The aweful state of tuition in America

[Divi Filius]

Here is a short comparison:

 

Harvard University tuition(total): $45,620 (not including living expenses)

Cambridge tuition:

Edited July 6, 2007 by Divi Filius

[M. Porcius Cato]

College tuition is a bargain. According to this report by the US census, the lifetime earnings of a high school graduate in the US is $ 1.2 million; of a college graduate, $ 2.1 million; with a master's degree, $ 2.5 million; with a professional degree, $ 4.4 million. To be blunt, if you think $ 80,000 is too much to spend to get an extra $ 900,000, you don't belong in college.

 

In addition to the financial gains of college, I'd also point out that there are important non-financial gains as well. According to this article originally reported in the NYT, men without a college education are 3 times more likely to have never married by age 40 than their college educated peers. Moreover, as women make up a larger part of the student population than ever before, the marriage prospects for men with no college education have plummeted. Between 1980 and 2004, the number of never-married men has tripled, with even greater declines for those who dropped out of college or never attended.

 

In my view, universities charge far too little and depend far too much on the generosity of their alumni and alumnae. If I were a university president, I'd increase tuition until I saw a measurable decline in applicants, which I would recover by means of generous merit-based aid. The rest of the money would go to professor salaries.

 

Are US schools more expensive than the heavily-subsidized schools of Britain? Yes--but not for long. British schools are finally beginning to wake up to their market value and the requirements to compete globally and they're finally charging accordingly. Moreover, US employer recruitment at international schools tends to be much, much lower than recruitment at US schools, largely because talented international students come to the US to study because American schools are more competitive in medical research, engineering, and all of the sciences.

 

In any case, if you think US tuition is a bad deal, no will force you to go to school here.

[docoflove1974]

Divi Filius, I do understand your point. Here's some counter points to the ones you and the article bring up:

 

--Tuition in state-funded universities have gone up in large part because state funding has been cut. The universities need to make that money up from somewhere, and they can't always count on donors. Plus, most often sports broadcasting monies must be spent on the sports programs, and not on the academic side.

 

--The "need to compete" is very real. I've been working the academic job market for a few years now, and quite seriously, the starting pay for a PhD averages between $45,000 and $55,000--this is for a fresh-out-of-grad-school assistant professor applicant. Obviously the pay rises as time and experience allows, but to start off, that's peanuts. I live in a very expensive metropolitan area (the San Francisco Bay Area), and on $45-55k/yr, I couldn't afford to live alone. That's not taking into account the number of PhDs that have student loan debt! The University of Texas system has 'lured' several professors from California simply because the cost of living is lower, and there is no state income tax. Trust me, when you are on interviews and in negotiations for these positions, it's a fight to get the best you can.

 

--Infrastructure--this is upgrading buildings (making them not just up-to-code, but with the latest technological tools for teaching and communicating), upgrading and maintaining the libraries, the roadways in the campus, leaky roofs...the list goes on. To say the least, maintaining a university is highly expensive. Paper budgets are cut to make room for other things...which causes professors to need more webspace to place their course materials online...which costs the university money in other areas. Students and professors want the best technology they can get so that they can continue their work. This all costs money!

 

Look, the first complaint out of every parents' mouth is: "I can't afford to pay for college for my kids." Um, my parents didn't pay for my education, nor that of my brothers'. They could afford $3k/year. That's it; just for reference, we all went to University of California schools (myself and one brother to Davis, the other brother to Santa Barbara), where tuition plus other costs probably ran close to $10-15k/year. The rest of the money came from our working (in the dorms!) during the school year and in the summer, grants (every state has grant money available, and it's not hard to find), and student loans. You don't need to go into credit card debt; there are many, many ways. Millions of dollars in scholarship money is unclaimed and unspent because people don't know about the money.

 

So, bottom line: the rise in college tuition is real, but not nearly as "unaffordable" as people think! Nor are the rises unnecessary!

[Viggen]

fascinating, it is always interesting to see and hear from "foreign" countries different approach to life,

here were i live universities and schools are (more or less) for free, you get free public transport to the school, dont pay for books and we are doing also fine...

 

...i guess charging money to breed our future top taxpayers seems strange to us,

 

cheers

viggen

[docoflove1974]

Yeah, but generally-speaking European countries tax the citizen at a higher rate than we are here in the US. So while you're really not paying much out of pocket to go to college or whatever, it's taken out of your paycheck in some fashion or another. It's all the same; it takes money to make the world go 'round.

[Viggen]

yeah sure of course we have a slightly higher tax then the US has, but what do i get in return? Free medical service, free education, more then enogh unemployment money when i need it for as long as 24 months, 3 year paid parental leave when you have a newborn, till the 18th year parents get 150 euro for each child extra from the governemnt, a state subsided pension that is more then enough to have a comfortable last quarter of your life, so for me this seems a damm good deal

 

but as i said, different societies have a different approach to life, seems to work in one way or another for both...

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Here in the french speaking part of Belgium the inscription fee at the university is somewhere around 800 or 900

[docoflove1974]

yeah sure of course we have a slightly higher tax then the US has, but what do i get in return? Free medical service, free education, more then enogh unemployment money when i need it for as long as 24 months, 3 year paid parental leave when you have a newborn, till the 18th year parents get 150 euro for each child extra from the governemnt, a state subsided pension that is more then enough to have a comfortable last quarter of your life, so for me this seems a damm good deal

 

but as i said, different societies have a different approach to life, seems to work in one way or another for both...

 

I'm not knocking it, really. I'm just saying you're still paying for it, even if the bill doesn't come labeled "tuition".

[M. Porcius Cato]

It's important to point out that the university model in continental Europe differs somewhat from the US model. The most important difference is that top US universities derive their income largely from research, tuition, and investments of their endowment. Consequently, American universities not only have "shiny new buildings" (this is trivial), they have state-of-the-art RESEARCH FACILITIES, and as a result, US university-based research generates more scientific publications and garners more Nobel prizes than any other nation by a very large margin. To talk about Harvard, UCLA, or Michigan only from the perspective of their side-business in teaching undergraduates makes absolutely no sense. Moreover, the research and educational mission of a university are naturally linked: undergraduates benefit enormously from participating in the university research mission. In fact, I'd argue that what happens in classrooms provides only a fraction of the real education that happens at university, which is the sum of classroom education, guided laboratory (or equivalent) work, and independent research.

 

There are US colleges that are relatively inexpensive and apply European priorities to an even greater extent. The reputation of these schools, however, is relatively poor because they fail to attract top scholars who want access to state-of-the-art research facilities, high incomes, and low teaching responsibilities. Believe it or not, teaching 19-year-olds isn't the most gratifying intellectual experience. In my judgment, schools that cater to teaching 19-year-olds are just high schools with ashtrays.

[The Augusta]

College tuition is a bargain. According to this report by the US census, the lifetime earnings of a high school graduate in the US is $ 1.2 million; of a college graduate, $ 2.1 million; with a master's degree, $ 2.5 million; with a professional degree, $ 4.4 million. To be blunt, if you think $ 80,000 is too much to spend to get an extra $ 900,000, you don't belong in college.

 

In addition to the financial gains of college, I'd also point out that there are important non-financial gains as well. According to this article originally reported in the NYT, men without a college education are 3 times more likely to have never married by age 40 than their college educated peers. Moreover, as women make up a larger part of the student population than ever before, the marriage prospects for men with no college education have plummeted. Between 1980 and 2004, the number of never-married men has tripled, with even greater declines for those who dropped out of college or never attended.

 

In my view, universities charge far too little and depend far too much on the generosity of their alumni and alumnae. If I were a university president, I'd increase tuition until I saw a measurable decline in applicants, which I would recover by means of generous merit-based aid. The rest of the money would go to professor salaries.

 

Are US schools more expensive than the heavily-subsidized schools of Britain? Yes--but not for long. British schools are finally beginning to wake up to their market value and the requirements to compete globally and they're finally charging accordingly. Moreover, US employer recruitment at international schools tends to be much, much lower than recruitment at US schools, largely because talented international students come to the US to study because American schools are more competitive in medical research, engineering, and all of the sciences.

 

In any case, if you think US tuition is a bad deal, no will force you to go to school here.

 

As I now face contemplating my son's Uni education in the next two years, this thread has drawn my attention. Cato - I could not agree with you more on this. For years we in Britain moaned and groaned about our kids (or us) not being able to get a grant due to the combined salaries of our parents etc. I can remember demonstrations about the lack of funding for education and all sorts of nonsense. It used to really get up my nose, and I brought it to people's attention that American kids often had to 'pay their own way' through college and that the cost of tuition over there was ten times what it was for us. Rather like the National Health Service over here, we Brits have been spoiled rotten regarding the low cost of tertiary education. A few years ago the present government decided to do something about that. Grants were abolished and as you say, tuition fees rose. First year undergraduates whose parents could not afford to put them Uni were then offered student loans, to be paid back within a certain period after graduating. The only thing I had against this formula was that youngsters were then entering the job market with a huge debt of some

[Moonlapse]

From the Grace Commission Report (PPSS) 1984:

 

* One-third of all their taxes is consumed by waste and inefficiency in the Federal Government as we identified in our survey.

* Another one-third of all their taxes escapes collection from others as the underground economy blossoms in direct proportion to tax increases and places even more pressure on law abiding taxpayers, promoting still more underground economy-a vicious cycle that must be broken.

* With two-thirds of everyone's personal income taxes wasted or not collected, 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government.

 

Expect more 'interest' with less services.

[Ludovicus]

Divi Filius,

I sympathize with you. When I graduated from college in he US very few of us were burdened with college tuition debts. That was in the 60's. My younger sister, after 20 years and four children, is still paying off her master's degree debt. My Italian cousin in Rome, Aurelio, in 1990, was paying $800 a year in fees to attend law school at the University of Rome (La Sapienza), founded in the 1303. With the high college or university tuition required by US institutions a financial roadblock is created that limits entry to promising but poor students.

 

The Europeans have at least two advantages that we lack, affordable higher ed and universal low cost health care. They pay more in taxes, as has been noted, but what they pay goes into services that benefits the entire society. We pay high taxes too, but much of our money goes into maintaining the troops that maintain the Empire.

[The Augusta]

Just as a matter of interest, guys - what is the basic tax rate in the US these days? And is it a blanket rate or do you have a scale as we do, for higher earners etc? Sorry if we're off topic - Moon will no doubt split the thread if he deems it necessary.

[Moonlapse]

We pay high taxes too, but much of our money goes into maintaining the troops that maintain the Empire.

I think this is a bit misleading. When the Federal government needs funds, the Federal Reserve (a private banking institution, which Congress gave central bank powers to in 1913, the same year that a permanent income tax was instituted) fabricates new money for it (the gold standard was eliminated in 1971). When you pay Federal income tax, your money is used by the government to pay interest, not principle, to its creditors. Services such as public education and public roads are largely funded with taxes on property and fuels.

[Moonlapse]

Just as a matter of interest, guys - what is the basic tax rate in the US these days? And is it a blanket rate or do you have a scale as we do, for higher earners etc? Sorry if we're off topic - Moon will no doubt split the thread if he deems it necessary.

http://taxes.about.com/od/2007taxes/qt/2007_tax_rates.htm

Your average middle class American pays about 25% just for Federal income tax, add onto that the various state income taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, capital gains taxes, miscellaneous other taxes and government fees. The total estimate is roughly 40%.