My inbox this morning greeted me with two things. First this:
University Sets Tuition Rates for 2014-15
Tuition for undergraduates in the College and the Eastman School will be $46,150 in the 2014-15 academic year, a 3.5 percent increase from 2013-14. Read more…
Then this:
Does Classroom Time Matter? A Randomized Field Experiment of Hybrid and Traditional Lecture Formats in Economics
by Theodore J. Joyce, Sean Crockett, David A. Jaeger, Onur Altindag, Stephen D. O’ConnellWe test whether students in a hybrid format of introductory microeconomics, which met once per week, performed as well as students in a traditional lecture format of the same class, which met twice per week. We randomized 725 students at a large, urban public university into the two formats, and unlike past studies, had a very high participation rate of 96 percent. Two experienced professors taught one section of each format, and students in both formats had access to the same online materials. We find that students in the traditional format scored 2.3 percentage points more on a 100-point scale on the combined midterm and final. There were no differences between formats in non-cognitive effort (attendance, time spent with online materials) nor in withdrawal from the class. Comparing our experimental estimates of the effect of attendance with non-experimental estimates using only students in the traditional format, we find that the non-experimental were 2.5 times larger, suggesting that the large effects of attending lectures found in the previous literature are likely due to selection bias. Overall our results suggest that hybrid classes may offer a cost effective alternative to traditional lectures while having a small impact on student performance.
Where to begin? The CPI increased by about 1.1% over the last 12 months, so our tuition rates are increasing at triple the “average” price increase. Of course, this is not Lake Woebegone, someone HAS to be above average just as someone has to be below average. This continues a trend where the sticker price of universities has increased at more than twice the rate of inflation going on 40 years.
Vance Fried has written on how he could deliver the same sort of education that we currently deliver for less than 20% of this cost.
Ah, it’s been awhile. The rising sticker cost is interesting. Are you aware of anyone examining the returns to marginal increases in tuition $ spent? As in, imagine two students (x and y) who are identical. Student x goes to Rochester for $50k, student y goes to MCC for $10k. How does that extra $40k/year translate to earnings post-grad for x and y? Is it worthwhile for x to go to Rochester?
I am impressed with WC’s teaching load, and I hope the university’s bean counters and deans appreciate the contribution to the company. Given that WC drives himself to work and occupies an office that was paid for in part or in whole by someone named Harkness, he is a low-overhead guy making a big profit contribution to the university and a big service to his students, especially the ones who line up for office hours.
In college I took an American Literature course taught by a star professor; he was great when he showed up, but after spring break he stayed in Italy for two weeks, missing four hour and a half classes.
I figured that every class I took cost approximately what it would cost for a box seat on a Saturday night at the Met. I was not the only one who did not feel cheated, although at the time I did not have the wisdom to raise hell and ask for a tuition refund to my parents, who had just sent money for weekend food. This star probably had an annual workload of under a hundred students, and for me he had to grade just one paper. Don’t get me wrong, it was a memorable course, but I was cheated. I wish I had spent the class time listening to and arguing with WC.
I wish I had done a project for an educational institution, to know fully where all the money goes and how it is wasted in full detail. I can speculate about how screwed up every area might be, but do not have any good job stories beyond the teaching jobs I have had, where I did not have access to the books and the big picture. (My brother was once Vice Chairman of the Board of our school, with access to numbers, but he had no way to know what was really going on without being on the floor, in the front line.)
A pale hand rises from the lake, with a ticking Omega watch around the wrist, still ticking.
I’ve always thought the problem with universities, all of them, is that they are too cheap, rather than too expensive. Surely the state ones are far too cheap, but so are U of R or Harvard or the rest. Price, as I understand it, is set by supply AND demand. At 6% acceptance rate for Harvard, or 35% for U of R, I’m guessing that the argument that they are “too expensive” simply isn’t being reflected in the demand for their good.
Second, I’ve never understood the need to compare tuition rates with inflation. I know it’s shorthand, but still.
Third, whatever we may all argue is the “problem” with US higher ed, or if there even is a “problem”…what we can all probably see with our own eyes is that the US university system is by far the best in the world, measured through any objective or subjective measure of performance and productivity. So the question is…what’s the “rush” to go tinkering with something that we can’t even understand what is causing this supposed “problem”, or when we can’t even figure out what this “problem” even is.
Seems to me…higher ed…is the Global Warming of libertarians 😉
The first thought I’ve had on this so far …
We’ve visited a bunch of colleges over the last year (two kids in high school), most of them private. It’s overwhelmingly clear to me that college (at least, or especially the first 4 years) has become a high-end country club for 18-22 year olds. The amenities in these places are mind-blowing now. It seems like they simply can’t spend enough.
Second thought …
In every American city I’ve visited in the last 10 years (not that many really), it seems like the places where you see the most cranes and construction equipment are almost invariably colleges.
RIT_Rich (a monicker difficult for iPhone users), I learn something each time I read TUW; when you and WC talk of problems with colleges and universities, I defer to you two, who are employed academically and have a direct interest in and knowledge of the river which you swim.
Rich, my daughter has applied to RIT’s online executive MBA program. You some time ago told me that the program had drawbacks versus getting, for example, a straight MBA from Harvard, or the best full-time MBA program one might find. What I told her, in encouragement, was to go for it. Understand that long ago I relinquished any control over my daughter, who has found success. She wants to run a company, but knows there are voids in her business experience.
She also expects two hard years of study as a part-time student. Her company, and her boss, who also got an MBA from RIT, will give her slack. I am not worried about any of this, because she is my daughter, as capable as her dad.
It would be most ironic if Rich were one of her Perfessers. (:-)
Thinking about it, even given that according to the Federal Reserve inflation has been subdued, how can $46M be a bargain, unless the bargain could be sold for a big profit tomorrow? Would I spend a third of a million dollars on my child’s education, hoping that somehow our general family situation might be improved, by any measure, thirty years hence?
We of course provide for our the education of our children for many reasons where we do not calculate the net present value of the total return. They are our children after all, and we will starve ourselves for them, give them our all, as our parents did for us.
But I have zero sympathy for paying underworked professors, idle administrators, and other folks who populate a bloated payroll. $47,000 buys ten of us an Oxford tutor and pays for a lot of extras, too, like heating bills, real estate taxes, food, etc.