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> I think we will look back on this period of American universities as a great aberration. I hope so. Athletics are only the tip of the iceberg. Tuition at un

> I think we will look back on this period of American universities as a great aberration. I hope so. Athletics are only the tip of the iceberg. Tuition at universities like Harvard, Princeton, etc. runs around $45,000 a year. Even at public universities, it tends to be over $10,000 a year. This is tuition, mind you, not counting room and board. These figures are vastly higher than a generation ago, and are continuing to skyrocket. Needless to say, this is inflicting crippling debt on huge numbers of college students. Meanwhile, universities are hiring fewer and fewer tenure-track professors; increasingly, the teaching is being done by people working under terrible job conditions. See, for example, this as an example: https://pankisseskafka.com/2017/07/16/rate-my-jil-2018-this-is-what-a-dead-discipline-looks-like/ https://pankisseskafka.com/2017/07/16/rate-my-jil-2018-this-... I am an insider -- a college professor at an American university. The current system is thoroughly screwed. We need a big reset.

partialrecall 7y ago
Tuition rates for Harvard and Princeton in particular are deceptive since if you earnestly cannot afford that tuition, they don't ask you to pay it. Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. Other expensive private-nonprofit schools may be another matter entirely. But those two are bad examples to use.
- cosmie 7y ago
  > Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. While this is true on paper, it's not always the case in practice. I was able to get multiple acceptance offers to Ivy League schools, and poor enough to have the sliding scale of tuition slide all the way to $0. But all of them had an estimated cost of attendance[1] so optimistic about ancillary expenses during the school year that it was infeasible to actually go to any of them. There were other implicit barriers to acceptance as a poor kid as well, but the way the sliding scale was implemented was the biggest. I chose a state school instead. Despite a higher paper cost higher than the Ivy League schools offering free tuition, the total out of pocket cost for attendance of the state school worked out significantly lower. [1] Federal loans and many scholarships won't pay out over the university's estimated cost of attendance. By zero'ing out tuition and room and board, that just leaves the "books and personal expenses" line item,
  - tacomonstrous 7y ago
    I'm a little surprised by your story. I was in a similar situation myself, except that I chose to go to an Ivy League school, and there were sufficiently many work-study options available to help pay for all my expenses.
    - cosmie 7y ago
      For sure! You can see my replies to sibling comments, but those opportunities exist. I just was too naive at the time and without sufficient personal support to be able to understand that. And while some of the acceptance offers made reference to things such as work study, there was a presumption of understanding in many of them on how that stuff works. And I was a first generation college student without anyone to help me fill in that knowledge gap. There were additional issues like the logistics and upfront costs of a cross-country move, as well as the timing of aid disbursements and expense needs. Which I neither had the savings nor the cashflow to confidently support, nor anyone to lean on temporarily for it. While there were plenty of unknowns for the state school, they were manageable enough for me to be competent in my ability to handle them and close enough to my personal support network if things went south. Many schools do in fact have the ability to address such needs. I just didn't learn was a possibility until after the fact. For anyone else that happens to be in that situation, I'd strongly encourage doing what you did and taking the Ivy offer. There will be sufficient support to accomodate your circumstances. It'd just be nice if the schools themselves improved their offer letters or follow-up collateral to address the concerns/needs that are likely for those which qualify for a zero'd out tuition or whose application/FAFSA documents indicate are a first generation college student.
  - sushid 7y ago
    If you were accepted into multiple Ivies with full financial aid you were definitely eligible for work study and student loans. Personally, I would recommend anyone in that situation to opt for the Ivy as it really does open doors later in life.
    - kelnos 7y ago

partialrecall 7y ago

Tuition rates for Harvard and Princeton in particular are deceptive since if you earnestly cannot afford that tuition, they don't ask you to pay it. Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. Other expensive private-nonprofit schools may be another matter entirely. But those two are bad examples to use.

cosmie 7y ago
> Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. While this is true on paper, it's not always the case in practice. I was able to get multiple acceptance offers to Ivy League schools, and poor enough to have the sliding scale of tuition slide all the way to $0. But all of them had an estimated cost of attendance[1] so optimistic about ancillary expenses during the school year that it was infeasible to actually go to any of them. There were other implicit barriers to acceptance as a poor kid as well, but the way the sliding scale was implemented was the biggest. I chose a state school instead. Despite a higher paper cost higher than the Ivy League schools offering free tuition, the total out of pocket cost for attendance of the state school worked out significantly lower. [1] Federal loans and many scholarships won't pay out over the university's estimated cost of attendance. By zero'ing out tuition and room and board, that just leaves the "books and personal expenses" line item,
- tacomonstrous 7y ago
  I'm a little surprised by your story. I was in a similar situation myself, except that I chose to go to an Ivy League school, and there were sufficiently many work-study options available to help pay for all my expenses.
  - cosmie 7y ago
    For sure! You can see my replies to sibling comments, but those opportunities exist. I just was too naive at the time and without sufficient personal support to be able to understand that. And while some of the acceptance offers made reference to things such as work study, there was a presumption of understanding in many of them on how that stuff works. And I was a first generation college student without anyone to help me fill in that knowledge gap. There were additional issues like the logistics and upfront costs of a cross-country move, as well as the timing of aid disbursements and expense needs. Which I neither had the savings nor the cashflow to confidently support, nor anyone to lean on temporarily for it. While there were plenty of unknowns for the state school, they were manageable enough for me to be competent in my ability to handle them and close enough to my personal support network if things went south. Many schools do in fact have the ability to address such needs. I just didn't learn was a possibility until after the fact. For anyone else that happens to be in that situation, I'd strongly encourage doing what you did and taking the Ivy offer. There will be sufficient support to accomodate your circumstances. It'd just be nice if the schools themselves improved their offer letters or follow-up collateral to address the concerns/needs that are likely for those which qualify for a zero'd out tuition or whose application/FAFSA documents indicate are a first generation college student.
- sushid 7y ago
  If you were accepted into multiple Ivies with full financial aid you were definitely eligible for work study and student loans. Personally, I would recommend anyone in that situation to opt for the Ivy as it really does open doors later in life.
  - kelnos 7y ago