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[lurkingfear]

You should talk to alumni of schools that cost this much before you make blanket statements about what is or isn't worth the money.

There are plenty of things that people spend their money on that I would have trouble justifying spending my own on.

Our society has an infatuation with debt that needs to be reined in, for all kinds of good reasons. Tuition is more expensive than many people can afford at many places. But you seem to be questioning value, rather than cost. Value is social and subjective.

I know many, many people who attended expensive liberal arts colleges and cherish those experiences. They are successful and happy. Some have debt, some don't. Some went in with wealthy parents, some didn't. The value they got out of it is worth the cost, to them. If it's not worth it to you, don't send your kids there.

I wonder to what extent such schools drive up the price at state schools, at least indirectly by making them seem like a bargain at only, say, $10k per year. I come from a country where most every institution of higher ed is a public school, and paid $10k for my entire undergraduate education (not including living expenses). I don't doubt that students have a wonderful experience at these private SLACs, but there is no way they need to cost as much as they do.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I come from a country where most every institution of higher ed is a public school, and paid $10k for my entire undergraduate education (not including living expenses). I don't doubt that students have a wonderful experience at these private SLACs, but there is no way they need to cost as much as they do.

What was the actual cost per pupil at your school?  Not the amount you paid for tuition, but the gross operating cost, minus grants, divided by the number of students?  Public education in Europe is relatively cheap (for those who get access) as a matter of public policy (which translates into public money), while in the US the government's share of university operating costs has steadily and rapidly dropped over the last 20 years, leaving tuition and donations as the only source of regular (ie, non-grant-related) funds.

Most state universities are operating on a very slim margin.  Certainly there are stupid inefficiencies, for example program/department proliferation, badly-engineered physical plant, and insane salaries for administrators, coaches, and professional-school faculty, but even if we fixed these things university education would still cost about what it does. - DvF

[drannmaria]

First of all, my child went to a top private school and I paid 95% of the cost. She did get an academic scholarship that paid $4,000 a year for the first two years, plus took about $20,000 in loans over four years. Everything else came from me. She did turn down a National Hispanic Scholarship at another school because she wanted to go to her first choice. Six years after graduation, I have two more years of paying on the parent loans. It cost me well over $100,000 and it was worth it for the education she received.

Second, I just read the non-tenure track thread and my mind boggles. Where is this money going? I am at an expensive, good, private university and I know what the faculty make. If you average across assistant to full you are probably talking about an average FULL-TIME faculty member salary of $80K. Our full professors make more, but we also have adjuncts and grad students teaching for much less. So, let's go with the $80K. Let's assume, as with my daughter, that tuition is about half the cost. So, $25K. It takes a little over three students to pay for one professor. Of course, students need to take four or five classes. So, you need 12-15 students to cover the cost of one faculty member. I have done four guest lectures this week, all to classes of over 30 students. In some of our introductory courses it is common to have 200 students in a lecture.

I just don't understand where all of this money is going. The students are paying a small fortune and many faculty members are working for peanuts. There is something missing in here.

[bazonkers]

Where does the money go?

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd102008s.gif

[daniel_von_flanagan]

A lot of the cost is physical plant, especially utilities cost and building replacement/construction/renovation.  This has outpaced inflation by quite a bit at most institutions over the last 20 years.  Next is faculty cost; when figuring in faculty salaries, don't forget to add any benefits:  SS contribution, retirement, health insurance contribution, and so on.  (Also holds for academic staff, administrators, physical plant employees, etc.)
Next is administrative cost; average administrative salaries are much higher than they were, especially as many tasks that were once deemed secretarial are now done by "executives".  There are also more administrative offices than there used to be; the average state university has to have full time staff devoted to assessment, to accreditation, to monitoring discrimination/harassment/accessibility, and so on.  Finally, athletics is consistently a money-loser, and costs a lot. - DvF

[spork]

[. . .]
I just don't understand where all of this money is going. The students are paying a small fortune and many faculty members are working for peanuts. There is something missing in here.

The sorry fact is that institutions of higher education have created their own Frankenstein monster.  By marketing themselves as places where young people can spend a happy, entertaining, and effort-free four years, universities have had to live up to their advertising to remain competitive.  So we have Student Life, Residence Life, Student Programming, Student Activities, Athletics, the wireless campus, multimillion dollar "student centers," etc.  All of this costs money and is not a direct contributor to learning.

I'm with DvF on this.  Not even Disney could make this theme park profitable.

[lurkingfear]

What was the actual cost per pupil at your school?  Not the amount you paid for tuition, but the gross operating cost, minus grants, divided by the number of students?  Public education in Europe is relatively cheap (for those who get access) as a matter of public policy (which translates into public money), while in the US the government's share of university operating costs has steadily and rapidly dropped over the last 20 years, leaving tuition and donations as the only source of regular (ie, non-grant-related) funds.

Most state universities are operating on a very slim margin.  Certainly there are stupid inefficiencies, for example program/department proliferation, badly-engineered physical plant, and insane salaries for administrators, coaches, and professional-school faculty, but even if we fixed these things university education would still cost about what it does. - DvF

I knew this would come up as soon as I posted that. I don't know what the actual cost is, but foreign students at my undergrad institution do not the government subsidy*, and pay about twice what I paid, which is still way less than half of what, say, Oberlin is charging.

*I hate using this word because of the way it has been distorted by the mainstream media. As Noam Chomsky points out, a 'subsidy' is when public funds are used for public purposes. It's called 'reform' when public funds are used for private purposes (which your of course supposed to like a lot more than 'subsidies').

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I don't know what the actual cost is, but foreign students at my undergrad institution do not the government subsidy*, and pay about twice what I paid, which is still way less than half of what, say, Oberlin is charging.

Foreign students are not always the cash cow they are made out to be.  Both Chemistry at Lancaster and Math at Hull had large enrollments of mainly foreign students, and the decision was made to close these departments anyway, largely on economic grounds. - DvF

[aandsdean]

What was the actual cost per pupil at your school?  Not the amount you paid for tuition, but the gross operating cost, minus grants, divided by the number of students?  Public education in Europe is relatively cheap (for those who get access) as a matter of public policy (which translates into public money), while in the US the government's share of university operating costs has steadily and rapidly dropped over the last 20 years, leaving tuition and donations as the only source of regular (ie, non-grant-related) funds.

Most state universities are operating on a very slim margin.  Certainly there are stupid inefficiencies, for example program/department proliferation, badly-engineered physical plant, and insane salaries for administrators, coaches, and professional-school faculty, but even if we fixed these things university education would still cost about what it does. - DvF

I knew this would come up as soon as I posted that. I don't know what the actual cost is, but foreign students at my undergrad institution do not the government subsidy*, and pay about twice what I paid, which is still way less than half of what, say, Oberlin is charging.

*I hate using this word because of the way it has been distorted by the mainstream media. As Noam Chomsky points out, a 'subsidy' is when public funds are used for public purposes. It's called 'reform' when public funds are used for private purposes (which your of course supposed to like a lot more than 'subsidies').

I absolutely guarantee you that the foreign students you're discussing were not paying 100% of the cost of their attendance, even at twice what you were paying with your "subsidy" (which, by the way, it is, as long as once conceives of higher education as a public good, which is, I think, the correct way to think about it despite what the US has been doing to its funding for the past 20 years or so). 

At my institution, we have about 2,500 students and an annual budget of about $38 million.  That works out to just about $15.1k per student, which, coincidentally, is not terribly far from what we get from them, on average, and once you factor in endowment income, income and costs from auxiliaries (bookstore, cafeteria, etc.) 

Our "sticker price" is in the low 30s, almost exactly twice what our per-student budget is.  We actually net around $12k from each student and the rest is subsidized by the endowment and auxiliaries.

We're not overstaffed.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I absolutely guarantee you that the foreign students you're discussing were not paying 100% of the cost of their attendance, even at twice what you were paying with your "subsidy" (which, by the way, it is, as long as once conceives of higher education as a public good, which is, I think, the correct way to think about it despite what the US has been doing to its funding for the past 20 years or so). 

That is quite a sentence, completely aside from its content! - DvF

[aandsdean]

I absolutely guarantee you that the foreign students you're discussing were not paying 100% of the cost of their attendance, even at twice what you were paying with your "subsidy" (which, by the way, it is, as long as once conceives of higher education as a public good, which is, I think, the correct way to think about it despite what the US has been doing to its funding for the past 20 years or so). 

That is quite a sentence, completely aside from its content! - DvF

I read too much Henry James in grad school.