4 ms·

My Opinion Only: If you are going to an Ivy League school you are paying for the network / brand. If you are going to a lesser tier selective school you are pa

by epalmer 10y ago

My Opinion Only: If you are going to an Ivy League school you are paying for the network / brand. If you are going to a lesser tier selective school you are paying for outcomes. But the outcomes, I believe, are starting to lag the price. At the school I work for about 65% of the students get some financial aid and we are need blind and meet 100% of demonstrated need. They meet need with grants (think scholarships) and a tiny amount of student debt. We do limit student loan debt to a small cap but many schools don't. I'm not the best at selling the points because I went to a technical public university and got a BS and a MS in Chemistry and Environmental Engineers. Today I am a self taught CS guy. I guess what I am saying is I don't fully buy into the Liberal Arts education selling points. My eldest doesn't buy into it as well. Of course the free education makes all the difference. Typical selling points go like: http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/04/28/why-getting-a-liberal-arts-college-education-is-not-a-mistake/#2ce745871a20 http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/04/28/why-...

gravypod 10y ago
What are the selling points on a societal level. Why is the government, and by extention you and me, supporting liberal arts degrees that will do little to support economic growth? I've never head an argument made against this question.
- jogjayr 10y ago
  > Why is the government, and by extention you and me, supporting liberal arts degrees that will do little to support economic growth? As a taxpayer, I'm happy to support liberal arts even if it doesn't lead to economic growth. But you can't convince me that it should cost $200k to get a degree in it; that's just bananas. There's no way it costs that much to provide that service (even with a healthy profit margin on top). They must be subsidizing other costs with that money. On a related note, I think the American model of charging per-credit-unit, regardless of what you study, is illogical (maybe it's not the same at all universities). It might make things easier for the bursar's office but it just doesn't compute that a credit hour of an aerospace engineering course (with all that expensive lab equipment) should cost the same as a credit hour of American poetry. Or that a 200-student introductory chemistry class costs the same as an advanced 20-student organic chemistry class.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Credit-hour was originally conceived for the purpose of quantifying appropriate faculty compensation. It was tacked on to the student side - particularly regarding tuition - as a somewhat lazy afterthought. College usually meant everybody would study the same subjects. The specialization of degrees is a relatively new innovation by way of 19th century German institutions adapting to industrialization.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    The biggest contributor to the cost of college rising are the regular cuts to the public schools' budgets, which in turn is caused because boomers vote politicians in who promise to lower taxes.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Our society is simply misguided in conflating education with employment. It is good for society as a whole to be educated, to understand history and science and literature, let alone practical skills such as cooking, filing taxes, and applying for a mortgage. The problem is that we treat colleges as "skill mills," where we expect to go in, like raw materials into a machine, and emerge as an employable middle-class worker. Not all degrees or programs are suited for employment. Some colleges alleviate the problem somewhat by requiring paid co-ops as a part of a degree, but that is only one side of the problem. Time was that the employer would teach the job skills on the job. There was an expectation of trust and loyalty on both sides which agreed that as long as the employee stuck with the employer, the employer would train and protect the employee. This model has been successfully replicated time and time again across the world, from the guilds of the Middle Ages, to the salaryman culture of modern Japan. College isn't everything.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    When employers stop treating degrees being a better worker then the public will change it's perception. Sadly neither of those will happen soon and I don't think universities will go out of this without a fight. I mean, who the hell has 200k to spend "for fun" at a liberal arts college?
    - epalmer 10y ago
      You would be surprised at how many private liberal arts schools are north of $40,000 / year and how many people pay full pay. Even schools that are mid to low tier are charging a lot for a 4 year education. I suspect that many of the low tier and some mid tier schools will go out of business in the next 5 to ten years. Some schools have gone under already. Getting alumni to donate is getting harder for raising money and schools rely on not just the fees they charge but also donations[0]. This site will allow you to see private versus public schools and has estimates for fees and room and board (living expenses). Just page through a few pages and you will see that for private schools most schools add up to more than $30,000 / year and many more than $40,000. Many the schools you will not recognize their names. The cost of college is out-of-control. Some private schools many are "need based". What that means is that if your effective family contribution (FASFA Calculation [1]) is less than the estimated cost of attendance [2,3,4] then the school will provide financial aid for the difference. The financial aid may be in the form of tax credits, student debt, grants (like a scholarship), scholarships, exchange for student employment and more. Many aid packages are a mix. Schools that load up students with debt are doing a very bad service to the student, their families and society. 0: http://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=MI&degree=Undergraduate&type=Private&level=4-year%20or%20High http://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=M... 1: https://fafsa.ed.gov/ https://fafsa.ed.gov/ 2: http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/ http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/ 3: http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html 4: https://www.elon.edu/e/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/index.html https://www.elon.edu/e/admissions/undergraduate/financial-ai...
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  There are other things to consider besides the economy. The Arts have been a thing forever precisely because they are a good thing to have for a society, and not just for entertainment's sake but also to preserve our own history, to continue building the collective culture we take for granted, and on and on. Not to mention that in general an educated populace is better at making decisions than an uneducated one, so even a moderately educated Starbucks barista contributes more to our society than an uneducated one, even if those contributions aren't financial.
  - gaius 10y ago
    There are other things to consider besides the economy. The Arts People can do all the "arts" they like once they are able to actually earn a living first. Anything else is just not sustainable.
jdavis703 10y ago
That makes sense. I was in an engineering department that was being vetted as part of due diligence and me going to a mid-tier state school on the opposite coast was actually raised as an issue. I doubt if I had Harvard or MIT this would've even been raised.

by epalmer 10y ago

gravypod 10y ago

What are the selling points on a societal level. Why is the government, and by extention you and me, supporting liberal arts degrees that will do little to support economic growth? I've never head an argument made against this question.

jogjayr 10y ago
> Why is the government, and by extention you and me, supporting liberal arts degrees that will do little to support economic growth? As a taxpayer, I'm happy to support liberal arts even if it doesn't lead to economic growth. But you can't convince me that it should cost $200k to get a degree in it; that's just bananas. There's no way it costs that much to provide that service (even with a healthy profit margin on top). They must be subsidizing other costs with that money. On a related note, I think the American model of charging per-credit-unit, regardless of what you study, is illogical (maybe it's not the same at all universities). It might make things easier for the bursar's office but it just doesn't compute that a credit hour of an aerospace engineering course (with all that expensive lab equipment) should cost the same as a credit hour of American poetry. Or that a 200-student introductory chemistry class costs the same as an advanced 20-student organic chemistry class.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Credit-hour was originally conceived for the purpose of quantifying appropriate faculty compensation. It was tacked on to the student side - particularly regarding tuition - as a somewhat lazy afterthought. College usually meant everybody would study the same subjects. The specialization of degrees is a relatively new innovation by way of 19th century German institutions adapting to industrialization.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  The biggest contributor to the cost of college rising are the regular cuts to the public schools' budgets, which in turn is caused because boomers vote politicians in who promise to lower taxes.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Our society is simply misguided in conflating education with employment. It is good for society as a whole to be educated, to understand history and science and literature, let alone practical skills such as cooking, filing taxes, and applying for a mortgage. The problem is that we treat colleges as "skill mills," where we expect to go in, like raw materials into a machine, and emerge as an employable middle-class worker. Not all degrees or programs are suited for employment. Some colleges alleviate the problem somewhat by requiring paid co-ops as a part of a degree, but that is only one side of the problem. Time was that the employer would teach the job skills on the job. There was an expectation of trust and loyalty on both sides which agreed that as long as the employee stuck with the employer, the employer would train and protect the employee. This model has been successfully replicated time and time again across the world, from the guilds of the Middle Ages, to the salaryman culture of modern Japan. College isn't everything.
- gravypod 10y ago
  When employers stop treating degrees being a better worker then the public will change it's perception. Sadly neither of those will happen soon and I don't think universities will go out of this without a fight. I mean, who the hell has 200k to spend "for fun" at a liberal arts college?
  - epalmer 10y ago
    You would be surprised at how many private liberal arts schools are north of $40,000 / year and how many people pay full pay. Even schools that are mid to low tier are charging a lot for a 4 year education. I suspect that many of the low tier and some mid tier schools will go out of business in the next 5 to ten years. Some schools have gone under already. Getting alumni to donate is getting harder for raising money and schools rely on not just the fees they charge but also donations[0]. This site will allow you to see private versus public schools and has estimates for fees and room and board (living expenses). Just page through a few pages and you will see that for private schools most schools add up to more than $30,000 / year and many more than $40,000. Many the schools you will not recognize their names. The cost of college is out-of-control. Some private schools many are "need based". What that means is that if your effective family contribution (FASFA Calculation [1]) is less than the estimated cost of attendance [2,3,4] then the school will provide financial aid for the difference. The financial aid may be in the form of tax credits, student debt, grants (like a scholarship), scholarships, exchange for student employment and more. Many aid packages are a mix. Schools that load up students with debt are doing a very bad service to the student, their families and society. 0: http://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=MI&degree=Undergraduate&type=Private&level=4-year%20or%20High http://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=M... 1: https://fafsa.ed.gov/ https://fafsa.ed.gov/ 2: http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/ http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/ 3: http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html 4: https://www.elon.edu/e/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/index.html https://www.elon.edu/e/admissions/undergraduate/financial-ai...
FussyZeus 10y ago
There are other things to consider besides the economy. The Arts have been a thing forever precisely because they are a good thing to have for a society, and not just for entertainment's sake but also to preserve our own history, to continue building the collective culture we take for granted, and on and on. Not to mention that in general an educated populace is better at making decisions than an uneducated one, so even a moderately educated Starbucks barista contributes more to our society than an uneducated one, even if those contributions aren't financial.
- gaius 10y ago
  There are other things to consider besides the economy. The Arts People can do all the "arts" they like once they are able to actually earn a living first. Anything else is just not sustainable.

jdavis703 10y ago

That makes sense. I was in an engineering department that was being vetted as part of due diligence and me going to a mid-tier state school on the opposite coast was actually raised as an issue. I doubt if I had Harvard or MIT this would've even been raised.