OT: 32% Inflation in UCLA Tuition Causes Near Riots (14 Arrested, 1 Tasered)
November 19th, 2009 at 9:03 AM ^
is the constant request for increased salaries for their instructors / professors. Anytime a university tries to hold the line on faculty salaries they get accused of not wanting the best faculty, or "won't someone think of the children?" It's a catch 22-- universities build their reps on research moneys the prof's are bringing in, and you want to pay them top dollars to keep them, but continuous increases drive up tuition.
Welcome to Econ 101 students.... you can't just keep increasing pay / getting new dorms with sweet iPod speaker loft beds and private bathroom suites and three separate salad bars (no restriction, vegetarian, vegan) without increasing rates
November 19th, 2009 at 9:20 AM ^
Faculty salaries are a really minor factor in increasing tuition costs. There is a very small number of faculty at any university that make over $120,000/yr. Indeed, most universities have frozen salaries over the past year. The factors largely driving tuition increases are 1. a vast increase in university administrative costs and salaries, 2. an increase in bonded debt, much of it from building new infrastructure for science, medicine, and student amenities (fancy dorms, recreation facilities), and 3. decreased state and federal subsidies.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:22 AM ^
Honestly, I'm aware of three or four kids who could have gone top 50 USNWR schools and decided on community college or local tier 3/4 schools because of the cost. Even with scholarships, paying upwards of $15k a year is impossible for most people. I think we'll see an increase in parity from all of this, which is good.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:37 AM ^
I have a cousin who goes to De La Salle and wants to be a nurse. He had the grades to go to U of M and Boston College, but he's not even applying there b/c of the cost. He's applying to Grand Valley (accepted-- got loads of finaid) and UM-Flint, and even UM-Flint is getting a little outrageous ($19k/yr cost of attendance!).
Hell, when I went to U of M in 96-02, my 1st yr undergrad tuition was about $6k and the room and board was about $6k.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:54 AM ^
It's getting to the point where it's cheaper to go school internationally, with the exchange rates and everything, than to go to school out of state.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:55 AM ^
Grand Valley is a damn fine school and has a very good nursing program (Kirkhof College of Nursing).
November 19th, 2009 at 10:45 AM ^
are both deciding between UofM & Grand Valley for nursing next year. it seems like they might go to GVSU just because the cost is literally almost half of what it is at UofM. I think it's like $7000/term now at Michigan and $4000/term at GVSU
November 19th, 2009 at 1:08 PM ^
That's very good to know, as I am seriously wanting to make a career change into nursing.
However I live in A^2, so I was planning on the Washtenaw Community College / try transfer to UM route.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:13 PM ^
Getting letters from the UM admin patting themselves on the back saying "we only raised tuition 3% this year". This was just before you went to UM, BTW. Undergrad for me seemed pricey but reasonable, now I can't imagine how people afford sending their kids there.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:13 PM ^
I admit I am being lazy, but we have a lot of people that come through here. I figure someone might have an answer for this one.
Since UCLA is public, and California is a mess right now, how much state funding are they losing or about to lost?
I would figure that that would drive up rates. I know in Michigan there was concern about how many state colleges there are, and how 3, maybe 4 was considered a more reasonable number.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:20 PM ^
Three or four state colleges is definitely WAY too few for even some of the smallest populous states. There is no way you fit all of the college bound students at UM, MSU, and one directional Michigan school, much less 3 of them.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:38 PM ^
There are 9 UC's (San Diego, Berkeley, Merced, Davis, Irvine, Santa Barbara, LA, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco) and a bunch of other ones such as San Jose State University, San Diego State University, etc. But your point is probably still valid if you take into account the population of CA.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:52 PM ^
Yeah, I just looked up Michigan to find it has 15 public 4-year schools. California has 34 state 4-year institutions. So California has over twice as many schools with about 3.5 the population.
That doesn't seem like a horrible ratio.
I couldn't find any specific budgetary cuts to higher education in a basic google search. I did find an article that says the UC and UCS systems will receive 20% less funding this year than two years ago. I don't know what that number is, but that's a huge cut. One fifth of hundreds of millions is definitely substantial.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:44 PM ^
I wish these schools were a bit more transparent with what's going on financially (or maybe they are, and I'm just not aware).
But take Michigan for example. I imagine one of the biggest reasons Michigan has to raise tuition is due to the loss of state funds year and after year. My question: if in-state students get discounted tuition because they pay taxes which support the school, and then that money is subsequently cut, why do out of state students end up covering the bulk of the resulting budget deficit?
One thing I'd like to see more colleges do is implement a guaranteed tuition. How is it fair to current students at UCLA for instance, who planned on only having to pay X amount per year, to suddenly have to pay substantially more? Students should have their tuition rate locked in based on their first year of attendance.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:04 AM ^
Don't tase me bro!
November 19th, 2009 at 9:10 AM ^
If they reported on every protest at UCLA, you'd never get to hear about real news, like Jon & Kate, and Sarah Palin's book tour.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:32 AM ^
Come on now, don't pretend that you aren't interested in the minutae of John and Kate's divorce.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:23 AM ^
Based on what I think I'm reading, and I'm admittedly not so interested that I want to go look at it in full detail, it looks like the average in-state undergrad will be paying about $30k per year to attend UCLA, including tuition, fees, housing, books, and the like (pre-raise numbers in pdf).
What's the average in-state bill for a Michigan student? I was under the impression it was close to $21k.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:31 AM ^
According to my literature I have, the estimated cost of attendance (tuition, room & board, MI&E) at Michigan for an instate undergrad student is $23,721. Out of state is $47,000. There's a reason that MSC is quoted in the Michigan alumnus magazine as saying how important out-of-state students are to the overall U financial health.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:38 AM ^
That's also one of the reasons why I left Michigan when I finally changed my major. There was no use in going another 3 years and having to virtually start over for that money.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:28 AM ^
Numerous professors make over 120k here. 70% of the school's budget is salaries for faculty and staff.
Research money includes about 50% overhead on the salaries it pays, so graduate students really do make a lot of money for universities.
The U of C system has it pretty rough; furloughs for professors up to something like 27 days. Around here there are furloughs, but they max out at 10 days. Our governor has refused to raise tuition on undergrads, and the University's budget is in big trouble. You have to raise revenue or cut spending, and nobody likes cutting services.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:33 AM ^
When I was at U of M I was a program manager for a student satellite project and the U charged us a 30% tax on every dollar we brought in for the program. They did give us matching operational dollars for dollars we brought in, so it ended up pretty well for all involved.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:56 AM ^
For the love of Christ they charge 8 grand a year in tuition to go to a top 50 school. That's almost half what our University charges. It costs so much to go there because it costs so much to live in LA. End of story. Nothing to see here. If you want to pay less, try going to school in not one of the most expensive cities in the country.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:01 AM ^
I feel their pain...I'm a grad student in Pittsburgh, and the city council here is trying to pass a tuition tax on students so they can get themselves out of money trouble...
This is not the time to be making life harder on college students...education is at a premium...
November 19th, 2009 at 10:01 AM ^
There weren't that many protests...
Maybe I was a naive and sheltered undergrad at Michigan, but UCLA was the first place I'd been that really felt like a business, making money off its students. All these years later, and several more schools, and it still sticks out in my mind.
That said, loved my time there. But I'll always bleed maize and blue.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:03 AM ^
In the 9 years since I enrolled as a freshman, it's gone up ~ 80%.
Of course a lot of this is due to the state of Michigan's economy being in the crapper.
UM is a very unique state school in that it is more like a private school. UM received very little funding from the state compared to other state schools across the nation. So, UM makes this up with higher tuition.
I'd love to send my kids to UM one day (don't have any kids presently), but unless they get a substantial scholarship, there's no way I could afford OOS tuition.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:13 AM ^
but still don't see how my kids could ever hope to go to Michigan 20 odd years from now without a dream scholarship.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:50 PM ^
and living in Ohio, there's no way I'm going to be able to afford a UM education for her unless:
- UM follows the lead of (some) other Big Ten schools and gives reciprocity to fellow Big Ten states
- my daughter is a kick ass athlete/musician b/c even with the best grades in the world, with me having a decent career she's going to get beat out for any finaid schollies based on academic performance. Hello, golf net in the garage at age 1.
- she goes military (and I'm not that against that in and of itself) and gets either GI Bill or ROTC.
As I told my cousin who wanted to go into nursing (see above posts), it's probably worth it to get your BS in nursing at GVSU and then try to get in at U of M for his masters in anesthesiology with having the hospital or a research grant pay for it.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:22 AM ^
I remember when i went to school at Lawrence Tech U, and I was paying $650 a credit hour. This Basic English Course really sticks out in my mind...
I was paying $1,950 semester for that class and 30 other people were in. So the University was pocketing $58,500 for a class that met 2 times a week for 2 hours a day. Basically involved sitting around reading some paperback books and writing some papers on it. That shit kills me.