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The sad thing is that all higher level education in the U.S. is for profit. 30 years ago you could go to an average state college for $4,000 a year, that cost i
by valuearb 9y ago
The sad thing is that all higher level education in the U.S. is for profit. 30 years ago you could go to an average state college for $4,000 a year, that cost is roughly 10x as much.
Where has all the money gone? Take a look at the salaries of school presidents, administrators, coaches, even professors, especially their pensions and benefits programs. Its as if all our non-profit institutions are really profit hungry corporations in disguise, and the "shareholders" are the administrators who control them.
- ams6110 9y agoIt's not the administrative salaries so much as the bloat. Look at the org chart of any major state school 30 years ago compared to today. Coach salaries tend to be eye-catching but they are generally entirely funded by the athletic department and its supporters, not tuition or state funds.
- munin 9y ago> Coach salaries tend to be eye-catching but they are generally entirely funded by the athletic department and its supporters, not tuition or state funds. This is only true at a small number of schools. Most subsidize the athletics department through fees they levy on students in addition to the normal tuition.
- prh8 9y agoThis is correct, in any given year there are less than 10 schools whose athletic departments are profitable. However, this simple fact ignores the positive economic impact that athletic programs can have on a university that aren't purely P&L in the department.
- valuearb 9y agoAthletic department revenues are entirely property of the school, and partly funded by mandatory student fees. The NCAA could cap coaches salaries at $250,000 and the line of qualified candidates to become a NCAA coach would still be out the door for every school. Instead they allow coaches and athletic directors to coordinate a conspiracy where they and their employees get to skim all of the profits of the program for themselves. When you are "forced" to pay your AD over a million dollars a year, that's the best possible thing to justify paying the president far more.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ec109685 9y agoPublic school tuition doesn't cost 40k a year. An employee is not the same as a shareholder.
- valuearb 9y agoYour right, it's only about $30k per year. And an employee isn't the same as a shareholder, unless that employee controls a non-profit, runs it to make substantial profits and skims those profits by paying themselves and their cronies massive salaries. Go look up the salaries of your state school President, Administrators, Athletic Director, Football and Basketball Coaches, and Professors.
- _delirium 9y agoI dunno about elsewhere, but in-state tuition in Texas is no more than $10k (varies by school, but none are above that). Still too high, but it's not yet at private-school levels of absurdity.
- valuearb 9y agoLook at total cost of attendance. Schools could set tuition to zero, but require students to pay $40,000 a year for "room, board and books" and it wouldn't actually make tuition cheap.
- elehack 9y agoTuition + fees (possibly + books, but that is highly variable from term to term and generally substantially less than tuition) is the correct way to evaluate the cost of higher education. Room & board is generally optional at state schools (there are a few exceptions). My institution's in-state tuition + fees are about $9K/year. The TX state university I taught at for two years was similar.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y agoBut see, then there is the key point: college grads just aren't getting work. The Bachelor's degree isn't even as useful as the HS diploma used to be in the 1970s. The big difference now is the debt one is saddled with after all three degrees up to the PHD and then a tacked on bootcamp so you can be over-skilled to do underpaid, stupid work at a food delivery uber-for-kittens app in a youth-andro-monoculture setting. (but you will only get this precious job if you are really young, a dude, white, and love craft beer, complicated facial hair, and being really really positive about everything and using the word passionate as much as humanly possible in every sentence.)
- hkmurakami 9y agoThere's no way state schools currently cost $40k. Maybe $15k. Easy federal aid money certainly helps push up the price tag. It's effectively a subsidy.
- valuearb 9y agoUO -> In-state: $26,000, out of state: $49,000 OSU -> In-state: $26,000, out of state: $45,000 PSU -> In-state: $30,000+, out of state: $43,000 MSU -> In-state: $27,000, out of state: $51,000 UM (Michigan) -> In-state: $29,000, out of state: $60,000 UM (Miami) -> $64,306
- ereyes01 9y agoUM (Miami) is actually a private school, and not state-run. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-miami-1536 https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-miami-153...
- majormajor 9y agoThese prices look like they include room and board and such after spot checking a couple, e.g. http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/basic-costs http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/basic-costs gives in-state tuition for an incoming freshman of 11K per year. You can argue that talking about tuition alone is misleading, but it wasn't included 15 years ago either, and yet 10K/year for in-state is around where things were back then too, IIRC.
- mercurysmessage 9y ago11K is still a lot of money. I paid for all of my school on my own as I went through it, but if it was 11K I would have had to get loans!