Earlier today, UC regents voted to increase student fees by 32%, which will push the cost of education to more than 3 times what it was 10 years ago. - Source

That's an increase of 300%. Meanwhile, inflation has only risen 32% in the same period of time. To top it off, administrators have been cutting both majors and programs.

Before the hike, UC President Mark Yudof said the hike may come if the state couldn't meet his request for an additional $913 million.

So, while students and their families are cutting spending to the bone just to stay in school, UC isn't cutting anything, but thinks this is an opportune time for increased spending?

I'm gathering the regents were fairly unanimous in their hatred of Econ 101, so much so they're thinking what little they learned was false, and they're trying to prove it.

Tell you what, Californians - move to Colorado!

Oh, wait - you have been for some time. Silly me.

__________________
"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief." - James Russell Lowell

Ohio State University did not raise tuition this year (though they find plenty of other ways to suck money out of my wallet). Hard to tell why they make the decisions they do. I think some schools try to attract better staff and "upgrade" their student bodies and raising costs is one to do both which also brings in more research dollars. They can afford to be more selective. OSU for example, has grown much more selective in recent years.

So what fundamental economic principle do you feel they are ignorant of?

I'm not sure the contents of Econ 101 are what you think they are.

__________________
Principal Principle Offender

Mugs,

I just posted this story in the Black Monday thread.

I guess you can consider it an experiment in the elasticity of demand for their education product.


-Richard

How are the regents supposed to buy this months Aston-Martin if they dont raise the tuition? I mean, really, are you that cruel to make them have the same car for more than a month?

From my college experiences I found it necessary to expand on an old saying:

Those who can't do, teach.
Those who can't teach, administrate.
Those who can't administrate, get appointed to the board of regents/trustees/whatever.

Do you realize that the cost of post-secondary education is going up even faster than the cost of health care?

Maybe paying for that rather than the Aston-Martin of the Month Club membership, is the reason ...

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I now officially condemn CM's skits as smartaleck, ignorant, sophomoric, inflammatory and and a poor reflection on the level of discussion in BAUT. -- Bob Angstrom

Yes, it's striking. There's been a bubble in higher education prices. And you can be sure there's Bezzle in that bubble just like any other. And how do the kids pay for it? With student loans (that can't even be discharged by bankruptcy -- many people don't realize that, but it's federal law). It's making debt slaves out of many kids.

For professional degrees and "name brand" institutions, it's unbelievable. THe older brother of a friend of mine became a doctor, a cardiologist. He's in debt for his student loans to the tune of $150K. He met his wife during his residency, another doctor. She's in debt to about $150K as well. They've got a mortage.........

They're making good money, but all its doing is going to debt service. And the latest is apparently he just got sued for the first time for malpractice.


-Richard

My point is: Where does the money go? Since Texas deregulated the state schools, even lesser universities like the University of Houston have radically increased tuitions. I can understand if there is a need now to increase tuition to cover losses in investments, but UoH doubled its tuition rate when the economy was booming. Having been on the campus at the time, I have to wonder where that extra $135 million per year went (math check:~$1500 per student per semester, 36000 students, 2.5 semester per year).

The money isnt going to the faculty, my advisor got a pay cut this year IIRC. It wasnt going to building (odd that there is more building this year than in the last 10 years), power costs were flat most of that period, so where is the money going?

Thanks, but I think they are. I got an A.

LoL, and Sweet! I'll have a look-see in the morning. Thanks!

__________________
"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief." - James Russell Lowell

Many, many businesses pass their increasing expenses on to the consumer in order to maintain their profit margins and hence executive bonuses; i.e. banks, insurance companies, utilities. Its not right, but one can understand how that works. The economics which baffles me is how I can go to bed, wake up the next morning and all the gas prices in the county have jumped 12 cents per gallon.

I notice in this rant that you fail to mention that the state has sharply reduced its support of the university system. I would think that would have been covered in Econ 101.

I was at the University of Texas from 1985-1989 and we got a raise in the cost of tuition. One of the reasons was that UT owned a lot of land that they leased for oil production. The cost of oil dropped significantly, so revenue dropped significantly. So the students ended up with higher bills. Faculty and staff, got like a 2% raise over two years. I suspect that some of UofH's problem might be something similar, investing in poor performing stocks, business, etc.

That's what I gathered last time I toyed with the idea of going back to school. Reading through the various physics program information, I doubted I'd even get in if I tried.

__________________

I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

...and the wealthy get wealthier while overall poverty in the U.S. continues increasing.

I'm generally not one for paranoid or conspiracy-type thinking, but: The more out of reach higher education is for poorer people and increasingly the exclusive domain of the wealthy/powerful... (you get my drift)

__________________


My beautiful city (the view from my front window).

If you're implying that Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel have conspired with these universities to make education harder to obtain, thereby leaving more adults uneducated and more likely to end up sitting at home all day watching cartoons, thus increasing the age span of their viewership in order to sell commercial slots at an increased cost . . . then yes, I agree.

__________________

I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

Was that a run-on sentence?

That's my new thing in the same spirit as how some people refer to themselves in the third person, or some people say certain phrases with increased frequency . . . though I'm mostly just doing it because I'm bored beyond reason, and being stupid is how I oft deal with boredom.

__________________

I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

My point was that the more concentrated knowledge (which is power) is in the hands of the privileged few, the more disadvantaged (exploited, pushed around) everyone else will be. I for one am not keen about the elite wielding that sort of power; that only their children eventually can afford college.

It's Lords and serfs in this nation, increasingly. 1% Lords, 99% serfs.

__________________


My beautiful city (the view from my front window).

Yeah, I got that much Buttercup. I don't personally think it's a conscious effort to "keep the serfs down", but that would certainly be a consequence of harder-to-obtain education.

My personal experience hasn't been that universities try to keep out the lowly and the poor. In fact, at my school there were a very high number of students who were in school on grants and scholarships precisely because they were poor. Granted, the opportunities for such assistance are limited, but would they exist at all if 'The Man' was really trying to keep out the 'peons'?

The other reason I can't agree with the schools keeping the elite elite, and suppressing the poor is because a college education does not automatically give someone a good paying job or position of power, nor does a lack of a college education prevent people from making good money. College certainly helps, but it's not an all-or-nothing thing.

__________________

I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

Apparently you missed this tidbit located smack dab in the middle of my "rant" that you quoted:

That's why I'm so excited about open education.

__________________
"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief." - James Russell Lowell

But note that their prizes are low because they're heavily government subsidized, and would, if run by a university without such funding, likely cost almost as much as regular studies.

I've taken a couple of courses with them and had to give up because as a Dane I'm no subject to those subsidies and paid full prize.

A bachelor's degree would currently cost me about $25.000 and another $10.000 for a master's.
Note for comparison that I come from a country where tuition, even at university level, is free.

__________________
‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Reminds me of an old National Lampoon cover that showed a cute dog with a pistol pointed at its head, entitled "The If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Shoot This Dog Issue". It was one of the most (if not the most) complained-about covers.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I now officially condemn CM's skits as smartaleck, ignorant, sophomoric, inflammatory and and a poor reflection on the level of discussion in BAUT. -- Bob Angstrom

Unlike UT, UH was regulated by the state till a few years ago (2001 IIRC). Since then, tuition costs have gone up by at least 10% per semester, even tho it was during some of the biggest economic expansions is history. At least till the bubble burst, but I am talking about the good times, not the recent bad times.

Tropical Storm Allison was a big hit to the school, but even still, there was very little expansion during that time, even tho there was an increase in revenue.

__________________
*

No, I saw that, mugs. It doesn't speak to my point. If you want to compare tuition rates over the years at UC, and note that they've gone up quite a bit and further imply that it is due to greed or mismanagement by the school administrators, then I think you owe it to the conversation to note how much the state funding has dropped. Especially if you're also going to denigrate the board with juvenile insults like they're failing Econ 101. All you did was note they are asking for an increase above what they are getting now, or the tuition will rise further. But what you didn't note is that what they are getting from the state now is way less than a decade ago when the tuition was at the lower level you point out.

There may be some honest and valid criticisms that can be brought against the UC administrators for their budget situation, but you haven't provided any.

[Bold mine.]
That's at least 2% more than any post-secondary faculty is getting right now.

Enrollment is up at many schools, but, as geonuc says, state funding is way down. mugs' (and others') accusation doesn't completely hold up.

Yeah, standard-old yesterday's model of education pricing...

Why, that's horrible! Start your own free school!

In that system...

So why not make it free to the world?

__________________
"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief." - James Russell Lowell

Indeed. My wife is a professor in the state university system here and she's had to take 'furlough days' this year. That effectively is a pay cut as she still has to teach all her classes and do all the other things a professor has to do (which are considerable). If anything, her work load has increased, not decreased. The recession had driven enrollment up at the state schools and hiring has not kept pace.

She has the same affliction as many of us. Fewer and fewer people doing more and more work for less and less pay. My job is literally 24/7 because we lack people to cover off-turns, weekends and vacations. Not to dimininsh her situation but merely to say, she's not alone.

I disagree. The poor get all sorts of grants and other assistance.

__________________
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein