Why college is so expensive, and how to fix it (Synopsis)

"When we make college more affordable, we make the American dream more achievable." -Bill Clinton

Over the next four years, the University of Helsinki will see its budget reduced by approximately 100 million Euros, or about 15% of its annual expenditures. As a response, it's reducing its workforce by 980 members, a necessary cut given the budgetary changes.

Image credit: E. Siegel, created at https://www.meta-chart.com/pie, with data from University of Helsinki here: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/university/strategy-and-management/university-finance. Image credit: E. Siegel, created at https://www.meta-chart.com/pie, with data from University of Helsinki here: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/university/strategy-and-management/universit….

Yet how they chose to cut their budget provides a model for how US colleges can reduce tuition for students and improve the faculty experience: nearly 2/3 of the cuts are to full-time administrators, where virtually all university expenditure increases have taken place over the past 20+ years. By joining forces, faculty and students can end the new administrative tyranny, and make college both affordable (for students) and pleasant (for professors) once again.

Image credit: Concordia College, under c.c.a.-s.a.-3.0. Image credit: Concordia College, under c.c.a.-s.a.-3.0.

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The real problem is that US (and UK too) universities are industries, not educational establishments.

Not really, that's the *result*. The cause of it is both governments (and both sides of the notable leaders for governing) believe with a fundamentalist fervour that only private industry can do anything right and that government should do nothing except help them make money.

I often think that this is a self-inflicted wound; there are probably many very good executives (and coaches) that could be hired for an order of magnitude less than your top-50 University president or football coach makes. They probably wouldn't make anyone's top-10 list of best in the nation, but they could do the job. IMO with senior executives Universities often find themselves well above the knee of the curve, on the flat part where you have to spend a whole lot of money to get someone marginally more skilled at the job. If they just stopped trying to get that marginal improvement, they'd do better overall.

But Wow also has a point. If you take a look at Ethan's Helsinki chart, you see that the government provides 60% of the funding for this state school. In contrast and just as one example, the State of Virginia provides between 5-10% of its operational funds, depending on how you count it. Our state governments have been privatizing our state universities, and the lack of public support shows up in tuitions. Again, that's just one example, but I think if we look we'll find a lot of other states had numbers way below Helsinki's 60% too.

Ah, I was talking about UVA. Somehow that got dropped in editing.

Maybe that means. Artificial curbing the growth of highly educated people. The country does not need people where everyone will have a higher educationю

By Rick Hendrick (not verified) on 02 Mar 2016 #permalink

Higher educated workers are more productive. They are more adaptable, more effective and more efficient.

However, paying for it is a cost to business via taxes and they think short term only. After all, they can always eject before the crash...

"Higher educated workers are more productive. They are more adaptable, more effective and more efficient."

That depends Wow. What level and what kind of education are you talking about? Many of the skills being sought after in the workforce are not very efficiently taught in colleges. Trade schools might be a more affordable option for many.

As with any market, there must be corrections from time to time in pricing and cost. Education has been pretty high on the spending hog for quite some time, perhaps some financial restraint would do ivory tower some good.

"That depends Wow. "

Nope, it doesn't. Really. It doesn't.

The amount of return on investment varies on those factors you claim, but not the fact of improvement with education.

"Many of the skills being sought after in the workforce are not very efficiently taught in colleges"

Nope, that's just businesses sucking off the goverment teat and demanding that the government teach kids rather than the business having to spend money training people to work for them.

It's a blatant and unvarnished money grab to demand that schools teach "vocational skills". That's what you're supposed to do for your workers: train them.

Schooling is meant to teach the children how to think.

Education is NOT "how to use Office 365 to mailmerge" or "how to operate a forklift".

Education is "Exercise for the Mind". Because when you teach a child or an adult how to recognise the iambic pentameter or how to recognise a geological strata in a cliff face, you teach them how to think for themselves, and they will then be able to take the training that businesses should damn well be paying for rather than whining that they can't get it for free, FFS, and learn how to apply that outside the classroom.

Many of the skills being sought after in the workforce are not very efficiently taught in colleges. Trade schools might be a more affordable option for many.

As with any market, there must be corrections from time to time in pricing and cost. Education has been pretty high on the spending hog for quite some time, perhaps some financial restraint would do ivory tower some good.

Some evidence of that would be good, and as Wow points out, evidence is not that graduates don't know a particular bit of work in one of Microsoft's (or some other company's) products.

The notion that infusing colleges and universities with "business models" will improve them is pushed by people who have limited experience with education: college classes are not production lines with uniform quality raw materials and singularly specified outputs.

Rising educational costs have many causes: highest among them is the uniform decrease in funds from state and federal governments. Increases in administrative positions and salaries can account for some more, but for many of the institutions that qualify as "NCAA Division 1" sports schools in the United States paying for athletic programs is a huge drain. Approximately 5% of the schools at that level make money on their sports programs (and no, it is not the case that eliminating women's athletics would suddenly result in profits). A quick review shows that none of the colleges in the Mid American Conference have made money on athletics for over a decade, with most drawing about $20 million from their general funds each year to make up the shortfall. Look at the highest salaries at these schools: it will be a coach more often than not.

The point is not that athletics alone is the driver of higher cost: the point is that areas least likely to be identified by critics of higher education rarely examine contribute mightily to it.

"Higher educated workers are more productive. They are more adaptable, more effective and more efficient."

Umm Then why does the people of the UK/Europe and America/ like their Uneducated...Undocumented... IMMIGRANTS?
Because they will do the shit THAT YOUR/OUR CHILDREN SHOULD BE DOING to build their character.

I would put a hispan roofer ahead of an ivy league educated as far as actual social "Productive Capacity" contribution.

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 02 Mar 2016 #permalink

ETHAN YOUR SCARING ME!!!!!!! YOU Are Espousing "Conservative" Values?...:
"So what’s the solution? Join forces. Form a student-faculty union, and put pressure on the colleges themselves to move away from a model where the administration and the board of directors are the sole decision-makers here. Students and faculty have the most powerful weapons available at their disposal: to put their hands in their pockets and simply do nothing. If you want to change the system, you have to be willing to risk the security of the table scraps you’re receiving. Students: why should you pay so much for a bloated administration and for so little in terms of actual education? Faculty: why should you accept the ever-increasing work burdens for stagnant pay and colleagues who aren’t permanently employed? If we work together, we have everything to gain. We can fix the college/university system. We just need to be willing to work together to cut out the chaff while keeping the wheat."

LOL... Good For You...

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 02 Mar 2016 #permalink

Here is how you "Fix" College tuition.
The Same as How you Fix HEALTH CARE.
REMOVE GOVT BIG CHECK BOOK FROM THE PICTURE!!!
ALLOW The Free Market AND Family Guidance to seek out basic necessities for social survival and live and let live..

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 02 Mar 2016 #permalink

Welp, the Ayn Rand idiot stayed true to form.

100% wrong and 100% incapable of knowing why.

"Umm Then why does the people of the UK/Europe and America/ like their Uneducated…Undocumented… IMMIGRANTS?"

Because they're cheap to begin with, they have no legal right and are therefore slaves and it forces the "industry average" wages down.

And, as you obviously missed before:

However, paying for it is a cost to business via taxes and they think short term only. After all, they can always eject before the crash…

but your ideological insanity doesn't let you see words that are discouraging to your indoctrination.

"Schooling is meant to teach the children how to think."
I do agree with ya there. It's become more teach them what to think.

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 03 Mar 2016 #permalink

I would put a hispan roofer ahead of an ivy league educated as far as actual social “Productive Capacity” contribution.

That is yet another supporting data point for why you are an idiot. But expecting you to have any useful insight on things related to education is expecting far too much.

Hmmm. Trump went to the ivy league colleges.

Seems like Aryn Randidiot here loves the trump but wouldn't hire him to do any actual work he relied upon...

Besides which, it's as lazy thinking to proclaim all Ivy league produces are worthless and to proclaim that all hispanics make good roofers.

But Teabaggie here doesn't do thinking. It's too hard.

" But expecting you to have any useful insight on things related to education is expecting far too much."

SO deano, your down with these courses:

Brown University, English: On Being Bored. “This course explores texts/films that represent and formally express states of non-productivity or non-desire.

OR
University of Pennsylvania, English: Wasting Time On The Internet. “We spend our lives in front of screens, mostly wasting time: checking social media, watching cat videos, chatting, and shopping. What if these activities — clicking,

OR
Oberlin College, Contemporary American Studies: How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U.S. National Identity. “This course examines US beauty pageants from the 1920s to the present. Our aim will be to analyze pageantry as a unique site for the interplay of race,gender, class, sexuality, and nation. We will learn about cultural studies
http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/21/the-daily-caller-proudly-presents-the…

Blahh Blahh Blahh
Gay and lesbian Studies
YAHOOKA!!

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 03 Mar 2016 #permalink

"But Teabaggie here doesn’t do thinking. It’s too hard."

That's Sir Teabaggie to you, and I think quite often.
For example I think your a looser and a failure and you get so angry all the time that you have blood coming out of your.... wherever..

By Trump Will Mak… (not verified) on 03 Mar 2016 #permalink

That Wow person Is Not nice..

By Teddy Cruzer (not verified) on 03 Mar 2016 #permalink

H!B Visa's are the issue folks.. LIBERAL DEMOCRATS Like Facecrook, Rotten Apple BIG TECH DEMOCRATS use thes H1 Visa's to Screw The Middle Class By Importing CHEAP LABOR..

And Don't Give Me Your:
Tea Klux Klan Bagger replies BECAUSE you know it's a FACT!!!

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 03 Mar 2016 #permalink

"SO deano, your down with these courses:"

His what?

It's "you're" or the expanded "YOU ARE", the apostrophe denoting skipped letters in the contraction. For someone who proclaimed that a spelling mistake was proof of god, your error proves there's no god, right?

And what moronic claims to boot! Because he doens't agere with you on the capitalism you are indoctrinated by state propaganda, he must agree with some stupid things you want to troll out? Doesn't work like that. The lack of one agreement tells you nothing about anything that is agreed to, retard.

Then again, you didn't go to school, you flunked and your only hope of getting ahead is to kiss ass.

I guess since you agree with captialism, you agree with the holocaust solution to the jewish problem, right? After all, you don't agree that capitalism is fucked right up, so therefore you must agree that killing an entire race is right, because I don't agree to that either.

Frigging moron.

"That Wow person Is Not nice.."

Thank you.

For your type, "not nice" means "isn't a walking mat for me". Ergo a compliment.

"H!B Visa’s are the issue folks.. LIBERAL DEMOCRATS Like Facecrook"

Corporations, you mean.

What about IBM, GM, Chrysler,Microsoft et al? They import H1Bs, and are they therefore "liberal democrats" too?

Given the complete lack of suitable training for 90% of your country, however, and this due to your idiotic free market fundamentalist government, either dem or rep, no difference between them since the 60's, the "socialist" economies that have government pay more than lip service to universal education have a better trained workforce which your corporations want to take on.

And if education were so shit as you claimed earlier, teabagger, why on earth would the better educated H1Bs be imported? Surely they'd be looking to take some rural hick who'd only been homeschooled. like you.

...your down with these courses:

Why should anyone think you are qualified to speak about any aspect of education? (Don't answer that - you've contributed more than enough dishonesty and stupidity to the internet.)

"What about IBM, GM, Chrysler,Microsoft et al? They import H1Bs, and are they therefore “liberal democrats” too?"
Yep GE.. Etc.. They are part of the Corptocracy.

"And if education were so shit as you claimed earlier, teabagger, why on earth would the better educated H1Bs be imported?"

He, Doofus, not all education, mainly study in the social sciences.
Especially graduate level.
Can you say "Micro Aggression" What a Joke.......

As far as the H!B's go Retard... It's not about someone more educated vs someone less trained it is about being able to import someone and PAY THEM LESS.
Not saying that is fair or right, just saying that's what is happening.
I have seen it and experienced it.
What get's me is the LIES the Democrats like Zuckerberg claim "OH We Need H!B's" because no one here is smart enough blah..blah BS, they just don't want to pay up.

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 04 Mar 2016 #permalink

"He, Doofus, not all education, mainly study in the social sciences."

Why? That;s what most execs "degrees" are in. I guess you think the sun shineth from their anus and this is a trick to make them look more fallible, right?

Or is it some other batshit crazy idea. It's not like your crazy is limited, is it.

I have seen it and experienced it.

There is no reason at all to believe that statement.

"it is about being able to import someone and PAY THEM LESS."

Then why aren't H1B's without any high-education requirement? Why aren't they for the unskilled pr manual labour rather than restricted to the skilled worker?

It's fine that you admit that companies are abusing their power in this situation, but weird that you still blame government for it.

I guess rational thinking isn't your thing.

"There is no reason at all to believe that statement."
Are you calling me a liar dean?

"Then why aren’t H1B’s without any high-education requirement? Why aren’t they for the unskilled pr manual labour rather than restricted to the skilled worker?

It’s fine that you admit that companies are abusing their power in this situation, but weird that you still blame government for it.

I guess rational thinking isn’t your thing."

Look hose bag, I blame BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Called a Sector layden Corporatocracy,
Look at how the Liberal Elites in Silicone Valley Pander to the DemRats only to kick Middle aged Americans to the curb and replace them.
These people they import via H!B's are NOT CHEAP. but the cost is made up by paying a lower wage. I work with a guy who is in his mid 50's with about 18 years at IBM.. He was outsourced to H1B's to come here to America and take his Job..
I use to be a commercial coatings specialist but moved on to other endeavors. However, I retained the equipment and did the work as a side business and one of my customers as well after just paying me the check a day before I finished the project came home and asked If I had cashed the check yet, and I replied yes, my Wife deposited. He said well good then you will get your... I just git notice I will be get let go after he retrain his H!B'er... AND the blokes Wife was a handycap lady living in the house.
I felt bad for him.. My own is not as bad but as I have said before working at 3M chemical company I had to train the chemical engineers on our product runs to take the Jobs to Brazil and Canada.. In fairness though.. Our own Bull Shit Codes and Laws got in the way..
I have seen both sides and there is enough culpable Bull Shit to go around..
We Can Do Better For All

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 05 Mar 2016 #permalink

Wow are you employed? If so, would you be so kind as to share your employment history.
Not asking for specifics, you can be generic to hide things that may be unprofessional and career harming.. Just Some generals for the sake of human integrities discourse..

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 05 Mar 2016 #permalink

chirp........chirp............chirp.... Crickets?

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 05 Mar 2016 #permalink

"Are you calling me a liar dean"

Sure am. You support that accusation with (almost) every comment you make.

it's a fairly safe bet, really.

Are YOU employed, teabaggie?

I am. Self employed at the moment, but arranging a full time job for a bit because the market isn't too secure at the moment for contract work. So, like I've done before at times like this, I get a full time job for three years and take the pay cut and enjoy a little security of employment for a while.

"Look hose bag, I blame BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

No, you only blame those you can call or imagine are "leftist". Because only rethuglicans can govern because they won't and can't do it.

chirp……..chirp…………chirp…. Crickets!

"Sure am. You support that accusation with (almost) every comment you make."
Can you name ONE?

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 06 Mar 2016 #permalink

"Are YOU employed, teabaggie?"
I done told you that's "Sir" teabaggie to you, get it straight.
And yes, but only for a few more weeks and then done. Company pigeon holed themselves into a corner putting me on a position elimination rail along with my team.
I called'em on it and now have another job already lined up With a sweet buyout package laying on the table.
Got dealt a decent hand this go round.

Hope the full time gig works out for ya..

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 06 Mar 2016 #permalink

"No, you only blame those you can call or imagine are “leftist”. Because only rethuglicans can govern because they won’t and can’t do it."

Wrong on so many levels.
Govern is best that is as local as possible. My issue with the leftist is that they fail locally so they do all they can to gin up BIG govt to run roughshod over the local.
My issue here is that I think it better to have 50 States making their own decisions are better overall for society because each one has a shot at getting it right OR wrong.
Leftist Libtards like to bring in the Strong Arm of the Feds when they don't get their way and use force instead of natural process and logic to win their point of view into law.

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 06 Mar 2016 #permalink

"chirp……..chirp…………chirp…. Crickets!"
Unlike You, I actually have a life outside of posting here all day. I do have to sleep ya know...

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 06 Mar 2016 #permalink

Really? You were waiting around for an answer from me and didn't get it quick enough for you hence whined about the time taken.

This rather indicates you have more time for this shit than I do.

"“No, you only blame those you can call or imagine are “leftist”. Because only rethuglicans can govern because they won’t and can’t do it.”

Wrong on so many levels."

Yeah, it is.

So why do you do that?

"“Are YOU employed, teabaggie?”
I done told you that’s “Sir” teabaggie to you, get it straight."

So no, you're not, then.

"Company pigeon holed themselves into a corner putting me on a position elimination rail along with my team."

Yeah, they put *themselves* in a hole... right...

"So why do you do that?"
I suppose because as John Calvin to the masses OR in terms you may be able to relate: Jaques to Duke Senior in As You Like It Act 2 Scene 7

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 06 Mar 2016 #permalink

Nope. You're fantasising again.

"“But Teabaggie here doesn’t do thinking. It’s too hard.”

That’s Sir Teabaggie to you, and I think quite often."

Teabaggie, what were you told about sockpuppeting by Ethan?

And didn't you say you wouldn't to it again and were sorry?

I guess conservatives only want OTHERS to obey their promises.For themselves, a promise, unless to a richer wealthier and more prominent fellow conservative, is just hot air to a hippie. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Certainly not honesty.

Why are so many people unable to accept that there are valid POVs other than theirs?

Because the USA has instilled an entire generation with the idea that their ideas as 100% valid if they just believe it hard enough.

Therefore nuance and seeing another viewpoint is thrown out the window,because that only weakens your own faith in your rightness.

On the progressive this leads to the SJW phenomenon, and you've seen the libertard result on the conservative side at play here.

Wowzer, with regards to your incessant postings, is it because posting here makes you feel as though your human existence has value?

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 10 Mar 2016 #permalink

With regard to your regard,

1) stop with the hyperbole. "Incessant" indeed. What rot.
2) your whine is nothing more than "I can't say anything, so you must stop!" Suck it up you whiny little omega male.
3) I don't give a shit what you think
4) Has nothing to do with your continuing to sockpuppet with your "Trump will fuck america again" handle despite your assertion you would stop