OT--UConn considering 25.5 percent tuition increase over four years | Page 3 | The Boneyard

OT--UConn considering 25.5 percent tuition increase over four years

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Tuition though is not a measure of costs. It's just the amount that is charged to students. Actual cost per student is double or triple the tuition. So, there's no real corrollary between inflation and the rise in tuition. The relationship is arbitrary since education is largely subsidized by other sources (research, endowment, taxes, etc.)

so you are giving up on the $22,472? and want to argue the definition of tuition.
I understand that is subsidized, endowments, by taxpayers, ect. Again, i'm not here to argue.
I was just pointing out that the way the article was written, it underscores the actually price of UConn. 112% increase not 53%.
 

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One final quick point.

Moreso than ever, parental involvement with your son/daughter during the application process, selecting the college and selecting the major is more important than ever. Carelessness can be a lifelong drag.
 
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You don't agree that we're living in a culture that cuts costs in govt. and govt. institutions only as a last resort?

Not sure about "state funding" at UConn and whether it's going down or up, but it's not relevant to me.

If making UConn a "top" institution means making it substantially more expensive, then I don't support the move.

The goal should not be to compete with Michigan or Ohio State.

It should be to keep costs as low as possible while also maintaining agreed-upon standards.

The last thing that UConn needs right now is more faculty.

120-180 grand a year for a full professor?

Time to review that as well.
First of all, this increase is based on the assumption that there is no increase or a cut in state support. The goal absolutley should be to compete with the top public research universities in the nation. We have an alternative, the state university system, that should be the "cost containment" option. I'm not even getting into the faculty argument except to say that when you can't provide enough courses to enable people to graduate in 4 years, the extra semester or extra year is a de facto tuition increase.
 
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It's just not the case.
The average student loan debt is $5k a year. Relative to inflation, student loan debt has not risen a great deal in 25 years. The cap was at $3k in the 80s for subbed loans and is at $5.5k now. Private loans are but a small sliver of the market, the vast majority are still subbed.
The total amount of loans HAS increased almost exponentially over the last 10 to 15 years however because you have more students than ever before taking loans to places that didn't exist a decade ago. Places like for-profit schools which are a huge chunk of the market. More students taking loans at more and different schools = big aggregate amount. But the average is the same at the old schools if you index for inflation.
I can send you links to studies that have investigated this.

Please send me the links.
I do disagree. In simplistic terms my 10,600 for my freshmen year is now 15,283 adjusted for inflation. But the 2011 price is 22,472. (CPI calculators online)
I'm not sure if you are challenging student loans in bankruptcy law as well, but I'm not quite sure.
 
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My school offered 3 AP classes total.. . .
There's plenty of degree programs that are extremely difficult to cut a year out of.
. . .
There's only so many BS classes required for engineering and lots of prereq requirements, things you can't take anywhere but Storrs and in the Spring/Fall.
Wow. Nobody told you that you didn't need to "take a class" in HS to take the AP? I'm sorry about that. You might want to write to your HS principal that kids can take as many APs as they want, and classes in HS are not a prerequisite.

Here it is, as simply as I can put it:
Saying, "well there are only 3 AP classes at my HS" is exactly what the problem is. It's you blaming your school for you not having ambition and motivation. My kids take 7-10 AP tests prior to "graduating" from our home school program. We don't have any "AP Classes." We simply learn the material. If you HS sucks and your regular, say, American History class doesn't target the AP, then pick up a book! For that exam, there's a book out there that you can get used for a few bucks. My daughter took it last Spring. Read that book, that's all, got a 4.

The most persistent problem in our society today, and it started well back when I was a kid, is that most people think they're entitled to various things, and most people look for excuses to explain their own lack of ambition and motivation.

If the kids running around today in HS spent half as much time reading material to prepare for AP exams as they did surfing crap on line, posting on FB, and texting friends, then they wouldn't need to blame their high school curriculum for why it took them 5 years to graduate with a polysci degree.
 
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The goal absolutley should be to compete with the top public research universities in the nation.
Why?
Why shouldn't the goal be to provide a quality education at a great price for in state students?
 
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All pay. Professors are overpaid. What is a "top" professor? When I was a grad student at UConn, I worked for a prof that was big news because he had a cover of a major science mag. His first assignment was Genetics 101, or whatever the intro number was (can't recall). I was excited. I said, "wow, you got genetics 101." I thought it would be a great way to introduce students to our science. Guy looks at me dead pan and says, "well, it's part of the job, so I have no choice." He viewed the teaching portion of his job as a pain in the ass, and he sucked at it. That is what you get at a "research" University. Screw the grant skim. Hire better teachers, not folks who have great CVs for . . . looking down a microscope and writing 50 page grant applications. I personally knew 2 dozen professors. Only a couple considered teaching to be anything more than an annoyance.​

National average for professor pay is $55k. At top-tier research universities it's in the $70s. Here's my advice: if you want to earn money, do not go into Higher Ed. Post bachelors, you're going to need to do a decade's worth of apprenticeship until your degree, then there's post-grad fellowships and visiting positions (another 2 years), and finally entry level pay ($40k-$50k) for 7 years until tenure. That means you get tenure around 42 and have another 25 years to earn. In other words, you are much better off as a High School teacher.​

But beyond that, the issue of professor's pay is practically irrelevant these days since it has gone down as a % of a university's costs largely because faculty have taken on more responsibilities than their predecessors and the schools have hired part-timers to fill-in. As for better teachers, one wonders how good a teacher can be if they don't put 50% of their efforts into research.​

Again, you're running into the biggest problem. 30%-40% of a university budget comes in the form of research grants. Now, 60% of that money would be lost to the university if it eliminated high earning professors. [I can argue that the other 40% would not be lost to the school since grant funds are set aside for fixed expenses related to research and therefore are not fungible.]​

Start with this one - "Urban and Community Studies." Finish by getting rid of the entire school of education. To be a good teacher, you don't need to study how to be a good teacher for 4 (five!!!) years. You need to know the material and have the skills to communicate them. Most people who are good teachers were born that way. The concept that you need a 4 year (five!!!) degree to teach 5th grade is monstrously funny.​

Get rid of Urban Studies? That's your answer? I never took courses in this field, but as I go on in life, it strikes me as an immensely interesting one, and I would have loved to find the time to learn more. The design of urban centers for maximal use and livability seems to me a very important subject. I've even read books for pleasure on this subject from Urban Studies experts such as Richard Florida. My city -- Buffalo -- in particular, could use a bunch of people like Florida to advise it.​

As for education, I don't want someone teaching my kids who hasn't had a well-rounded education. I don't care if they only took 8 courses in their subject, I want them to take a full 32 courses.​

No doubt SATs are up and the students are more qualified in terms of grades. So what? I say it again - 1/2 or more of the kids at UConn don't need a college degree, won't get much out of it, will have the debt ride them for much of their lives, and would be better off not being there.​

How much debt can they possibly rack up? $22k debt is not onerous, and that's the national average including private schools and for-profits.​

I disagree. That's an artificial characterization. It's easy. UConn is for CT students. We don't need students from China. Most Chinese students are there filing TA/Grad rolls. If we can't find CT kids to fill those rolls, then shrink the programs.

This is incorrect. Most schools are bringing in lots of foreign students as undergrads because either their parents or their governments are paying the freight (and the freight is ABOVE the cost per student). In other words, foreign students = net profits. These students bring tuitions DOWN. That's the whole reason why schools are marketing themselves overseas.

There's no guesswork. It's a govt. institution. As such, inefficiencies are everywhere.​

It's guesswork on your part. As though inefficiencies don't exist elsewhere. This message board is proof of inefficiencies all over the workplace. But by and large, with cutbacks, expenses have been cut to the bone. It's as though you believe after all the cutbacks, people are just sitting around. You couldn't be more mistaken.
Get rid of the major. If they can't offer a required course more often or give preference to the upper class, then sh-tcan it.​

Then what will they teach? Get rid of all majors? This is happening in every program.​

Threaten that. Watch how quickly the department "finds" a way to get everybody in the class.​

I'm not sure you're getting it. You have a limited number of faculty. You have upper level courses that can ONLY be taught by core faculty. What you have is a bottleneck. One way to resolve this bottleneck is to eliminate the requirement altogether.
Penn State. Right now. My son is on track to graduate in 3 years. What don't you understand?​
Chem E and Bio E. Not the slough majors like "Women's Studies"​

First off, Women's Studies at the vast majority of schools (such as Penn State) is an interdisciplinary program without dedicated lines. You'll find Lit, History, Sociology and even Science courses listed as Women's Studies. These aren't departments. Congrats to your son, but I find your posts incredibly ironic since your kids go to Penn State, where the costs of attendance are double and even triple the costs elsewhere. At Penn State, students pay through the nose so they don't have to experience the sort of dysfunction other schools experience. I'm at a R1/AAU school where the tuition is less than a third of the tuition at PSU (we're sub $5,000 currently). If we charged what PSU does, we wouldn't have any bottleneck whatsoever, so I find it odd that you're pointing to a school with sky-high costs and tuition as a model. In most schools nationwide, the costs are not half of what they are at PSU.

You're part of the system. It's clear from your well-practiced, yet spurious reasoning. You go as the system goes. So you'll defend the system as is and argue for expansion and ever more funding.

Stop. I am a heavy critic of the system, and anyone who has been reading my posts here over time knows that.
The great college bubble at the end of the 1900s was funded by debt. It is collapsing, just like many sectors of the economy, because the debt bubble is collapsing. U.S. treasury debt got downgraded for the first time in history in July of this year. Anybody paying attention should understand that we are in a period of great contraction. UConn would do well to be clear that it's not time to get bigger.

There are absolutely no facts to back up your reasoning. I can lead you to studies if you're interested.
 
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so you are giving up on the $22,472?

Huh? I'm not sure what this means.

and want to argue the definition of tuition.
I understand that is subsidized, endowments, by taxpayers, ect. Again, i'm not here to argue.
I was just pointing out that the way the article was written, it underscores the actually price of UConn. 112% increase not 53%.

All I wrote was that the 53% quote was incorrect.
 
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I'm not arguing here either.

Read this: http://admissions.uconn.edu/tuition/index.php

Tuition, fees, plus room and board are: $21,720

Then read this: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/...nt-tuition-increase-2399595.php#ixzz1gczIoudv

This is the article linked to this thread. This is why I responded that you misread it, because in this article, you'll find this:

22,472 is undergrad enrollment for 2011-2012.

ok, I gotcha.
The writer seems to be confused then as well-

From: Lambeck, Linda [mailto:lclambeck@ctpost.com]
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:11 AM
To:
Subject: RE:


instate tuition and fees alone in FY 12 are $10,670 according to UConn...its $22,472 with room and board

 
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First of all, this increase is based on the assumption that there is no increase or a cut in state support. The goal absolutley should be to compete with the top public research universities in the nation. We have an alternative, the state university system, that should be the "cost containment" option. I'm not even getting into the faculty argument except to say that when you can't provide enough courses to enable people to graduate in 4 years, the extra semester or extra year is a de facto tuition increase.

Exactly.
 
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ok, I gotcha.
The writer seems to be confused then as well-

From: Lambeck, Linda [mailto:lclambeck@ctpost.com]
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:11 AM
To:
Subject: RE:

instate tuition and fees alone in FY 12 are $10,670 according to UConn...its $22,472 with room and board

Yes, this is what I was trying to point out. That she's confused. I don't believe UConn has announced what's going to be charged in 2012-2013, but if she's referencing 2011-2012, then her numbers contradict what's on the UConn website. FY 12 should refer to 2011-2012.
 
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I've met plenty of people at good jobs with undergrad degrees in things like art history or English. The undergrad degree isn't that important as long as you pick up some marketable skills while you're there. The fact is having a degree greatly increases your career earnings potential over someone without one.

The undergrad degree isn't that important as long as you pick up some marketable skills while you're there.

Bingo!
 
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Please send me the links.
I do disagree. In simplistic terms my 10,600 for my freshmen year is now 15,283 adjusted for inflation. But the 2011 price is 22,472. (CPI calculators online)
I'm not sure if you are challenging student loans in bankruptcy law as well, but I'm not quite sure.

I wrote this for someone who was looking into the rise in costs. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/...universities-risen-so-rapidly?via=blog_743222

The main study I looked at was dated 1998 but the highest tuition rises have occurred in the period between 1986 and 1998, so the cost factors studied are still relevant. Health care and new technology are the only outliers since 1998. Since then, tuition increases nationally have moderated, though the Cal system has exploded from relatively low tuition to high. UConn seems to be in that category as well, but for the most part, nationally, you had huge increases over the last 25 years, moderating about a decade ago.
All I'm emphasizing here is that the rise in tuition is huge but you need to draw distinctions between costs and tuition. These are two different things. Consider, if Cal had tuition of $1,000 a decade ago, and is now charging $10,000, that a 1,000% increase, far far outpacing tuition. In real terms though, the costs at Cal were not rising at 1,000% in the period. They rose at 2%. The difference is that tuition went from a very low price to a very high price.
 
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The assumption being made, that everyone with a science degree is brilliant & everyone with a sports management degree is stupid, is ridiculous.

By the way, UConn has the best Kiniseology department in the country. Where do you think Sports Management comes from? You want to get rid of one of the best departments the school has?

Typical of the crowd that also loves to scream "CUT MOAR SPENDING!!!!!!!111111111ONE" on the assumption that money is being wasted without actually looking.

The "allure of college" has largely been fueled by the increasing national focus on college sports. It's all over TV. The campuses, the co-eds, the parties at the games, etc. The 90s economic boom helped, parents had the money to send their kids to school. Everyone started going to college. The bottom fell out and you had the next generation of kids standing there looking at their older brothers/sisters who went to State U, why the heck should they go to Western Tech to be an electrician?
As Oscar said to Felix, "when U assume U make and ASS out of U and ME.
If you read my post, we are lacking in science and math, that should be emphasized. Kinesiology is a science, a great major, and marketable upon graduation. So not sure of what crowd you are referring to?
 
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As Oscar said to Felix, "when U assume U make and ASS out of U and ME.
If you read my post, we are lacking in science and math, that should be emphasized. Kinesiology is a science, a great major, and marketable upon graduation. So not sure of what crowd you are referring to?

Thomas Kuhn's book Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an interesting take on this discussion. As someone in the Humanities, obviously I am totally against this point-of-view that puts an emphasis on utility (though I can find any number of examples for the usefulness of the skills we teach), but I agree with you that this is a discussion that's happening all over the place. In Kuhn's book, however, he shows that a lot of scientific breakthroughs come from a cross-pollination between disciplines. I really wonder of you could seal off the sciences away from other disciplines and still expect positive results. There's a reason schools insist o a distribution of classes across fields.
 
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I wrote this for someone who was looking into the rise in costs. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/...universities-risen-so-rapidly?via=blog_743222

The main study I looked at was dated 1998 but the highest tuition rises have occurred in the period between 1986 and 1998, so the cost factors studied are still relevant. Health care and new technology are the only outliers since 1998. Since then, tuition increases nationally have moderated, though the Cal system has exploded from relatively low tuition to high. UConn seems to be in that category as well, but for the most part, nationally, you had huge increases over the last 25 years, moderating about a decade ago.
All I'm emphasizing here is that the rise in tuition is huge but you need to draw distinctions between costs and tuition. These are two different things. Consider, if Cal had tuition of $1,000 a decade ago, and is now charging $10,000, that a 1,000% increase, far far outpacing tuition. In real terms though, the costs at Cal were not rising at 1,000% in the period. They rose at 2%. The difference is that tuition went from a very low price to a very high price.

I wrote this for someone who was looking into the rise in costs. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/...universities-risen-so-rapidly?via=blog_743222

The main study I looked at was dated 1998 but the highest tuition rises have occurred in the period between 1986 and 1998, so the cost factors studied are still relevant. Health care and new technology are the only outliers since 1998. Since then, tuition increases nationally have moderated, though the Cal system has exploded from relatively low tuition to high. UConn seems to be in that category as well, but for the most part, nationally, you had huge increases over the last 25 years, moderating about a decade ago.
All I'm emphasizing here is that the rise in tuition is huge but you need to draw distinctions between costs and tuition. These are two different things. Consider, if Cal had tuition of $1,000 a decade ago, and is now charging $10,000, that a 1,000% increase, far far outpacing tuition. In real terms though, the costs at Cal were not rising at 1,000% in the period. They rose at 2%. The difference is that tuition went from a very low price to a very high price.

interesting, but i thinking we are just going to be on opposite sides on this. I'm agreeing to disagree.

I've read that real wages adjusted for inflation haven't risen since the mid 1990. yet tution on an absolute dollar amount have greatly outpaced inflation. (yet I do agree with you that not as much as cost)
I see your point that as a % tuition rose faster from the 80's to the 90s. But, wages adjusted for inflation increased during the same time period.
That's my real concern.
 
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Yes - it's to support the weak sisters in humanities. ;)

Uh, no, not really.

http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humanities-really-155771.aspx

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575536322093520994.html#mod=most_viewed_day

But even if we were discussing unprofitable programs here, I don't accept the idea they should be cut. Take the Classics for instance. Here we have a department that's unprofitable at many universities: it usually consists of 1 or 2 or 3 professors with very few majors. Ridding a university of 3,000 years of history would cut off the sources of a lot of scholarship in all fields. You still have West Point referencing the classics in teaching military strategy, and unless you want to create an echo chamber with absolutely no deviation in how they are understood in contemporary society, you pay the price for Classics.
 
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interesting, but i thinking we are just going to be on opposite sides on this. I'm agreeing to disagree.

I've read that real wages adjusted for inflation haven't risen since the mid 1990. yet tution on an absolute dollar amount have greatly outpaced inflation. (yet I do agree with you that not as much as cost)
I see your point that as a % tuition rose faster from the 80's to the 90s. But, wages adjusted for inflation increased during the same time period.
That's my real concern.

I never disagreed with you that tuition is rising exponentially faster than both inflation and wages. I absolutely agree with you.

I said costs are not rising faster than inflation (they are rising faster than wages, but that's another can of worms since GDP and profits are well up over middle class wages).

This is why I'm saying that focus on tuition leaves one with a skewed perception. You have to look at costs and then move backwards.

I don't think I ever argued against the idea that tuition is ridiculously high in many places.
 
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I wrote this for someone who was looking into the rise in costs.
Saw this quote in your post - "The Commission has found no conclusive evidence that loans have contributed to rising costs and prices."

Needed a hell of a good belly laugh this morning. Thanks.

The notion that the screaming rise in College costs isn't in substantial part directly attributable to federally subsidized student loans is about as unsupportable as the notion that loose banking standards for home loans during the five or six years leading to the 05/06 housing bubble pop had no effect on home prices.

Maybe we should include economics 101 in all curriculum, including humanities majors.

IF you make student loans more broadly available to HS graduates, THEN the number wanting to go to college increases.

IF the demand for placement in college increases, THEN price increases.

This is so painfully fundamental that it truly would take somebody who is a lifer in the University system to not understand it.

What's that quote? It's extremely difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it?
 
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Saw this quote in your post - "The Commission has found no conclusive evidence that loans have contributed to rising costs and prices."

Needed a hell of a good belly laugh this morning. Thanks.

This commission came out of congress and included business people and a whole range of experts across fields and institutions, both business, colleges, public and private, etc. So, you know more than them?

The notion that the screaming rise in College costs isn't in substantial part directly attributable to federally subsidized student loans is about as unsupportable as the notion that loose banking standards for home loans during the five or six years leading to the 05/06 housing bubble pop had no effect on home prices.

You're wrong on many fronts. College costs are not rising above inflation. Tuition is. If loans are inflating the price of college, you would expect costs to rise, wouldn't you? But costs are NOT rising above inflation. Only tuition is. And, as for student loans, the max amount of a subbed loan has not risen above inflation, neither has the average amount ($20k) of total loans held by individual students with loans. The thing that has popped is the number of students taking loans AND especially the number of schools accepting them. Something like 60% of all defaulted loans currently are those taken out by students at for-profit centers like U. Phoenix, which didn't even exist 15 years ago.

IF the demand for placement in college increases, THEN price increases.

This is so painfully fundamental that it truly would take somebody who is a lifer in the University system to not understand it.

What's that quote? It's extremely difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it?

You are seemingly incapable of comprehending the difference between costs and tuition. These are not the same thing.

But you know all, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
 
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I was kidding.
I loved my broadly liberal education in psychology. The degree was fairly worthless, but I did enjoy the education.

Whether enjoyable or not, worthless or not, the relevant focus is whether they are profitable or not. Some humanities majors are, some aren't.
 
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Saw this quote in your post - "The Commission has found no conclusive evidence that loans have contributed to rising costs and prices."

Needed a hell of a good belly laugh this morning. Thanks.

The notion that the screaming rise in College costs isn't in substantial part directly attributable to federally subsidized student loans is about as unsupportable as the notion that loose banking standards for home loans during the five or six years leading to the 05/06 housing bubble pop had no effect on home prices.

Maybe we should include economics 101 in all curriculum, including humanities majors.

IF you make student loans more broadly available to HS graduates, THEN the number wanting to go to college increases.

IF the demand for placement in college increases, THEN price increases.

This is so painfully fundamental that it truly would take somebody who is a lifer in the University system to not understand it.

What's that quote? It's extremely difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it?

I agree!
 
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