# Cost of Universities (from textbook discussion.) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 6, 2010, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784 "2010-09-06T10:54:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![US\_Bureau\_of\_Labor\_Statistics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c2a13f/32.png) [@US\_Bureau\_of\_Labor\_Statistics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/US_Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/41 "2010-09-08T14:03:47Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > [Why are textbooks so expensive? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=576534) > \ ***The classroom.** Other than possibly a computer, there is nothing expensive. Tables, chairs, blackboard. Other than the computer, things haven’t changed in classrooms in literally centuries. There are labs and equipment that costs money and thus, the student has to bear some of that cost. “A computer”? I’ll grant you, almost all of my classes has been in a room with only one computer, but they’re also all in older buildings. I’ve seen rooms at other colleges where every seat has at least a laptop plug-in station (power strip plus network). Essential to learning, not really, but colleges with one or less computer per classroom are only reaching the status quo, if not falling behind, today. While we’re on it, the one computer in question isn’t going to be just a $300 eMachines POS, or else it isn’t helpful to anybody. The school’s Dell contract will probably get a decent PC for $500 or less, but then you have to connect it to the school’s network, which is laying cable behind walls, and then hiring a network janitor and the equipment to run it with (which ain’t cheap). Also throw in a projector and screen so that the students can actually see what the hell that one guy with the computer (the professor presumably) is doing. I guarantee you the computers cost is at least twice as high as you think it is. And have you ever priced lab equipment? My third-semester physics lab here, I needed to get software for one of them, so I looked on the manufacturer’s website first and happened to stumble across their pricing page. Turns out every new week for 14 or 15 going, we’d been messing with a different several-thousand-dollar piece of hardware. That was as a sophomore. Lastly, CM, I don’t see where you’ve accounted for the benefits (scholarships, grants, easy loans) that students get off of the tuition sticker price. Anybody who’s paying the entire cost of tuition, books, room, and board, all out of pocket, is probably a sucker. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/42 "2010-09-08T14:26:45Z")
Actually, I think the ones paying the sticker price for college are the rich one (or the foreign students). That’s how college financing works. The ones who can afford to pay the sticker price subsidize the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/43 "2010-09-08T15:31:04Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Actually, I think the ones paying the sticker price for college are the rich one (or the foreign students). That’s how college financing works. The ones who can afford to pay the sticker price subsidize the rest of us. Right: I went to a very expensive private school at a time when my family was broke (my father’s business was bankrupt). How? The school gave me lots of aid in the form of grants and scholarships. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/44 "2010-09-08T15:51:14Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > I am at University to learn a skill. (and smoke dope, drink beer, and hopefully get some pussy.) You’re a class act, **Midnight**. > [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Unless you are an English major, there is no reason to take a literature class. There are a lot of classes I didn’t see the use for when I took them. Most (not all, but most) have ended up being useful to me at some point in life. Who knows what direction your career will take. The point of a college degree is to get the specialty classes you need for the major _plus_ develop a well-rounded education that can serve you if you change careers or move ahead in your existing career. > [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > A lot of times, two classes will have a major exam the same time (like the midterms and finals) and if I am a business major who has an exam in Economic Theory 402 or Art History, which one should I study for? Maybe try keeping up with the classes as you go so that you don’t have to spend days cramming for the exams? > [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > I think maybe that Americans need to get back to basics and learn skills that would make some income, even if the income is made under the table. I see. You’re saying that people working illegally off the books and not paying taxes on their income is what we need to fix the American economy. Nice. > [@US\_Bureau\_of\_Labor\_Statistics](#): > > “A computer”? I’ll grant you, almost all of my classes has been in a room with only one computer, but they’re also all in older buildings. I was teaching classes over 20 years ago at a community college where every single desk had a computer, there was a printer for every four computers, and between every pair of computers was a slave monitor connected to the computer on my desk so students could compare my screen to theirs as they worked. I live in a town of only 2,300 people and our high school has two computer labs with a computer on every desk. If you’re teaching computer-related classes these days, there’s no excuse for having only one computer per room unless every single student has a notebook computer and every single desk has a place to plug it in. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/45 "2010-09-08T16:48:45Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:44, topic:552784”] The point of a college degree is to get the specialty classes you need for the major _plus_ develop a well-rounded education that can serve you if you change careers or move ahead in your existing career. [/QUOTE] Well, to say it’s **the** point is overstating things. College can also prepare you to enjoy, appreciate, and make good use of the non-career part of your life as well. (For example, the philosophy class I took in college helped prepare me to participate knowledgeably in Great Debates threads, even though that doesn’t make me any money.) To put it most generally, the point of college is that, in the words of the old UNCF ads, “the mind is a terrible thing to waste.” ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/46 "2010-09-08T17:29:54Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Foru year colleges are **vocational schools**! Business, law, medicine, education, research, languages, engineering and a hundred other different things. I am at University to learn a skill. (and smoke dope, drink beer, and hopefully get some pussy.) I’d like to point out something that I don’t think has been mentioned in responses to this yet. Even if you do go to school to become an engineer, say, is that the limit of your career aspirations? Do you envision the possibility of becoming the manager of a group of engineers, maybe the director of a division? People in those positions (at least the ones I’m familiar with that I respect) have good engineering knowledge AND good communication skills. It is often the type of courses you deride where the latter are taught. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/47 "2010-09-08T17:54:44Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > Actually, I think the ones paying the sticker price for college are the rich one (or the foreign students). That’s how college financing works. The ones who can afford to pay the sticker price subsidize the rest of us. > > Right: I went to a very expensive private school at a time when my family was broke (my father’s business was bankrupt). How? The school gave me lots of aid in the form of grants and scholarships. The funny thing is that the public schools don’t give out as much in the way of grants and scholarships. So even though the sticker price for private school may be more, the actual cost to the family may be less than a public school. So if you know anyone thinking about where to go to school, don’t be scared off the private schools by the cost. (Yale, for instance, costs $48,600 for tuition, fees, room and board, but less wealthy students don’t pay that much.) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/48 "2010-09-08T18:46:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Well, to say it’s **the** point is overstating things. Granted. Good point. It reminds me of when I first started hiring people, and I was talking to other managers for tips. We got talking about old technical degrees, and one of the managers said, “I like seeing a college degree on a resume regardless of the major. It demonstrates to me that the candidate is capable of sticking with something for four years and finishing it.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/49 "2010-09-09T21:54:17Z")
I once read a modest proposal that we give everyone a PhD at birth and after that make education voluntary. That way, those who want it will pursue it. Now I certainly didn’t enjoy every course I was forced to take, but I can’t say I regret any of it. There were two social science courses I really enjoyed, even though I was a chemistry, then math major: political science and, most especially, anthropology. I still own and pull out and read, one of the texts from that course (Kroeber, who was Ursula LeGuin’s father). I really disliked the comp courses, but writing has been an important skill for me, even, or maybe especially, in math. I hated German (had to take three years of it) but it was certainly useful. In retrospect, I wish had taken an art history course. And so on. This isn’t for everyone; that’s what vocational schools are for. As for compliance officers, that was, in part, my point. Make each professor responsible for compliance. We grew very lazy and let the administration take over all our prerogatives. There is a story, doubtless apocryphal (but having a real point) that when Eisenhower was president of Columbia he called a meeting of the faculty. He started by saying he wanted to meet his employees. “No, no general”, a senior faculty member interrupted, “You misunderstand. We are the university and you are our employee.” No more. (My alma mater, Penn, didn’t even have a president until the 1930s, after having an academic provost as the highest officer for getting on to 200 years.) ---
**Author:** ![AdobeBrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/58956e/32.png) [@AdobeBrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdobeBrad)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/50 "2010-09-10T20:58:06Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > There is a lot involved in behind-the-scenes operations that isn’t obvious to the average student. Other people have touched on some of it, so I’ll focus on other stuff. > > For example, the buildings may be paid for, but times change, and as times change, technology changes. Many classroom buildings have wireless Internet, and that has to be installed and maintained. They also have computer labs that have to have computers and a network, as well as physical space. Students pay for (and expect) recent technology. This not only includes the computers and network themselves, but also relevant software. Some packages cost well into the hundreds or thousands of dollars if I paid for it myself, but I don’t have to if my university provides it. For example, the Adobe CS5 suite costs [$2599](http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection/). I may get a student discount, but it’s still more than I can afford. (IIRC, Adobe gives students an 80% discount, but that’s still more than $500.) My tech fees go to pay for the wireless that I use in the classrooms and library, the computers in the labs, and the specialty software I need to do my classwork. I don’t mind paying for that. One great thing about the student discount is that you can keep the software well after you graduate, not to mention you can always purchase commercial upgrades. I do some work with Adobe, and Creative Suite 5 Student and Teacher Editions has a discount of up to 80% off the retail price. The Student and Teacher Editions have all the features and functionalities of the full version (and can even be used for commercial purposes). So if you’re student or a teacher, it’s a no-brainer. Do you use CS5 at school? ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784/51 "2010-09-12T00:41:20Z")
> [@AdobeBrad](#): > > > [@MsRobyn](#): > > > > There is a lot involved in behind-the-scenes operations that isn’t obvious to the average student. Other people have touched on some of it, so I’ll focus on other stuff. > > > > For example, the buildings may be paid for, but times change, and as times change, technology changes. Many classroom buildings have wireless Internet, and that has to be installed and maintained. They also have computer labs that have to have computers and a network, as well as physical space. Students pay for (and expect) recent technology. This not only includes the computers and network themselves, but also relevant software. Some packages cost well into the hundreds or thousands of dollars if I paid for it myself, but I don’t have to if my university provides it. For example, the Adobe CS5 suite costs [$2599](http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection/). I may get a student discount, but it’s still more than I can afford. (IIRC, Adobe gives students an 80% discount, but that’s still more than $500.) My tech fees go to pay for the wireless that I use in the classrooms and library, the computers in the labs, and the specialty software I need to do my classwork. I don’t mind paying for that. > > One great thing about the student discount is that you can keep the software well after you graduate, not to mention you can always purchase commercial upgrades. I do some work with Adobe, and Creative Suite 5 Student and Teacher Editions has a discount of up to 80% off the retail price. The Student and Teacher Editions have all the features and functionalities of the full version (and can even be used for commercial purposes). So if you’re student or a teacher, it’s a no-brainer. Do you use CS5 at school? I don’t use CS5. The university I attended offered a few courses in web design and the like, but it wasn’t the focus of the department and I had no intention of doing that professionally, so buying the suite would have been a waste of money. That said, however, you do raise an excellent point. Some software is worth buying. I got Microsoft Office because it was better for me to have that on my computer than it would be for me to rely on a school computer being available when I needed it. However, for the student who is only taking a class or two, it’s generally not worth buying the software unless it’s something he knows he’ll use. In fact, I got Adobe Audition because, after my production class ended, I knew I would use it. Had I bought it at the beginning, I would have been taking a bigger risk that I would be wasting my money. And, as you know, Audition ain’t cheap, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-universities-from-textbook-discussion/552784.md?page=2)