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>increased student expectations of 'fun', leading to new facilities (dorms, student centers, etc), as colleges compete with each other for students This gets c
by superuser2 13y ago
>increased student expectations of 'fun', leading to new facilities (dorms, student centers, etc), as colleges compete with each other for students
This gets cited a lot, and sometimes people actually go to the trouble of citing the cost of a new facility at $x million. Is there evidence that these facilities actually raise the cost substantially per student per year? Often when I hear people getting offended about, say, a $15 million building, I run a back-of-the-napkin calculation and it's not even a drop in the bucket on a tuition bill when you consider that it's going to serve something like 40,000 people per year for more than 30 years.
- maxvu 13y agoIt's a commonly-expressed complaint at my private, engineering-focused school that, of all the egregious capital investment is in things that have high donor selling potential but little use to the student body: a beautiful new athletic facility (we're D1 in only one sport) and a "performing arts center" where artists are subsidized residency and no student programs (not even through our tiny arts department) are accommodated.
- coryrc 13y agoEvery building has a large, recurring maintenance and services cost.
- nitrogen 13y agoIf a new building replaces an old building, those costs should be the same as or lower than the older building, per square foot. If the new building does not replace an older building, it should allow the college to enroll more students or provide other services that bring in more revenue to pay for those ongoing costs.