But that’s not really an argument, is it? It’s really more of an axiom, or an opinion. What, exactly, makes education something which should be handled at the state level? What happens to schools in poorer states? And how do you make sure that Alabama is being taught to the same level of quality as, say, New York?
I’m sure the answer will be the Libertarian response of, “Move to another state if you can’t get things to change.” However, that’s not always a possibility; for example, every one of my interstate moves was due to a new job. I can’t move somewhere where I don’t already have a job waiting for me.
Lol, no need to speculate about what happens to tuition without student loans. That was the situation in the 50s and 60s.
See, you are suffering from what I call the “take-home exam syndrome,” i.e. you are like a student who feels he will benefit from a take-home exam because he will have more time to take the test. Without considering that his competitors will also get extra time.
It’s the same thing with student loans. If it were only your child who was getting them, they would be helpful. But everyone else’s children are getting them too. So the net effect is to bid up tuition and leave pretty much everyone’s children worse off.
This conclusion doesn’t require any fancy mathematics, it’s just a natural consequence of human greed. University administrators prefer to charge more tuition than less tuition and will naturally attempt to raise tuition if students become more able to pay it.
I’ll bet 50’s-and-60’s era style tuition would be perfectly adequate to pay for a 50’s-and-60’s style education, complete with 50’s-and-60’s style classroom technology, 50’s-and-60’s style computer and science labs, 50’s-and-60’s style housing and food, 50’s-and-60’s style athletic facilities, etc.
the department of education used to be part of a bigger dept.–health, education and welfare or hew was one cabinet office…it was broken into 2, ed. got its own dept and cabinet officer and health and welfare got their own, health and human servicess or hhs…some politically correct clown changed ‘welfare’ to human services because it was deemed a pejorative, just like when they changed the war dept to the defense dept
Don’t forget 50s-and-60s levels of state support. (It is true that California is an extreme case, but a major cause of increased tuition is the fact that costs that used to be subsidized are now shifted onto the student.)
I agree and I will offer you a thought experiment:
Suppose that your child has a chance to go to Harvard and his tuition room and board will be $6500 a year. The rules are as follows:
(1) he cannot borrow any money to attend.
(2) he cannot use any computers or electronics while he is there. He will have to hand-write his papers or hire a typewriter-girl. However, he will not be marked down for this. He will have to submit his course work in paper form and he will receive his grades in paper form. It will be very expensive for him to call home.
(3) He can work out only using basic gym equipment like a pool; track; or barbells.
(4) He cannot use air-conditioning in his dorm room.
(5) If he goes to the library, he will have to use a big card catalog to look up books.
(6) When he is done, he will have a Harvard degree just like everyone else who went there.
Would you take that deal? I would take it so fast your head would spin around.
Even assuming that removing air conditioning from dorm rooms would cut the cost of housing by more than half (Harvard charges $7,800 to live in a dorm for 10 months, not including tuition and so on), I think you’ll find employers may look at your child oddly when they find out he can’t use a computer but is a whiz on a Smith Corona.
No, I don’t agree. Demand far exceeds supply. If you already have people willing to pay your price, why would you reduce it if you see no loss of business?
Further, if you’re finances are such that you can’t afford to reduce your prices, why would you do so?
Tuition often doesn’t cover operating expenses. Many universities use the income from their endowments to cover the shortfall.
Harvard is an extreme case but it’s not the only one.
Consider publicly funded universities. Cutbacks in state budgets have forced several to increase tuition by relatively large amounts (University of California system and University of Texas systems as two large examples in the last year). And these are “affordable” universities in the grand scheme of things, compared to elite private universities.
In these cases, the lack of available student loans won’t have them cutting tuition but simply only admitting students who can pay.
Heck, it’s already happening. Here’s a NY Times article on how it’s increasingly the rich who get into elite colleges.
Removing loans won’t reduce tuitions (and a reduction in the amount of Pell grants earlier last decade has shown this). It will simply reduce the number of lower income students at those universities.
Kind of hard to argue this one, actually. The DoD is a large employer and contractors also provide tons of jobs and such. Military/industrial complex and all that.
Sure, but we could take half the DoD’s funding and pay all those people at the same rate to do nothing. The savings is in all the fighters, destroyers, missiles, food and fuel we don’t have to buy.
I’m extremely skeptical of this claim, at least as far as it applies to colleges in general and not just Harvard. Please show me evidence that demand far exceeds supply for colleges in general in the US.
I’m extremely skeptical of this claim too. To illustrate, just look at the top 20 universities according to US News and World Report. They vary wildly in terms of location, size of endowment, etc. For example, Harvard’s endowment is a staggering $1.5 million per student. By contrast, Vanderbilt’s is a mere $260k per student. If endowments return 4 per cent per year, that’s a difference of $50 thousand dollars per student per year.
And yet by some amazing coincidence, pretty much all the schools in the top 20 charge roughly the same tuition – approximately $40k per year.
Sorry, but it’s just not credible that Harvard gets an extra $50k per year per student (tax free) but charges basically the same as Vanderbilt because it has no financial choice in the matter. Clearly tuition is being driven by the market.
That is, more than 1 student is rejected for every student accepted. And that doesn’t include the fact that universities accept more students than there are spots since they expect some students to enroll elsewhere.
You’ve got a better than coin flip chance of being accepted, and it’s still not a particularly good school.
General acceptance rates (still noting that multiple schools accept the same people) link.
And it’s getting worse with the passing years. There’s ever more demand every year.
Driven partly by the market? Sure.
But tuition doesn’t cover all the costs of operation at all. That’s why tuition is artificially low at many universities. The shortfall is covered by the endowment.
Are you aware that Harvard and a growing number of other elite schools committed to meeting all demonstrated need through grant and scholarship funding? If you get accepted to Harvard you pay your “expected family contribution” which is a formula based on your family income and assets and they find a way to cover the rest of the tuition.
At my own alma mater they cover the tuition for anyone earning under $50,000 / year but the room and board you’re left to fend for yourself. Whether you work or borrow that money it’s up to you. I don`t know about how Harvard handles non-tuition fees.
So with all this stupid hypothesizing about basic microeconomics not applying to higher education, you have a decade or so of reality, with Harvard helping students not take out loans and still having high tuitions.
Why would Harvard pay for needy students with endowment money and other scholarships instead of just lowering the tuition by 90%? If it’s not obviously impossible it seems like it would be simpler for them.