4 ms·

It's not the interest, it's the principal. And I don't understand how the principal got so high. Is calculus ten times more expensive to teach than it was thir

It's not the interest, it's the principal. And I don't understand how the principal got so high. Is calculus ten times more expensive to teach than it was thirty years ago? Is Shakespeare? Supply is totally inelastic, because it's almost impossible to get a new college accredited (for profit schools all started with an already accredited school and expand them). Same with demand - not having a college degree puts you on a lower track that's almost impossible to break out of, and the connections, etc. mean that MOOC's aren't a good substitute for undergraduate education, while the professions all require specialized schooling afterwards. So where does all the money go? At a non profit university it goes to faceless, non-teaching administrators to play the school prestige game, and maybe a little research. A generation is broke because they're not paying for education, they're paying for education that can't be unbundled from empire-building.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nilkn 13y ago
It is more expensive now to teach calculus than it was thirty years ago, simply due to inflation. But of course the problem is that college has outpaced inflation by a large margin. Another unmentioned factor is simply how nice many university campuses have become. Lots of state of the art buildings are being built in often quite expensive metro areas as parts of college campuses. New dorms are often really surprisingly nice, even upscale. Consider that the dormitory that I lived in even had maids who would take out your trash daily and clean your bathroom and shower weekly!
bryanlarsen 13y ago
University tuition going up faster than general inflation is due in part to Baumol's cost disease[1] which cannot be avoided without structural changes like MOOC's. So some people wring their hands, say "can't be helped", and walk away. But I believe that the causes that you and others have noted are more prominent. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease
j2kun 13y ago
> and maybe a little research Understatement of the year. At my institution administrator hiring has been on the rise for the last ten years and funding for professors and new hires has been declining. Our institution also has a huge surplus of unallocated funds (literally just sitting around) that they refuse to devote to education or research. The principal got so high because higher education has turned into a market, and the people they hire to run schools are business people. All they care about are profits.
nowarninglabel 13y ago
Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that. Tuition costs and textbook costs have skyrocketed (see http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-how-fast-has-college-tuition-grown http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-h... ) while faculty salaries have stagnated or even gone down in real terms ( http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4A6B5A6D38/0/TABB.pdf http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4... ) Empire-building is correct though in the sense that public institutions are the ones raising their tuition costs by so much (78%!), and a big reason for this is do to college's building new infrastructure, which often times they have no need for. Take SF State University who I used to work for, they built a brand new gymnasium and a brand-new library at a cost of over a billion dollars for a student population in which 78% are commuter students who hold down part-time jobs and spend no time on campus. It just doesn't make financial sense. That said, faculty costs are still the primary problem and why community colleges get the taxpayer a much better bang for the buck. See http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dic...
- magicalist 13y ago
  You have some good points, but you also neglect the massive spending cuts on education that have happened throughout the country. While there are many public schools that do buy into this notion of trying to compete on prestige with the well known private schools (and proceed to try to buy their way into the respected club), public school tuition increases in the last decade are very much tied to funding cuts.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  Though I agree cancerous physical plant growth is an issue, a couple of additional points: 1) Spending on non-faculty salaries have gone through the roof with the exponential growth of well paid but educationally marginal deanlets, deanlings, and administrators. 2) Although total salaries for the tenured professoriat hasn't necessarily exploded, salary per classroom-student hour has as tenured professors have seen their teaching requirements fall, and as large lectures are increasingly taught by poorly paid adjuncts. A generation ago a 3-3 or 4-4 was typical for a tenured liberal arts or social sciences professor, and most freshmen seminars were taught by full faculty. Today many teach 2/2 or even 2/1, and they might well be all be graduate / upper class seminars and supervising student research.
tsotha 13y ago
Much of the increase is driven by the government. In the last thirty years the ratio of administrators to students has gone from 9:1 to 3:1, and it's nearly all in response to extra government rules and paperwork.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nilkn 13y ago

It is more expensive now to teach calculus than it was thirty years ago, simply due to inflation. But of course the problem is that college has outpaced inflation by a large margin. Another unmentioned factor is simply how nice many university campuses have become. Lots of state of the art buildings are being built in often quite expensive metro areas as parts of college campuses. New dorms are often really surprisingly nice, even upscale. Consider that the dormitory that I lived in even had maids who would take out your trash daily and clean your bathroom and shower weekly!

bryanlarsen 13y ago

University tuition going up faster than general inflation is due in part to Baumol's cost disease[1] which cannot be avoided without structural changes like MOOC's. So some people wring their hands, say "can't be helped", and walk away. But I believe that the causes that you and others have noted are more prominent. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

j2kun 13y ago

> and maybe a little research Understatement of the year. At my institution administrator hiring has been on the rise for the last ten years and funding for professors and new hires has been declining. Our institution also has a huge surplus of unallocated funds (literally just sitting around) that they refuse to devote to education or research. The principal got so high because higher education has turned into a market, and the people they hire to run schools are business people. All they care about are profits.

nowarninglabel 13y ago

Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that. Tuition costs and textbook costs have skyrocketed (see http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-how-fast-has-college-tuition-grown http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-h... ) while faculty salaries have stagnated or even gone down in real terms ( http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4A6B5A6D38/0/TABB.pdf http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4... ) Empire-building is correct though in the sense that public institutions are the ones raising their tuition costs by so much (78%!), and a big reason for this is do to college's building new infrastructure, which often times they have no need for. Take SF State University who I used to work for, they built a brand new gymnasium and a brand-new library at a cost of over a billion dollars for a student population in which 78% are commuter students who hold down part-time jobs and spend no time on campus. It just doesn't make financial sense. That said, faculty costs are still the primary problem and why community colleges get the taxpayer a much better bang for the buck. See http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dic...

magicalist 13y ago
You have some good points, but you also neglect the massive spending cuts on education that have happened throughout the country. While there are many public schools that do buy into this notion of trying to compete on prestige with the well known private schools (and proceed to try to buy their way into the respected club), public school tuition increases in the last decade are very much tied to funding cuts.
bradleyjg 13y ago
Though I agree cancerous physical plant growth is an issue, a couple of additional points: 1) Spending on non-faculty salaries have gone through the roof with the exponential growth of well paid but educationally marginal deanlets, deanlings, and administrators. 2) Although total salaries for the tenured professoriat hasn't necessarily exploded, salary per classroom-student hour has as tenured professors have seen their teaching requirements fall, and as large lectures are increasingly taught by poorly paid adjuncts. A generation ago a 3-3 or 4-4 was typical for a tenured liberal arts or social sciences professor, and most freshmen seminars were taught by full faculty. Today many teach 2/2 or even 2/1, and they might well be all be graduate / upper class seminars and supervising student research.

tsotha 13y ago

Much of the increase is driven by the government. In the last thirty years the ratio of administrators to students has gone from 9:1 to 3:1, and it's nearly all in response to extra government rules and paperwork.