I was just wondering why education is getting so expensive. Here’s a little breakdown I was pondering:
RIT for 4 years: $120,000+
Graduating students that year: 200+
Estimated Total for that year for the school of just the graduating class: $24,000,000
(not to mention books on top of tuition, which I think should be included in a $30,000 price tag.)
!!
Certainly the professors aren’t getting any of that. I thought maybe for the biological and medical supplies, use of equipment, books and such…but…
Brandeis (4 years): $145,000+
No medical supplies needed here. Just books for studying psychology. The students also volunteer their time to study children for their related fields.
Where does it all go to?? Sports? I don’t think Brandeis has a basketball team. If anyone really knows, please tell me.
-M
Congratulations on surviving RIT for four years. That place nearly drove me insane with all the non-excitement.
Anyway, running a large educational institution like RIT is extremely expensive. In addition to paying professors (whose salaries can be pretty decent with tenure) there are thousands of other people on the school payroll. Security, maintenance, cleaning, secretaries, administrators, accountants, lawyers, technicians, engineers, etc. All of those 30-some-odd buildings have to be kept in working order and kept clean. There are enourmous electricity, gas, and telephone bills. The dozen or so computer labs have to upgrade their equipment every few years. They have to purchase thousands of software licenses for some very expensive apps. The libraries have to buy books and journals. They have to issue research grants to profs and grad students so they can buy what they need to do their work. They have to build a new building from time to time. (I think two were build while I was there.) They spent something like $10 million over a few years renovating all the dorms.
And, of course, a good portion of your tuition goes to subsidize those who receive financial aid from the school.
Heh…my brother went to RIT, not me. I went to the Academy of Art College In San Francisco for a meager 12K a year. But they rape you with all the supply lists we were required to have before each new semester which ran up to almost another 5K per year or more. My father still owes about 40K from when he went to Hofstra…they stopped calling about 30 years ago and Hofstra still seems to be in business.
-M
You can get some idea of the costs of things by breaking it up. The book and supply costs you mention, pretty clearly, go toward your books and supplies. I believe there was a thread not long ago on why textbooks are as expensive as they are.
Looking at the table for a full-time undergrad, I would imagine that Rent ($4260) covers maintenance of the dorms, while Board ($3267) covers food and maintenance of dining services. Most of what friedo mentions is covered by the largest component, tuition ($19470).
Given 12,938 undergraduate students, that’s $252M per year (assuming they all pay in full). They have to pay about 3000 faculty and staff, which must account for at least $80M. The main campus has 200 buildings; that’s got to be several million dollars more. Journal subscriptions can be a few thousand dollars a year, so 145 electronic databases could cost the better part of $1M, depending on what exactly they mean. (I’m not very good at estimating prices; I’m just throwing out some numbers so you can see how easily it adds up.)
But there is still so much that is unaccounted for…
Every other year to upgrade equipment, not every year do they rennovate dorms, or even every 10 years. On top of tuition paid by students, the university also gets royalties from anything published. My bro discovered something with chromosome 19 in a DNA strand. He got credit but the school got some money from his discovery. I’ve been looking into this for a few months now and I haven’t gotten any straight answers from schools. All I got was conspiracy theorists saying it was an attempt of filtering out the lower class and minorities from tradional white schools…BS.
Looks like I’m in the wrong business. Anyone interested in starting up a University??
-M
Hmmm, those schools need to quit having similar abbreviations. Whatever.
I don’t see why you think that there’s so much that’s unaccounted for. I found a lot of information on Harvard University’s financial situation. Here’s an interesting pie chart or two:
You can see that income for last year was $2.228 Billion, of which $512 Million was from tuition. The biggest source of income was endowments, at $624 Million.
The expenses for last year were $2.063 Billion. The normal stuff, instruction and research*, accounted for just over $1 Billion of that. The library upkeep was $144 Million. Then there are the mysterious “Auxiliary Services”, “Institutional Support”, and “Academic Support” which account for $763 Million. See? All perfectly legit.
That’s one thing you may not have noticed. Yes, you can make money off research, but you have to dump a lot of money into it to begin with. Not unlike an education, huh?
He he. Come and study in the UK. c. £1,100 ($1,700) a year for three years gets you an honours degree. Doesn’t include books, rent, living etc. but certainly nothing like the figures you’re suggesting ($40k?!!)
And students here still complain they’re not getting it for free - like I did…
I had our college budget here somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.
Tuition goes to a lot of things. It includes not only the salaries of the professors, but those of all the support staff and administration. It includes teaching equipment – desks, chairs, the $5000 video projector in each classroom. Books for the library. Upkeep and maintenance on the dorms (the room deposits don’t come close to pay for the damages that students can cause). Recruitment efforts (you need to. Computer equipment in labs and for faculty and staff (I work in IT here). Computer infrastructure. Those T1 lines students require for internet access (which can cost hundreds of thousands a year). Groundskeeping. Snow removal equipment (Probably essential at RIT). Alumni events (keeping the alumni happy is essential or tuition would go even higher). Renovations to classrooms. Financial aid money to those who can’t afford tuition. Student clubs and activities.
Athletics. Even if you’re Division III, most colleges field teams, since a good athletic program can increase alumni donations. Except at the highest levels, admissions don’t to pay for the program. RIT has over 20 varsity sports; Brandeis has not only 21 varsity sports, but 40 club sports, which can’t even charge admission.
Auxiliary services – services contracted, like meal services.
Institutional Support – maintenance, security, etc.
Academic Support – computer support, audio visual services.
