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On the whole though I think Harvard has a budget Right, but how do they set that budget? The cost part of the budget is the result of decison-making. Yeah b

On the whole though I think Harvard has a budget Right, but how do they set that budget? The cost part of the budget is the result of decison-making. Yeah because the services the provide are insanely expensive. The 'insanely expensive' isn't something inherent to the services themselves. Harvard can spend tons of money because it has tons of money. Imagine a SaaS company that has really inefficient operations. Would you be willing to pay a higher price for that product than for a competing one that has equally good features and UX, just because the former is insanely expensive to operate? You can argue that the services they provide aren't worth it, but clearly the people who go there believe they are. People aren't paying for the services. They're paying for the name. Imagine this. Harvard offers any student a $20k per year discount on fees, with one condition: you don't get the piece of paper, and you can never tell anyone you studied at Harvard, or even imply that you did. Would people take that deal? They'd get all the same services, so why not?

sarchertech 2y ago
>Right, but how do they set that budget? The cost part of the budget is the result of decison-making. The same way any organization sets a budget. A bunch of competing interests fight it out. >The 'insanely expensive' isn't something inherent to the services themselves. The thing you're missing here is that sure people want the name, and the networking, but they also want and education, and an experience. The experience is very expensive to provide. >Imagine this. Harvard offers any student a $20k per year discount on fees, with one condition: you don't get the piece of paper, and you can never tell anyone you studied at Harvard, or even imply that you did. Would people take that deal? They'd get all the same services, so why not? Let's do another thought experiment. All Harvard students get to vote. $20k per year discount, but Harvard gets rid of the multi-billion dollar campus. No rec-center, no marble buildings, no enormous libraries, no stadiums, no manicured landscaping, no pomp and circumstance at all. Just a couple big gray buildings full of classrooms and army barrack style accommodations far enough outside of town that land and construction are cheap. Plus they fire all of their top tier professors and hire lecturers from community colleges. Harvard students expect amenities. They expect grandeur. And they expect exclusivity, so Harvard can't just bump up their total enrollment to 50k like a big state school. If you look at big state schools without the name, Harvard tuition sticker price isn't that much higher. University of Massachusetts Boston (ranked #214 in the US) is just under $40k for out of state students.

sarchertech 2y ago

>Right, but how do they set that budget? The cost part of the budget is the result of decison-making. The same way any organization sets a budget. A bunch of competing interests fight it out. >The 'insanely expensive' isn't something inherent to the services themselves. The thing you're missing here is that sure people want the name, and the networking, but they also want and education, and an experience. The experience is very expensive to provide. >Imagine this. Harvard offers any student a $20k per year discount on fees, with one condition: you don't get the piece of paper, and you can never tell anyone you studied at Harvard, or even imply that you did. Would people take that deal? They'd get all the same services, so why not? Let's do another thought experiment. All Harvard students get to vote. $20k per year discount, but Harvard gets rid of the multi-billion dollar campus. No rec-center, no marble buildings, no enormous libraries, no stadiums, no manicured landscaping, no pomp and circumstance at all. Just a couple big gray buildings full of classrooms and army barrack style accommodations far enough outside of town that land and construction are cheap. Plus they fire all of their top tier professors and hire lecturers from community colleges. Harvard students expect amenities. They expect grandeur. And they expect exclusivity, so Harvard can't just bump up their total enrollment to 50k like a big state school. If you look at big state schools without the name, Harvard tuition sticker price isn't that much higher. University of Massachusetts Boston (ranked #214 in the US) is just under $40k for out of state students.