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Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
If you're going to a state school, the state decides how much they're going to give the institution in state funding, and the school decides from there how much they need to charge in tuition to make up the difference. In my state, the amount of funding we receive from the state has decreased, therefore tuition has gone up at my university.
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If a State decreases funding one result could be increases in tuition, true. Other possibilities are costs are cut at the University or the difference is made up in other ways.
In your State when you say "cut" are you really talking about a "cut" or are you talking about a reduction in the rate of increase in funding?
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And your little blurb about the increase in rates is incredibly out of date with their statistics; 8 years have passed since then, and my university has seen a tuition increase just about every year, as well as a temporary overhaul of how tuition was charged. Why? Because we don't get enough money from the state--and we're supposed to, as a state-sponsored insititution--to keep tuition steady.
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Again, the question is what is the real cost of higher education? I think the two sources in my original post suggest that cost increases are due to real inflationary factors and the availability of aid. In my view increasing aid will have no impact on the real cost or in making higher education more affordable.
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So Obama, by promoting financial aid and tax breaks, is coming up with a solution that attempts to address the problem at the federal level, even though it is a state level issue. I'm not sure there's much more he or another president could do to make college more affordable, by and large. The tertiary education system in this country is a behemoth, and it's a patchwork of public and private institutions the federal government has little to no control over, except when it comes to financial aid or providing tax breaks (we're going to ignore the issue of research grants, as they usually don't play into the tuition equation).
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Why do universities have artificial caps on admission?
Why couldn't our universities simply accept every student that qualifies?
Do you think in the cases of some universities there is the perception that if the degree is more expensive or that the school is more restrictive in admission that the degree has more value? This implies that actual education or affordability is secondary to perception. Do you think that, perhaps, federal funds could be targeted to intuitions based on them being accessible and affordable - giving those institution an incentive to lower costs and admit more students? Whould something that simple be "real change"?
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And your argument of increasing classroom capacity is irrelevant; many college classes are already 150 people or larger, depending on the institution. The movement is to actually do away with classrooms entirely, and have students start taking more and more classes online, as universities get to pay instructors who teach online classes less, they don't have to pay the capital cost for a classroom, and they get to teach more students than they could in a conventional classroom situation.
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Assuming some of our best thinkers are in these institution, they might be able to come up with a solution to educating more and doing it more efficiently. what difference does it make if 150 or 250 or 350 are taking a course, if they get the information and assistance they need? If a leading professor in a subject tapes a lecture, it seems to me that lecture could be used millions of times for millions of students at virtually no incremental cost. Perhaps the federal government can give incentives for those willing to do these things in order to make education accessible and affordable.
-----Added 10/9/2008 at 02 : 30 : 03-----
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
This compared to not going at all? Financial aid helps with such things as living expenses. It's hard to attend school full time while working full time.
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No. I said that some people might benefit from working and saving and then going to a university. I have never met a person who was motivated to get a degree who did not do it.
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So tax credits instead of loans?
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I don't know the details of his plan. Is rhetoric is the same old bull we hear all the time.
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The alternative would be to find a job that doesn't require a college diploma, most of which are low-paying. Saving up for college would be a difficult thing to do in this situation. How long would you expect one to delay college in this case?
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Yes, under Democratic party policies. There has been a few threads on tax policy and I went through some examples of how the working poor can face marginal tax rates of up to 50%. I agree Democrats want to make it impossible for people to do it on their own.
Imagine a working poor family. Mom, a waitress and dad a bus driver. The make a family income of $40,000 and have 2 high school children. the decide to get second jobs, and the children get part-time work. the income goes up to $75,000. Of that extra $35,000, how much do they pay in taxes, lost credits, state taxes, FICA? then on top of that, they may have worked themselves out of some forms of aid. So, they actually may be better off not working harder and staying "poor". That is wrong in my view.
Democrats are fooling people into thinking their policies are helpful when they are not.
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I'm sure there are a number of factors. I think one is the level of competition. To run a successful college or university you must be constantly upgrading and developing your facilities and programs.
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Yes, of course. You have to have million dollar stadiums. You have to have spacious dorm rooms, with all the latest amenities. You have to build the most expensive buildings on the most expensive real-estate in the area. I get it. No need for any cost cutting.
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You must pay a lot to retain and obtain talented faculty, etc., etc.
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And football coaches, usually the highest paid staff in the major "sports" schools.
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A big reason why the cost of education is increasing is because the sophistication of education is increasing. We are shifting from a manufacturing-based society to an information-based society. The spiraling costs of education is a result of this. The problem is not everyone can be a knowledge worker. The realities of blue-collar, white-collar, pink-collar still exist despite this shift toward higher education as the pinnacle of pre-workforce achievements.
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Would you use that same argument for companies in the energy sector, pharmaceuticals, technology... Seems to me that when companies in the private sector have costs accelerating at a rate greater than the general inflation rate that it is a problem that need to be fixed and can be fixed.
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Originally Posted by jorgelito
What's wrong with loans? State schools are another cheap alternative too.
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The problem is you cheapen education really. As it is, college degrees in the US are diluted. It's not worth much these days. You have to have a Master's to be competitive unless you have a useful degree in a hard science or accounting/business/finance.
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If degrees are being "cheapened", why are they charging more and more (inflation plus) for the degree?
-----Added 10/9/2008 at 02 : 42 : 27-----
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Originally Posted by tisonlyi
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Why do you think the impact on the general inflation rate would be greater than the impact on the inflation rate of higher education? Could it actually make the difference greater rather than less?
Even if the graphic in the OP is not a "real" reflection of inflation it is possible that the graphed relationship is, I would be interested in seeing more on this if you have a source that makes the adjustments.