http://chronicle.com/article/A-Public-University-Joins-the/125207/
Are universities really worth what they are charging for students to attend?
A Public University Joins the Expanding 50K Club of College Prices
By Jeffrey Brainard
The ranks of the most expensive colleges have grown again: 100 institutions are charging $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board in 2010-11, according to a Chronicle analysis of data released last week by the College Board. That's well above the 58 universities and colleges that charged that much in 2009-10, and a major jump from the year before, when only five colleges were priced over $50,000.
This year marks a milestone as the first public institution has joined that elite club: the University of California at Berkeley is charging out-of-state residents $50,649 for tuition, fees, room, and board. (The price for in-state residents is only $27,770.)
All of the other 99 colleges charging $50,000 or more are private. They made up 9 percent of the 1,058 private institutions reporting any amount for tuition, fees, room, and board.
I kind of like that Berkley is charging $50,000 for their out of state students (most probably aren't paying the full sticker price though).
ReplyDeleteI am a believer in the high tuition high aid model. By over charging the out of state students, the university can then have more money to spend on other areas, such as financial aid for high achieving low income in-state students.
This is to a slightly less extent going on at UIUC. While the tuition is very expensive for many students students, it allows for programs such as the Presidential Award Program and Illinois Promise to exist so that underrepresented and low income students can come here for little or no cost, as in the case of the Illinois Promise (the student do have to do some sort of work study).
I personally would want to see higher tuition here but also increased levels of student aid so that the top quartile of families who could easily pay higher tuition are doing so, with the remaining students paying either the same or less overall tuition.
To the question is Berkley’s out of state cost worth it, maybe to some. I think that if you came from a rich family that the cost wouldn’t matter to much and the prestige of attending Berkley would make it worth while. Throw in the fact that the weather is nicer than most places and I could definitely see why someone would pick Berkley and pay $50,000 a year.
I personally don't really like Berkley and wouldn't want my kids to go there for undergrad regardless of the cost.
Those are all excellent points. However, I am concerned by pace of this tuition inflation. What does it say about higher ed that during a period of deep recession (2008 - 2011), when so much of the county is struggling financially, we went from having only 5 colleges charging more than $50,000 to having 100 colleges on that list. To me this is yet another display of institutional encouragement to take on crushing debt -- similar to that imposed by the housing market and consumer lending companies. It seems we (higher ed) are only helping to further the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots." I find that so disheartening.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that out of state students should be charged more. Some people from out of state would like to attend insititutions out of their state because possibly their state might not have any good universities. I believe they can find other funds for in state low-income students. Sometimes there are out of state students that attend universities in another state that cannot afford to attend but they know they are investing in their education so they accumulate debt in order to live the "American Dream." I believe there should be more funding for out of state students because its not fair. Students should be able to attend any university they want regardless of costs. I believe when it comes to going to universities, they should be affordable.
ReplyDeleteBut at least if the elite schools charge $50,000 to those who can afford it, then they will have enough scholarship funds for those of lower SES status. From a social justice perspective, I think it would be worse if a school on the list charged 30 or 40 thousand but didn’t have the extra money to offer scholarships. For most middle class people, that would however be better. I definitely do agree that it is worrying the rate at which tuition overall has risen at both selective and non-selective schools.
ReplyDeleteI think that it would be an extremely bad idea to make it so that state schools have the same tuition for their in-state students as out-of-state students. If it wasn't for the high out of state tuition here at the University of Illinois, students from out-of-state would come here in mass and UIUC wouldn't be doing one of its main jobs, educating the citizens of Illinois. A lot of Illinois resident's are already unhappy with the high number of out of state students. If the out of state tuition differential was taken away, I imagine that a lot of Illinois tax payers would be furious and the university would lose a lot of support.
I also don't think that everyone should (or possibly could) get to attend the school that they want to. I would imagine that a good amount of students at Illinois State would love to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Likewise, there are probably of people on our campus that would love to be at U Chicago, Harvard, MIT or Caltech. However, UIUC can only admit so many students and some elite universities keep undergrad levels down to maintain selectivity. Because of the way that the U.S. system is set up, more students will end up going to school like Western Illinois or a Cal state than at UIUC, Berkley and especially than at Harvard or U Chicago.
Minus a few obscure programs such as University of Arizona's (Horse) Race Track Industry program, each state probably has a public university that offers any given mainstream major. While North Dakota and other state many not have prestigious public schools like California, North Carolina or Michigan, I’m sure they still offer a good education.
I am neither opposed to nor for high out of state tuition. But I am speaking from my experience of living in Illinois and having the "luxury" to attend UIUC. I understand other states may not have flagship or highly selective public universities. In that case, though, I would assume the students going to out of state universities would not be paying the full ticker price.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking about my own (future) kids, I would probably not support going out of state for undergrad if there was a great university in state that could provide a stepping stone for a better graduate school. In engineering (and I'm just using it as an example, I don't know if my kids would want to become engineers), you can go to Illinois for undergrad and then go to Berkeley or Stanford or MIT for grad school and "not have to pay anything" (because of RAs, etc).