That’s not the bulk of the argument. The argument is that it is a necessary evil of dynamic pricing. If I am charging someone X, and someone else Y, then you can argue one person is always going to be subsidizing another. Whether it’s airplane tickets, hotels, or clothing.
So you’d rather that $15K just be pure profit for the college?
I’ve not seen anyone in this thread state outright that tuition would go down as a result of cutting the set-aside; even if the colleges technically don’t have a column marked “profit” on their balance sheets, money used to pay salaries or invest in physical plant operations or similar is effectively the same thing, and nobody has promised that the $15K wouldn’t be used in such a fashion were the set-aside done away with.
Such artful implications are the stock in trade of the political world. This isn’t even a very good one.
I’m not following this. If even the full-price students aren’t paying the full cost, isn’t that subsidy coming from the endowment?
I’d love to see the breakdown of that Instruction number. Assuming each student takes 4 classes and an average of 20 students per class would put the cost for each class at $200,000.
It was the argument presented.
I’d rather not pay it at all.
There’s some infrastructure and non-class expense involved. Despite the attempt of schools like Phoenix and National to run “universities” out of hotel rooms, there’s a certain overhead in providing everything that supports those four classes for that student.
How do you think taxes work?
How do you think ObamaCare works?
One group of people subsidize the rest. The state is the people.
I get that- my point is why are ONLY other students subsidizing the underprivileged at a 15% rate? Seems to me that the group that should be doing the subsidizing is the state as a whole, not other students.
That, right there, is what I object to, not the idea that there’s financial aid, or that it’s funded by other people. It’s the idea that students, who objectively are having enough trouble funding college at the current rates, are effectively paying a 15% tax for the privilege, and that in many (most?) cases, are having to finance that over decades.
That doesn’t seem fair. **Ravenman’s **solution is ideal, but that comes down to whether the current Texas Legislature would actually fund that.
But that consideration doesn’t have any bearing on whether it’s philosophically fair to the other students.
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I’m bad at math. Will come back later with new math.
Most government agencies don’t have the authority to tax the general public. They do have the authority to levy fees. The University of Texas is a government agency, so it’s funding itself under the means it has it its disposal. This is the same manner in which private colleges and universities fund themselves, so in that sense there is precedent in the market.
While you wish this burden was shared with a broader base of funders, apparently the state legislature disagrees.
If I’m reading the numbers right, it appears that it is in fact the state as a whole that is subsidizing everyone, including the full-paying students. That 15% “tax” just decreases the state subsidy somewhat.
The actual cost per student at TAMU is over $15k/year. So even full-paying students are receiving a state-subsidized education. We could have the same outcome by raising tuition 15% and giving out more aid.
Unless I’m missing some fees or costs along the way, which is entirely likely.
This isn’t fees though; this is a state legislature mandate from 2003 to all public universities.
If it was a variable fee that each university was levying based on their need, and you could shop around if you really wanted, that would be something different. Instead, this is something the Legislature mandated.
My bad, I wasn’t aware.
Except for the diploma mills, I don’t think any colleges are profit making. The full tuition payments and fees do not cover the costs so every student is being subsidized. Those with larger scholarships are being subsidized more. I suspect this 15% that is bandied about is an accounting restriction simply to make sure that some fraction of the money available is indeed used for scholarships and not library books, salaries, etc. As even students paying the full amount are not covering average costs, there really isn’t 15% extra available. They’re only deciding which accounting column to write the entry in.
Hmm. What interest is it to the administrators, presidents, coaches, etc that the university is “profitable” if the salary checks cash and the benefit packages stay funded? Profit is irrelevant.
Nonprofit doesn’t mean no one profits, especially not the highly-paid coaching staff. Which can only be paid if student rolls are maxed out. Which they often are because the school has a badass football team. Excuse any circularity as entirely intended.
Not just the coaching staff. One of the reasons that college costs have exploded recently is the large number of administrators (vice presidents, directors, etc) at many schools while the schools are hiring fewer tenured professors.
Often times yes. The endowment is typically funded by the government or former students.
The cost of instruction is not just a function of the cost of actually running one class. It includes everything from research being done, to roofs being replaced.
Well no because research is often paid by grants and there is a separate maintainance budget. And look at the numbers … $40,000 per year x 20,000 students means their instruction costs are $800,000,000 per year. They must pay their professors a lot of money.
Your post makes more sense when I actually read all the words. I should try that more often.