Why does college tuition keep rising at exorbitant rates?

[anti-NAFTA]

I am wondering why college tuition keeps rising like HELL. I am attending a private university but I notice that private tuition is going up at the same rate as public tuition. What the fuck is going on?

Are colleges the biggest parasites or what?

[curlyred]

1. Maybe because their funding keeps getting cut?

In Colorado, higher ed is, and has been, on the chopping block to the point that there is a proposal under consideration to cut ALL funding to state schools.

That's the beauty of the Bush economy. People feel all warm and fuzzy when they get their tax refund but forget all about that when they are paying more and more for services.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~61~1955768,00.html

[YNGW]

2. Cost

>Maybe because their funding keeps getting cut?

I think the original poster was talking about the overall cost of college tuition, not just the cost to the individual.

[JVS]

3. It's like cigarettes, inelastic demand. People feel that they need to...

go and they are willing to pay whatever it takes.

On edit: isn't this more of a GD topic than a lounge topic?

[anti-NAFTA]

4. I thinkI'm going to cry

this is absolutely criminal to make people pay like this. leader of the free world? my ass.

[JVS]

8. We do have state schools with better prices, and scholarships.

I enjoyed stiudying in Germany too where there was no tuition, but I really can't complain about the costs of school here. On edit: well except to say that pricing is often used to keep the social classes apart.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. Watch the financials of your college...

As your tuition increases, people get pay raises, new things are being built, and in our case, 2.2 Million dollars was cut from our budget last year. Guess what OU Coach Bob Stoops made last year? 2.2 Million Dollars. We get screwed so football can go on. Fucked up priorities.
Duckie

[anti-NAFTA]

7. absolutely disgusting

eom

[afraid_of_the_dark]

13. Beware of sports....

I did my undergrad at a school without any major sports teams, but a lot of our money got funneled to one of our sister schools with a big important football team. I like football as much as the next person, but I don't like my tuition being increased so they can pay their coach more money in one year than I'll see in 20 years of work.

[mlawson]

18. Bingo!!!

Fucked up priorities, indeed. I like to remind other profs here that without the students, WE would not have jobs here. They don't like that.

I could list similar spending outrages I have seen as well. It goes on everywhere. And of course, the sports budget is sancrsanct!! :mad:

[wildmanj]

6. why

Read The Two Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi---they fully discuss why

[JVS]

9. May I recommend

"The case against college" by Caroline Bird

Although written in 1975 this book still seems relevent, especially since college costs even more relatively than it did then. Bird argues that the money spent on college could better be used to establish a person in business. A good read

[Fenris]

10. If you attend school in Texas, it's thanks to tuition deregulation

Thank you Governor Goodhair. x(

[Goldberg]

11. Well...the Republican Governor here is to blame.

He's cutting money all over the state (Governor Tim Pawlenty, MN) and the college is hurting. This year alone, our tuition went up 14%, and next year, it's going up another 14%. I go to a public college too! I don't know how the hell I'm going to afford going to school next year...and what's worse is that it's my final year. I dont' want to have to postpone it because I can't afford to go.

Republicans piss me off...:grr:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. The legislature voted here last year to let the colleges raise freely

So they wouldn't have to do it. Lazy Bastards. And their friends the college admins thank them.
Duckie

[camero]

14. Or like Florida here

Where they have cut funding at the same time there is a bidding war over College President's salaries.

[Snow]

15. Well, I did a little research, and found that

indeed it has been rising a lot faster than other things..check the graph midway down the page here...
http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/school/19990312-mabry.html

and the article claims that there's a cycle of rising tuition resulting in more aid resulting in raising tuition to get more aid, and so on. I've also heard that there's a perception that more expensive = better quality, so many colleges jump their tuition in order to recruit more. It seems to work, so everyone's been doing it, state schools included. Look some time at outta state tuition for your local state u. It's pretty amazing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Administrative bloat

When I graduated from a private college in 1972, tuition, room and board all together were $2700, or maybe about $10,000 in present-day dollars. The 1700-student school had a president, a half-time academic dean, two deans of students, an alumni director, a head of fundraising, a head of admissions, and a couple of roomfulls of clerical workers.

When I came back as a part-time instructor ten years later, the college suddenly had four vice-presidents, all of whom earned more than the highest-paid professor. Each of these vice-presidents had a highly paid assistant as well, who earned as much as a beginning professor. (I know this because as an alum in tight financial circumstances and with good connections, I was hired for temp clerical work in the summer, and once my job was to figure out how much each faculty and administration person would be charged for health insurance, so I saw their salaries for the previous and coming year.)

The college came close to declaring financial exigency, which would have allowed the firing of tenured professors, but during the previous years, the president and each of the vice-presidents had received a $10,000 raise. Each academic department was ordered to cut back one(FTE) full-time equivalent, meaning either dump one full-time person or reduce two or more people to part-time status.

I also saw administrative bloat in my last teaching job. Within seven years, the college suddenly acquired a desperate need for new vice-presidents, new directors of..., new officers in charge of..., and new supervisors of...

[Tims]

17. Administrative Bloat

Is real problem and not just in the Colleges and Universities. It is one of the biggest factors in the increasing cost of our public primary and secondary schools. I attended school in a small town in the 60s. There was one principle for each of the four schools (elementary, middle, Jr. High and High) one superintendent, half a dozen secretaries and clerks, three librarians and two student counselors. With the exception of janitors and cafeteria workers, the rest of the employees were teachers. I recently drove through a small town that is about the same size as mine was when I was growing up. I passed by their High School and next to it was a large building with a sign identifying it as the Administration Building. Since most of the positions I listed above (with the exception of the superintendent) probably still have their offices in the school buildings themselves, who is it that now fills this Administration building?

I went back to college (University of Houston) in the early 80's and remember reading in the student newspaper an article which compared the growth of the student population versus that of the number of administrative over a period of about 15 or so years. The student population had grown significantly, somewhere around 30%-40%, but the numbers of people employed by the University in administrative positions over the same time had more than quadrupled, and this was twenty years ago and I sure the same trend has continued.

The fact that tax cuts has placed more of the burden of funding public schools on those who pay tution is bad, but the actual cost of our school system has gotten out of hand, and it is not because we are pay teachers too much or providing the best equipment.