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When we are talking about full tuition, does that include the full cost of the student for which could (in concept) be scaled infinitive without any additional

by belorn 1y ago

When we are talking about full tuition, does that include the full cost of the student for which could (in concept) be scaled infinitive without any additional funding and support from the government? For example, if there was more foreign students than space in existing buildings and land, could the university buy more land and build more buildings using only the tuition, on top of paying operational costs, and still gain profits?

ModernMech 1y ago
It's tough to talk about these things because the words we're using are so overloaded. Because some "schools" are bread and butter educational institutions that teach students and that's it. Other "schools" are small cities or playgrounds for kids of the elite. So "tuition" means different things at different institutions. Full tuition at Yale and Stanford essentially represents the maximum amount of money rich families are willing to pay for membership into an elite club, and doesn't bear close resemblance to the actual cost of delivering the service, which is funded from myriad sources so it's hard to frame it as a typical profit-maximizing corporation. IIRC Stanford is free for students whose parents are under a certain threshold, so there's all kinds of funny accounting at work to come up with the Stanford tuition rate. This is a key reason why tuition at elite colleges has outpaced inflation -- rich families' income has also greatly outpaced inflation. And because they aren't qualified for any financial aid or support, schools want to charge them as much as much as they can (which is a lot but not infinity). Rich people are used to dropping 10s of thousands on club memberships or private daycares and boarding schools, so elite colleges set their tuition at a level rich people grumble about but nevertheless pay. Note that for this segment of the population, paying more than everyone else is actually a flex. Like they will moan about how high the tuition bill is, but they're happy to moan about it because it lets everyone know they're paying full tuition at Stanford. Note this is only a strategy for the elite schools that get those uber-rich families. But the economic effect downstream is that all college tuitions are inflated. So because we want everyone to have an education, we've tried to ease the economic burden on the middle class by instituting loan programs, grants, scholarships, etc. Which brings us to how colleges expand - typically it's not going to be through tuition. Again, growing a university depends on exactly what/how (new department? new laboratory? new library? new academic building?) Ultimately it's usually through a combination of state/local/federal/private partnerships depending on the kind of school. For example an existing school might partner with a hospital to create a med school. Or they might get some wealthy individual to donate a bunch of cash and put his name / her on the building (there are several Gates' centers for Computer Science).

by belorn 1y ago

ModernMech 1y ago

It's tough to talk about these things because the words we're using are so overloaded. Because some "schools" are bread and butter educational institutions that teach students and that's it. Other "schools" are small cities or playgrounds for kids of the elite. So "tuition" means different things at different institutions. Full tuition at Yale and Stanford essentially represents the maximum amount of money rich families are willing to pay for membership into an elite club, and doesn't bear close resemblance to the actual cost of delivering the service, which is funded from myriad sources so it's hard to frame it as a typical profit-maximizing corporation. IIRC Stanford is free for students whose parents are under a certain threshold, so there's all kinds of funny accounting at work to come up with the Stanford tuition rate. This is a key reason why tuition at elite colleges has outpaced inflation -- rich families' income has also greatly outpaced inflation. And because they aren't qualified for any financial aid or support, schools want to charge them as much as much as they can (which is a lot but not infinity). Rich people are used to dropping 10s of thousands on club memberships or private daycares and boarding schools, so elite colleges set their tuition at a level rich people grumble about but nevertheless pay. Note that for this segment of the population, paying more than everyone else is actually a flex. Like they will moan about how high the tuition bill is, but they're happy to moan about it because it lets everyone know they're paying full tuition at Stanford. Note this is only a strategy for the elite schools that get those uber-rich families. But the economic effect downstream is that all college tuitions are inflated. So because we want everyone to have an education, we've tried to ease the economic burden on the middle class by instituting loan programs, grants, scholarships, etc. Which brings us to how colleges expand - typically it's not going to be through tuition. Again, growing a university depends on exactly what/how (new department? new laboratory? new library? new academic building?) Ultimately it's usually through a combination of state/local/federal/private partnerships depending on the kind of school. For example an existing school might partner with a hospital to create a med school. Or they might get some wealthy individual to donate a bunch of cash and put his name / her on the building (there are several Gates' centers for Computer Science).