6 ms·

I remember my tuition rising sharply while the school was building things like a new rec center with a large pool and a lazy river. (Yes, I think there is obvio

• Retric 9y ago
  Students are free to go to less expensive schools. However, as long as people underestimate debt, spending more to attract more students is simply rational behavior.
  • barrkel 9y ago
    You say that people underestimate debt, but it goes the other way too. My experience as a poor child growing up was that I could see no way to afford university fees, because the numbers looked too big. Loans wouldn't make a difference because I couldn't comprehend the subjective experience of making so much more money later in my career. Thankfully, college fees were abolished in my country (Ireland) in 1996. It enabled me personally to envision going to college where I couldn't before.
    • pdxandi 9y ago
      I had the same experience. I knew I was covering my college tuition and even in 2000, I couldn't understand how I could ever afford out of state tuition and room and board. I had near perfect grades and solid test scores, but the financial obligation scared the hell out of me and I had no idea private schools handed out big scholarships for good students. I ended up staying in town and going to my local state college and had a good experience, but I completely missed out on the prospect of going to a top university where I would meet other ambitious and curious people. I worked part-time to full-time for four years to pay for my tuition, and it was tough. I wish I could've been immersed in college and academia and even college-life, but the cost just felt like a huge barrier when I was 18 years old. TL;DR: I fear poorer people may be more afraid to attend college because of the costs, causing an even greater gap between the haves and have-nots.
      • _acme 9y ago
        Many top schools (e.g., Harvard) are essentially free (both in terms of tuition and from loans) for children of families making under roughly $100,000.
    • godelski 9y ago
      Some schools also make promises. I went to a school that said that I couldn't get a scholarship the first semester, but that as long as I had over a 3.0 I could get one the following ones. I always had over a 3.0 and never got one (always given "yeah, you can apply", but then a run around until the deadline was past), even when I had several above 3.5. This happened to every person I know that transferred to the university. Transfer students (who did community college first), paid about the same as those that attended all 4 years.
  • kayoone 9y ago
    Or high quality education could be free and payed for by taxes, like in any country that truely values equality
    • GhostVII 9y ago
      Lots of countries (Canada,for one) have tuition that isn't free, but is reasonable priced, and gives subsidies to lower income individuals. Might be a better option than fully free tuition.
      • icebraining 9y ago
        Isn't that how community colleges work in the US?
      • vixen99 9y ago
        As explained in this example: https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21670045-scrapping-tuition-fees-has-helped-rich-students-expense-poor-ones-costly-promise https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21670045-scrapping-tu.... 'Scrapping tuition fees has helped rich students at the expense of poor ones'
      • meebs 9y ago
        Reasonably priced only because your idea of value is distorted by American education fees. European education is as rigorous (if not more) and significantly cheaper than the 8.5k/semester I pay.
      • mijamo 9y ago
        Why would not free be better than free? In Sweden students are even paid.
        • pesfandiar 9y ago
          Because students then value their education and also try to get into majors that bring more value to the society. Granted, the latter assumes that value to the society correlates with future earnings, which may not always be the case.
  • and0 9y ago
    People apply and pick colleges when they're teenagers, because their school system and parents and our entire culture demands it of them. They're hardly "rational actors" and they won't fix this system alone.
    • ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      This is true, they are also free to change schools when they are of adult age. They can also gain additional credits from that state's community colleges, the local ones have more likely transferrable credits. An internship helped me, I was enrolled in a state school yet was pushing pencils the same as a Princeton student, this made realized the school name wasn't going to change anything in this path, just whatever technicality lets me get the degree. For business, capital and investment banking, Ivy League puts you very far ahead, but outside of that, especially if your life involves working for someone else, the trade and the school are largely irrelevant compared to just having a degree, which also has limited relevance in many fields.
      • supplied_demand 9y ago
        "For business, capital and investment banking, Ivy League puts you very far ahead, but outside of that, especially if your life involves working for someone else, the trade and the school are largely irrelevant compared to just having a degree, which also has limited relevance in many fields." Do you have a source for this statement?
        • ringaroundthetx 9y ago
          No, I've just been involved in capital raises and several public ones. People are more interested in other people that were involved with Ivy League. How do you feel about that?
          • supplied_demand 9y ago
            I feel like you are using anecdotal evidence to reinforce a belief that you never proved.
  • rdtsc 9y ago
    > Students are free to go to less expensive schools. Agree it's rational but it's still ironic. Things like Uncle Sam handing out loans like candy is not helping or states cutting fund to state school is also not great. The less expensive school tactic from what I hear these days is to go to a community college for 2 years to get as many prerequisites in then switch to a more expensive university to graduate. The rational behavior from the more expensive university is then probably to refuse credits from community colleges so they can increase their profits and fleece students more.
    • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      > The rational behavior from the more expensive university is then probably to refuse credits from community colleges so they can increase their profits and fleece students more. ...which funnels those students into state schools that are usually forced by state regulation to allow CCs in the same state to operate feeder programs. The rich kids go to private schools or stick around to get masters and we're back where we were decades ago only all the numbers are much bigger, the minimum amount of degree is higher (a 2yr is the new high school diploma, a masters is the new bachelors, etc.) the average person gets being an adult pushed back by about four years and whether society is better for it depends on who you ask. So basically it's a circle.
    • _acme 9y ago
      Most loans are private and not given by the federal government; subsidized loans from the government are actually very limited.
  • mtgx 9y ago
    > as long as people underestimate debt, This is a little like saying "As long as people do bad stuff, they will go to prison". Yeah, but that doesn't mean "people" will stop doing bad stuff. I remember post-2008 financial crisis a lot of people were blaming consumers for going into debt to buy crap, like new TVs, cars, and whatnot on credit. And it was "their fault" doing it. I don't disagree that everyone has a personal responsibility for stuff like this, but I always think of issues like these in terms of "systems" and environments that set up the conditions for people to do that. Central banks everywhere made interests dirt cheap, which led to banks offering credit for everything and easy credit to obtain, too. It's like they couldn't loan money fast enough. And yeah, a lot of people did fall for it, but the conditions were already created for them to do that. It's no different than tobacco ads brainwashing people into thinking that smoking is cool and you will be a better version of yourself if you smoke, you will feel good, and all that. So where I'm getting at is that in this case it's mainly the government guaranteeing loans and making it "easy" for students to pay for college with loans is what's really the problem here. Make public college free (with what money? I don't know, maybe the $70 billion a year the military just received for no good reason, even before an audit was done of their expenses?), and then ban banks from offering college loans. You'll quickly see this problem solve itself.
    • Retric 9y ago
      I simply think we could do more than 'nothing'. Including finance in a basic math education for every high-school student would IMO make a significant difference. Listing interest paid as both a percentage and a total over the lifetime of a loan might also discourage people. That said, I took a few very low interest loans, but I at least had the tools to do some basic cost benefit analysis. I watched many people spend way to much money for a sub par education.
  • supplied_demand 9y ago
    The people taking on this debt are typically 17 to 18 years old and have had people telling them their entire lives that they must go to college to get ahead. What would you do? Maybe the institutions should share some of the responsibility and risk.
  • jimbokun 9y ago
    That's fine, but stop plowing tax payer money into food courts, lazy rivers, and multi million dollar executive salaries.
  • groby_b 9y ago
    The irrationality here lies in the completely misguided idea that education should be a good you pay for individually. The benefit to society of having an educated populace far outweighs the costs of education for the individuals. In other words, it makes sense for government to heavily subsidize it. If, that is, government were interested in the welfare of its populace instead of the welfare of its donors.
    • drak0n1c 9y ago
      Government subsidies in the form of grants and student debt guarantees have played a big role in inflating tuitions.
  • alexasmyths 9y ago
    "spending more to attract more students is simply rational behavior" Only in a market of irrational actors :)
• Clubber 9y ago
  My wife recently finished her college degree at an inexpensive, in-state university a few years ago. Half the tuition was dumb shit the student council voted on, probably without considering the cost / benefit.
  • sanarothe 9y ago
    I filled in at a student org council meeting at my school the other day, and they were presenting our plan for a new gym, at the mandatory low cost of $200 added to every student's semester tuition. ($40/month gym fee for everybody! Where's the gym again?) Apparently the 14 million dollars in annual revenue would still never pay for the renovations.
• georgeecollins 9y ago
  I think a lazy river is a sign that a school is trying too hard to attract students for the wrong reasons. I was looking at the schools with the best pools, and only some of the really big ones (UCLA UT) seem like good choices for education. http://www.collegerank.net/best-college-pools/ http://www.collegerank.net/best-college-pools/
  • rdtsc 9y ago
    If I didn't know any better I'd imagine this would be an article from the Onion. But it makes sense -- parents and students shop for fun activities and extra-curricular clubs and luxury dorms and if one university doesn't have it, they'll just go to another. And it's a shift more towards colleges treating students as pure customers, pool and luxury dorms are not the worst, grade inflation and rising price tags are what's scary. Aside from online colleges and such, wonder if any state schools could move in the opposite direction - cut costs and tuition then aggressively advertise that. Say turn "Luxury Dorm State University" to "Spartan State University" - come here to study and do research only. Not extra-curriculars, no fancy clubs, intro lectures are slightly bigger. Not much admin staff, no 10 different fancy coffee shops or athletic facilities, just a main cafeteria and so on. But you graduate with a $30k debt instead of a $100k one. I guess that becomes a community college almost, and the problem is attracting faculty and research as the perception is the school is not top-tier...