<p>“Senators, what would your constituents say if gasoline cost $9.15 a gallon?” Lynne Munson, an adjunct fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington told the committee. “Or if the price of milk was over $15? That is how much those items would cost if their price had gone up at the same rate that tuition has since 1980.”</p>
<p>In that same vein of thought…why do many of the elite schools with m/billions of dollars in alumni monies not provide a more reduced COA. These schools charge in excess of $30,000 in tuition-makes no sense,IMO. The students graduate with hefty student loans—vs—having made the grade to attend, and then have a more affordable COA—they might get alumni monies sooner-which could garner a hgher rate of return. It seems to me a better win-win scenario to reduce or eliminate the tuition fees for these schools…hum…always fun to think outside the box-don’t you agree?</p>
<p>At the risk of stating the obvious, if they cut tuition or greatly increased financial aid, then they would have to reduce spending on other things, which would impact on the student experience, impair the research functions, etc. If they spent significantly more than 4.5% of endowment, then they would be guilty of violating their fiduciary duty to preserve the purchasing power of the endowment for posterity.</p>
<p>Yes, they have lots of money. They also have large expenses, and being able to spend this money is part of why they are such prestigious colleges.</p>
<p>Supply and demand - the top prestigious schools can get all the students they can handle at their current charges. The question is, why don’t they charge more?</p>
<p>They are pricing a whole socio-economic class out of attending. I guess, like the phone company, they don’t care–they don’t have to. But that one kind of diversity they won’t have, unless parents are willing to take out horrific loans. I don’t think it’s worth it, but others may.</p>
<p>They are private institutions and should be able to spend their money how they see fit. No one has to attend a top ranked school. There are many avenues for attaining an excellent education at a more reasonable price. It would be great if these schools would lower tuition or provide more FA but it is up to them. If you think they are too expensive go somewhere else.</p>
<p>Bethievt - I don’t think they are. We are just an ordinary middle class family. What we discovered was that the financial aid packages were much, much better from the most selective schools. Even among the Ivies, HOW we were expected to pay really varied. While some expected more in student loans, others met our need with outright grants. In the end, we will be spending far less than most students would at our state university. </p>
<p>So are we - and we have paid less for DD to attend her school than we would have paid at our state school (if she had not received any scholarships. If she had applied, she would probably have received some scholarships… but we’ll leave that out of the formula! ) Also, this year with 2 kids in college, our financial aid package has been great; basically our EFC split between two kids, and no student loans. At our state U, this year’s need would have been met with loans, loans and more loans, and we would have had a big gap. I’m happy with the financial aid we’ve got at our private U.</p>
<p>Congress had better be careful what they ask for.</p>
<p>Let’s say Yale cut their tuition in $10,000 next year (to bring it in line with those inflation figures) and cut everyone’s grant by $10,000 to even out the cash flow. </p>
<p>Those needing FA still have to come up with their EFCs, so their cost is the same. It would be those who can afford it out of pocket who would benefit. I don’t think that is who congress is trying to help here. LOL</p>
<p>The rising price of private college has allowed colleges to practice price discrimination based upon income level (offsetting tuition increases with grants for the more needy), extracting the maximum money out of those who can most afford it (in theory at least). Isn’t that usually what congress wants?</p>
<p>As others have said, the very schools cited in the article are most likely to be affordable to lower and middle income families. The problem is schools that can’t afford to meet all need (or meet too much with loans) have increased tuition by a similar percentage.</p>
<p>The problem is that just about all colleges continue to raise their costs at rates that exceeed inflation. Very few schools are taking pro-active steps to rein in costs, increase faculty productivity, or aggressively outsource work that could better be done by specialists. It’s just business as usual. Corporations can do that for a while, but then hit the wall and have to rationalize their operations. There seems to be no wall to hit for colleges, at least until the baby boom kids pass through the system and enrollment gets more competitive.</p>
<p>Shennie is missing the point, there is a difference between a school right and what’s right not only for the student but for the university. </p>
<p>A school right , ya okay schools do have a legal right to charge an arm and leg, nobody is asking for the gov to take away that right.</p>
<p>However, as the second poster makes clear it is better for the university to charge lower tuition and increased fa, such as princeton where almost nobody is charged full tuition.</p>
<p>Expensive tuition doesnt necessarily make a great school, why all private schools are now expensive- and public if ur not instate res, note that in florida if ur parents havent worked there ur most likely not qualified for instate tuition.</p>
<p>Donors are partly responsible. Many donors donate money to schools that already have huge endowments (caugh…Harvard…caugh) when some great schools can use the money desperately. </p>
<p>Moreover, donors donate money without sufficient restrictions when this could be easily remediable. Take Yale: one annonymous donor contributed $100,000,000 as long as all tuition for graduate music students are free. More donors need to attach these types of restrictions especially to schools that have huge endowments. This would solve the problem. Otherwise schools will try to make their endowments as large as possible, as a badge of honor, and not have these endowments benefits anyone.</p>
<p>There has been a lot of outsourcing of nonacademic work from colleges and universities. However, if they outsource teaching- by using adjuncts, this is considered poor educational policy.</p>
<p>Faculty research productivity has been rising, but efforts to increase teaching productivity, by teaching more students, is considered poor educational policy - large classes, less personal attention. </p>
<p>The dominant ideal of faculty student interaction is time consuming one on one or small group teaching. Hard to increase “productivity”.</p>
<p>Tuition increases will moderate or stop when the market dictates it. This has not happened recently, but a bad recession could slow or halt real price increases in college education.</p>
<p>Wealthy colleges questioned about costs? Costs to whom? To that poor student on financial aid who is being supported by the endowment and the targeted high tuition? Has anyone in Congress recalled the fact that these colleges subsidize tuition by a hefty amount from their endowments, and so the sticker price isn’t even as high as it could be?</p>
<p>There’s no free lunch here, and Congress is just going after this issue because it’s an easy target and politically expedient to go into the ring with foes who many people either dislike or are jealous of.</p>
<p>bethie: The universities who Congress is after aren’t really pricing anyone out of attending - they’re the universities with huge endowments and great financial aid.</p>
<p>Well, I happen to be one of those non-academic functions (albeit at a large public) and I will tell you that before I was hired permanently, the outsourcer who contracted me to my employer was charging more than 2x my total cost (I got my annual statement where they tell me how much I cost including benefits today) before I was hired in. Hard to cut your costs when your outsourced labor is twice as expensive.</p>
<p>The university here has outsourced housekeeping and unfortunately it costs more than before. Food service went as well (despite having a top rated hotel and hospitality school). The price has gone up and the quality down.</p>
<p>And I worked for a large outsourcer for many years that had a lot of the work since taken back inside because the outsourcer was too expensive.</p>
<p>Outsourcing a skill set that you can reasonably grow yourself is always more expensive. Outsourcing only makes business sense when there isn’t enough of that skill set needed that you can have an economy of scale and it has to be a non-mission-critical function, on top of that.</p>
<p>Now granted I think there is plenty of operational inefficiency in large non-competitve industries such as education. I think the emphasis needs to be on effectiveness and efficiency rather than cost. And that is a management function.</p>
) Also, this year with 2 kids in college, our financial aid package has been great; basically our EFC split between two kids, and no student loans. At our state U, this year’s need would have been met with loans, loans and more loans, and we would have had a big gap. I’m happy with the financial aid we’ve got at our private U.</p>