Should college cost an arm & a leg?

[Notehound7]

https://www.create-with-joy.com/2017/09/living-with-no-excus…

Heroes like Noah Galloway, an Iraq War veteran who lost an arm and a leg on behalf of his country, were the intended beneficiaries of the HEROES Act, Public Law No: 108-76 (08/18/2003)
(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary of that version is repeated here.)

https://i1.wp.com/www.create-with-joy.com/wp-content/uploads…

Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 - Authorizes the Secretary of Education to waive or modify any requirement or regulation applicable to the student financial assistance programs under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 as deemed necessary with respect to an affected individual who: (1) is serving on active duty during a war or other military operation or national emergency; (2) is performing qualifying National Guard duty during a war, operation, or emergency; (3) resides or is employed in an area that is declared a disaster area by any Federal, State, or local official in connection with a national emergency; or (4) suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th-congress/house-bill/1412…

The HEROES Act of 2003 is the asserted statutory authority under which the US government now intends to spend an estimated $500,000,000,000.00 (half-a-trillion dollars of “off-budget” expenditures) to reward those who borrowed - but never paid back - money for tuition, books, room, board & living expenses (i.e. rent and nightly pizza parties).

Some may feel it’s a slap in the face of those who were the intended beneficiaries (such as the double-amputee Iraq War veteran pictured above), or a slap in the face of persons like my spouse and myself, who labored for years to pay back our student loans at high interest rates.

It’s about time that someone stood up (with or without legs) to speak out against outrageous tuition at all US colleges and universities - from the Ivy League to the PAC-12. However, do we really need to borrow another $1 Trillion on the backs of future taxpayers on a spending spree that does not even address the real problem - skyrocketing education costs?

The HEROES Act seems an odd choice of laws upon which to claim the “authority” to place the obligations of a certain class of debtors (current student loan borrowers) over the obligations of past debtors (paid off student loan borrowers) and the obligations of future debtors (future student loan borrowers). The HEROES Act claim seems especially inappropriate since the current bailout is not restricted to military service members.

Perhaps it’s time to re-think this before we spend another arm and a leg.

We exacerbated the current inflation with COVID Bailout - a boondoggle that was actually BUDGETED FOR, even though it was a HUGE MISTAKE. However, one does not remedy a past mistake that was budgeted for by making a bigger mistake that is NOT budgeted for.

To pay for outstanding student debt, Congress could AMEND the HEROES ACT of 2003 and reduce other spending (perhaps by withholding Social Security and Medicare Benefits from those who have assets in excess of $5 Million and/or income in excess of $200,000).

Otherwise, the current proposal is merely a gauntlet thrown down daring future administrations to offer the same sort of targeted benefit to favored constituents other than military veterans who have paid the price for their country.

[telegraph]

note:"It’s about time that someone stood up (with or without legs) to speak out against outrageous tuition at all US colleges and universities - from the Ivy League to the PAC-12. "

Duh, you don’t have to spend the money to attend Ivy league, status places, or the PAC-12! You can go to state colleges for a WHOLE LOT LESS, even more if you commute from home!

UTD (University of Dallas) for example is $12,800 tuition plus $1300 books and fees a YEAR!

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Note:“To pay for outstanding student debt, Congress could AMEND the HEROES ACT of 2003 and reduce other spending (perhaps by withholding Social Security and Medicare Benefits from those who have assets in excess of $5 Million and/or income in excess of $200,000).”

Yeah right. Punish ‘the rich’ and take away their SS and Medicare. Don’t you know that at $200,000 a year, folks are already paying 3 times the basic rate for Medicare and the drug plan and paying an additional 3.8% tax on top of high income tax brackets?

It’s the same ole ‘billionaires and millionaires’ and you keep confusing ‘income’ and ‘wealth’

t.

[steve203]

UTD (University of Dallas) for example is $12,800 tuition plus $1300 books and fees a YEAR!

Saw a piece on the news wire this morning, a certain prominent person being called out for howling about the student loan debt jubilee. That prominent person graduated from a state university in 1964, when a year at that university cost $330. Adjusting for inflation, that would be $3,164 now. What does that university cost now? $12,000. I can’t help but wonder if that state’s funding for it’s universities has been on the same downward trajectory as Michigan’s.

Steve

[tjscott0]

Higher education has the second highest price increase.
The highest? Health care
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-7…

[telegraph]

“Saw a piece on the news wire this morning, a certain prominent person being called out for howling about the student loan debt jubilee. That prominent person graduated from a state university in 1964, when a year at that university cost $330. Adjusting for inflation, that would be $3,164 now. What does that university cost now? $12,000. I can’t help but wonder if that state’s funding for it’s universities has been on the same downward trajectory as Michigan’s.”

There are several problems with college funding…

Yes, I went to private college in 1964 to 1968. Tuition was $850 the first year, rising to $1350 the last year. I had some scholarship money but borrowed $3000 for tuition/room and board over 4 years. Parents paid the bulk of tuition/board. My first job paid $9260/yr to start. Needless to say, I paid off my student loans in 18 months as it was a priority to pay them back.

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Now, tuition there is $55K a year. Ouch. The average graduate probably makes $80-90K/yr to start. Most have some tuition assistance, some get a free ride, but you can still pile up debt if your parents can’t pay up front.

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One of the problems of ‘state schools’ now is that they have to accept large numbers of students - and probably 20% need ‘remedial help’ in one or more subjects. Less are really prepared for college these days

Friend went to U of TN in computer science program. If you didn’t have excellent GPA after 3 semesters, they washed you out. 1/3 of those ‘computer science’ students were kicked out - to take ‘less rigorous’ subjects. Or leave. Same for other engineering courses. Large numbers flushed out after a year or 3 semesters as ‘not up to the course work’. Less so at more selective private schools.

Part of the problem is the expectation of students and parents for ‘glamor campuses’. Fancy living quarters - private baths and toilets. Fancy gyms and facilities.

I recall my years - dorm rooms, shower rooms, toilets. 50 years old but well maintained. Washer/dryers 100 feet away for entire dorms. New student center opened my last year. Before that it was in 50 year old building. Gym was 60 years old. Worked. Now it’s got to be glitzy to attract the attention of potential students. Then 20 frat houses if that was your thing. Of course, entire campus ‘wired’ and same for dorms. Everything web based - books, assignments, learning, course work, tests. Costs some money for all that ‘technology’ too.

I dunno how to reduce college expenses. One way is to use Community Colleges that have programs for the first two years of state university programs like Collin County and Dallas County TX where you can transfer after 2 years to the University of TX system by taking the required course work. You can live at home for those first two years - and if you go UTD, the last 2 years and save a bundle.

Texas funds the state college system from the ‘permanent oil fund’ and current oil /gas revenues collected. The state also provides scholarships based on need.

t.

[OrmontUS]

Back “in the day” (JC Time), after taking all deductions, my effective combined income tax rate (fed + state + city) was nearly 50% and municipal schools were free. Nowadays, guys/gals in my former shoes pay a hell of a lot lower taxes and schools cost an arm and a leg.

The solution is obvious, but as long as the wealthy have the best Congress money can buy (of both parties), there is no easy solution.

Evaluating the cost structure of schools, it seems that administrative costs, the costs of non-teaching (at least on the basis of a full schedule) full professors, the sports programs and such are putting much of the strain on the portion of the school which actually teaches. Colleges today are far too interested in funding other stuff when their task should be educating students.

Jeff

[spinning]

The high cost of college has two main causes, the decline in taxpayer funding and the bloat in administration, college sports, etc. I have read convincing cases for both and it seems people focus on one or the other based on their biases.

[JLC]

Higher education has the second highest price increase.
The highest? Health care

Seems to coincide with 2 areas with “guaranteed” government payments.

JLC

[38Packard]

I dunno how to reduce college expenses.

My wife works for a small 4 year College in SE MA. They have been struggling of late, and she has noticed that the admission criteria is being “dumbed down” in order to fulfill their budgeted revenue class size each year.

But also, in order to directly affect the bottom line in terms of costs, they have decided to start to offer classes that they are purchasing from other Colleges / Universities and giving full credit for those courses. The faculty are “up in arms” as they see their future…

Not sure how much the cost difference is, but the juice must be worth the squeeze.
'38Packard

[spinning]

Higher education has the second highest price increase.
The highest? Health care

Seems to coincide with 2 areas with “guaranteed” government payments.

These are also the 2 areas that most European counties manage to make affordable despite guaranteed government payments. Some European countries even provide a living stipend to students on top of free tuition.

[RAMcN]

Florida has free college tuition if you have done well in high school:

FAS: 3.5 weighted GPA or better, at least a 1290 on the SAT, (~top 10% of test takers) and 100 hours of logged community service. …100% of tuition

FMS: 3.0 weighted GPA or better, at least a 1170 on the SAT(~top 30% of test takers), and 75 hours of logged community service. . . 75% of tuition

The top tier Florida 4 year schools have tuition, books and fees of ~ $6500/year

The 2 year state colleges tuition, books ~ $3500

Additionally low income students may receive a pell grant. Nation wide 34% of all undergraduate students receive an average of $4491.

Tuition at the Ivy League schools are all greater than $70,000 year. . . Worth it?

RAM

[steve203]

One of the problems of ‘state schools’ now is that they have to accept large numbers of students - and probably 20% need ‘remedial help’ in one or more subjects. Less are really prepared for college these days

That is the problem that common core was intended to address, before it was demagogued into a horror only slightly less threatening than the Islamic boogyman.

Of course, entire campus ‘wired’ and same for dorms. Everything web based - books, assignments, learning, course work, tests. Costs some money for all that ‘technology’ too.

That is something I had not considered, but you are right. People now expect web access everywhere. The Whatsamatta U “Goldsworth Valley” dorms (the new ones, built in the 60s) are all concrete block. It would be expensive to get Ethernet run into every room. The older dorms, the last of which are now being torn down, were designed for one sex occupation, either all male, or all female, and had shared bathrooms.

Part of the problem is the expectation of students and parents for ‘glamor campuses’. Fancy living quarters - private baths and toilets. Fancy gyms and facilities.

Also true. Universities need to compete for students. I checked recent enrollment trends in Michigan. U of M and Michigan State, the two largest, are the only ones with a gain in enrollment. The second tier schools, as a group, are losing. The local media here has been nattering, at length, about Central Michigan U, because enrollment has fallen 40% in ten years.

I was at the EAA fly-in in Oshkosh last year. Found a pavilion set up by the Aviation program at Whatsamatta U, so I stopped and chatted with the folks for a bit. Western has had an aviation program as long as I can remember: a small building on campus in Kalamazoo, plus a small hangar at the airport. The Kalamazoo airport would not lift a finger to help the Aviation program grow, so the program moved to the Battle Creek airport some years ago. Western’s aviation program is now one of the largest in the country, with 1,100 students. How did it grow? Heavy sponsorship from Delta Airlines, because the state would not fund it.

https://wmich.edu/aviation

Texas funds the state college system from the ‘permanent oil fund’ and current oil /gas revenues collected.

Michigan is hosting several water bottling companies, who draw over a million gallons per day from the aquifer under the state. For all that water, the companies only pay $200 for an annual permit…because, must not “burden” the job creators. The Texas government is clearly a gang of Commies for making companies pay for the oil and gas they extract. /sarcasm.

Steve

[OrmontUS]

It would be expensive to get Ethernet run into every room.

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True - which is why it’s not retrofitted that way, but by Wi-Fi where an access point every so often down a corridor is all that’s needed - or alternatively, if the dorm rooms are wired for cable TV, then inexpensive cable modems will allow high speed internet to be run over the coaxial network.

Jeff

[flyerboys]

I know the financials of Harvard, Stanford, and Caltech quite well, and for them at least (and I expect a few others at the very least), the financials have very little to do with tuition, which provide significantly less money than do their endowments. including to provide scholarships for whomever they choose.

Caltech at this point is only somewhat a classical educational institute, but is very much a huge and powerful science and engineering research center that makes most of its money by creating hundreds of brilliant graduates who pour money (and crucially stock in their brilliant businesses) into its coffers. Education is central to their work as they really really want to insure that their graduates are the smartest and most value creating in the world. The value forms a positive feedback loop. Seeing the possibility of that feedback loop and then working like hell to empower it is the crux. But sticking a loan in the middle of the process is (was) profoundly stupid. Who thought it up and lobbied for it? Mostly for profit “colleges” and singleminded bankster accountants.

What education is and should be is changing rapidly, but the institutions are stuck. From pre kindergarten through post graduate, across all subjects, ages, and capabilities, education is in desperte need of reform. Waste is a real problem, but dwarfed by inertia, immobility, and short term thinking.

david fb

[steve203]

True - which is why it’s not retrofitted that way, but by Wi-Fi where an access point every so often down a corridor is all that’s needed - or alternatively, if the dorm rooms are wired for cable TV, then inexpensive cable modems will allow high speed internet to be run over the coaxial network.

I looked it up. The type of connection depends on where you are. Apparently, every residence has some sort of a connection. Nowhere on the page is a specification for the data transmission rate.

Not all residence halls and apartments have network jacks for wired connections. Not all residence halls and apartments have 100% Wi-Fi coverage.

But, ideology demands everything be paid for.

Every resident living in WMU-owned residence halls and apartments is charged an internet fee. The internet charge varies per semester and is billed to each student’s WMU account.

$80 per semester (fall and spring)
$40 per semester (summer I and summer II)

https://helphub.wmich.edu/hc/en-us/articles/360047171771-Res…

Getting bled with fees was something that started in the late 70s. Things like charging Juniors and Seniors a higher tuition rate than underclassmen. They also started charging everyone for access to the on campus clinic, even students that lived at home, were on their parent’s health insurance, and used their family doctor, were charged the clinic fee for the first time in the late 70s.

Steve…and Whatsamatta U has the chutzpah to keep sending me pleas for donations

[DrBob2]

I know the financials of Harvard, Stanford, and Caltech quite well, and for them at least (and I expect a few others at the very least), the financials have very little to do with tuition, which provide significantly less money than do their endowments…

In the news this week:

Surge in oil prices could push UT System’s endowment to nation’s largest
www.kut.org/texasstandard/2022-08-26/surge-oil-prices-ut-cou…
Ninety-nine years ago this week, the University of Texas System received a check for $516.63. It was a royalty payment – the first dividend from the famous Santa Rita #1, an oil well that drilled on university-owned lands in West Texas. Almost a century later, Santa Rita has been decommissioned for some time, but revenue from the UT System’s oil and gas holdings has only grown…

Texas Standard: Quite a distinction there: Richest college in America — except for Harvard. Harvard still holds the No. 1 slot, right?

Sergio Chapa: Yeah. Harvard is the oldest university in the U.S. and the wealthiest. It sets a high bar to beat in terms of their endowment, which at last count was listed at $53.2 billion. So UT’s endowment at the last count was only $42.9 billion. But given everything that is happening with the economy, given how Harvard divested from fossil fuels, given that we spent four months roughly, give or take, at $100 per barrel oil prices, you know, analysts and experts expect things to flip-flop for the schools.

DB2

[telegraph]

DB2:“Harvard is the oldest university in the U.S. and the wealthiest. It sets a high bar to beat in terms of their endowment, which at last count was listed at $53.2 billion. So UT’s endowment at the last count was only $42.9 billion. But given everything that is happening with the economy, given how Harvard divested from fossil fuels, given that we spent four month”

Harvard University has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,222 (fall 2020),

The University of Texas at Austin/Total enrollment 51,991

If you count the rest of the TX UT system, it’s

With an enrollment of almost 243,000 students and an operating budget of $23.4 billion, the UT System is one of the nation’s largest public university systems of higher education."

So…while Harvard educates a select few with it’s 55 billion endowment, the UT system educates nearly a quarter million students a year.

You’d think with that endowment, Harvard would provide a free ride for everyone who manages to get accepted and attends.

t

[tamhas]

Restricting the comparison to undergrad doesn’t seem very representative of the kind of institution Harvard is.

You’d think with that endowment, Harvard would provide a free ride for everyone who manages to get accepted and attends.

As I described in my earlier post
https://discussion.fool.com/for-me-undergrad-tuition-was-about-2…
It isn’t as if they haven’t used some of it for such purposes. They use it for a lot of things, not the least of which is to provide money for early stage research in order to get the project far enough along to make it more fundable.

[Leap1]

I know full tuition at MIT does not quite cover the full costs.

[Vol]

These are also the 2 areas that most European counties manage to make affordable despite guaranteed government payments.

Thankfully they have marketable degrees.