SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
An unexpected outbreak of common sense in US higher education: Utica College, a small, private university in upstate NY, announced it is cutting its annual tuition by 42 percent. (Could that be a Douglas Adams influence?)
According to College President Todd Hutton, the change will reduce the sticker shock that many parents and students have when seeing the tuition price. Hutton says there are fewer than a dozen students who pay the full price.
Right now, 61 percent of the tuition revenue coming from freshman is grants and subsidies directly from the college's pockets. Under the new tuition rate this number, called the "discount rate," would go down to 29 percent.
Essentially, Utica College would spend less of its own money to pay the tuition of students who can't afford the full price. It expects to make up the lost revenue through increased enrollment, which would come as a result of the college appearing to be more affordable.
Even though some of it sounds like a shell game, students will all make out better in the end, Hutton said. The least a student will save is $1,000. The most is more than $5,000, Hutton said.
While the college's net revenue per student will decrease, the colllege anticipates offsetting that loss with a higher number of students enrolled. The lower tuition will have a cascading effect since more prospective students will consider the college and end up enrolling in it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 19 2015, @02:54AM
I'm too lazy to look up the stats, but it sounds more like a move of desperation rather than altruism.
Private schools are generally ridiculously overpriced with a highly-variable quality of education given the tuition costs. Smaller class sizes don't mean shit if your budding future scientists are taught that the Earth is 6000 years old and that earthquakes are punishment for the acceptance of homosexuality.
This is the opposite side of the same coin -- the lower tuition costs cited are the opposite of no incentive to keep tuition low thanks to federal student loans anybody can get. It is still universities behaving like businesses rather than places of higher-learning (if you don't believe me, you see the same bullshit like unqualified political appointees granted overpaid plum positions [ucop.edu] like you see in revolving door situations more associated with Lockheed-Martin and Goldman-Sachs).
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday September 19 2015, @03:29AM
It depends which schools you're talking about. The price of private schools around here is about what public schools would cost if they weren't being subsidized by the taxpayers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2015, @04:02AM
Tuition are pretty much the same in 1st-tier private schools (Ivies and the usual suspects) and 2nd/3rd-rate private schools. The "full price" tuition at BU and USC are more/less same as at Harvard and Stanford, respectively.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 19 2015, @10:51AM
Loans? Fuck loans. Pay for that shit up front or don't go. There are entirely too many stupid, whiny fucktards taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree in Women's Studies or the like that will get you a job exactly nowhere. Then we end up having to pay for their burger flipping, mooching asses via foodstamps and welfare.
While we're at it, probably at least a third of the dipshits in college right now would be better served in the short, medium, and long run by attending a trade school. A competent welder, which even a 90 IQ person can become, can easily make $50K a year with 3-5 years experience under their belt; the good ones can make well over $150K. That's in low to moderate cost of living areas; in NYC I'd dread to see what one would cost to employ. Compare that to an English Lit degree that'll get your ass nothing but on the public dole for life. Who's the smart one now, college boy?
That's without considering the benefit to the nation as a whole of having a goodly amount more valuably skilled tradesmen around. Do you enjoy paying $100/hr for a plumber to come unclog your shitter after your precious little Blaine has stuffed his gender-neutral doll down it for the 36th time? If there were more of them you'd pay less. Supply and demand, bitches.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by timbim on Saturday September 19 2015, @03:07PM
Then Only rich people would be able to afford college you dimwit. I was going to write more but fuck you. You're wrong in everything you say.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2015, @05:15PM
Maybe you should have attended college. None of those "facts" are true. A cursory glance at reality through the BLS will refute everything you have to say. And no, I don't pay 100/hr for plumbers. I pay 55 in a moderate cost of living area. The journeyman make 15-25 an hour and the rest goes to their master.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 19 2015, @08:10PM
I did attend college. Unlike the dipshit ACs who argue with me, I have multiple skills and an education.
What the fuck dirt-farming, broke-ass place do you live in? We billed $60/hr (of which my apprentice ass made $15/hr) in rural Oklahoma as plumbers twenty years ago and never lacked for work.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:16PM
> I did attend college. Unlike the dipshit ACs who argue with me, I have multiple skills and an education.
You seem to have confused a diploma for an education.
So far I haven't seen a single dipshit AC argue with you either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2015, @06:01PM
There are entirely too many stupid, whiny fucktards taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree in Women's Studies or the like that will get you a job exactly nowhere.
This is the problem. People with the mentality that everything is about money, degrees, and good jobs should not be in formal education at all. Sadly, colleges and universities are filled with such people, and they aren't weeded out except in the best colleges and universities because the standards everywhere else are abysmal. Probably in part because education is not the goal and these places are increasingly run like businesses. If the standards were raised and 90% of the people who would get degrees under the current system (idiots) were eliminated, that would definitely help.
They probably would be better off in a trade school.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday September 19 2015, @03:24PM
They are probably losing students to Germany, where they can learn for free...
...Heil Hitler...
...and so are reducing their fees?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---