding from an external source, be that NSF, a private company/source, etc. As well, the equipment that is owned by the school usually lasts decades before being upgraded, so it’s not like these are everyday expenses.</p>
<p>I think it’d be better to charge per credit hour and have different prices for different subjects. Maybe science courses cost $xx more per credit hour. That seems reasonably fair. It can be explained easily as a type of fee for the course. Like high schools often have for science courses. You’re using up supplies during this course, not just time so you have to pay a fee to cover those supplies.</p>
<p>I really like the structure of paying by credit hour. It makes the cost seem more justifiable. I’m taking 17 credit hours this semester. I’m paying for 17 hours. I’m not paying for 12-18. I’m not offsetting the cost of someone else who is only taking 13 hours or anything. I’m paying for what I take. I think the credit hour system is how VTech does their classes too. Which keeps them as a relatively cheap school for in-state students.</p>
<p>I like the credit hour rate idea, also. It would suck if you’re taking the minimum of 12 credits or something when you can be paying the same rate and take roughly two more classes. At that point I would just take more classes and get my money’s worth. But since science classes typically take more credits than Humanities, they would already cost more. So I would advocate for a flat rate per credit. Schools get plenty of money already from expensive dorms, $700 parking permits, bookstores, and a multitude of other things. </p>
<p>My school just built a huge and fancy screen for our football stadium, along with two new dorms and a few new humanities majors and classes. Also, expanded our recreation center by a crapload, started building a second medical campus in downtown Phoenix, all in the recent years. It’s like the article is implying that schools are “struggling” to pay for STEM classes. Ha!</p>
<p>This already happens at the University of Michigan, where engineering and business majors are charged more than the typical arts&sciences student, but both the resources available to engineering/business students and the monetary rate of return for our education are so much greater that no one really cares.</p>