Where Does All That Tuition Money Go?
[One of my very able Brooklyn College students delivered a term paper last night focused on the exorbitant tuitions and loan commitments being imposed on college students these days. Certainly today's is a very different world than my own undergraduate one where we were granted full scholarships, had minimal job commitments if scholarship were awarded, and then graduated with a clear financial slate for whatever lay ahead -- further studies, jobs, whatever.
No longer. The typical student today (and his/her family) now reaches graduation with massive debts (unless fortunate enough to have it made at very high level income and/or inheritance levels). Even my teaching institution, CUNY, abandoned free tuition in the 1970s so that too many of my students are obliged to stagger study years with earning ones -- or must drop out simply because they can't make ends meet.
Where are all these monies going? Judging from what one observes our corporate models of higher education are gobbling tuition funds for secondary uses -- per Thomas Sowell:
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sowell-tuition
How much are Bollinger and crew pulling down plus perks?
And how is Columbia paying for all that real estate that it is currently purchasing in Manhattanville (or will be paying off future interest on loans taken for those purchases)? Needless to say tuition is covering a good bit of this stuff one way or another.
I admit that we at Brooklyn College -- where junior faculty are struggling along with adjuncts to survive and tuitions leap upwards for our students each year -- are the beneficiaries (?) of a recent &79 million or so library upgrade -- thanks also to the largesse of the Dormitory Authority. I tell my students that as tax payers they had better enjoy it now, as they will be paying for it for the rest of their lives, if they stay in NY.
So perhaps someone in the Columbia Business School might put a spread sheet to work to figure what percentage of parents' and students' contributions in tuition and loans are respectively allocated to:
a) corporate salaries?
b) building projects?
When I was at Oxford our business operation at my college was run single handedly by the college bursar who also tutored me in Greek. That was it plus some cooks and "scouts" who cleaned things up.
See the Columbia tuition rates below and start saving if you have children struggling to get educations now in NYC. We do better at Brooklyn, incidentally, in national awards for our students at far lower tuition rates -- 2 Rhodes, 3 Beineckes, and a Truman Fellowship recently and entry to all the professional schools, including Yale and Columbia Law, NYU Medical among my own students, etc. But even our tuition is now paying far more than half our operating expenses. This is no way to run higher education -- $39,200 for next year's undergrad tuition? Help! Ed Kent]
http://www.ce.columbia.edu/as/tuition.cfm
Fall 2006/Spring 2007
3 points $3,920 flat rate
(for students registering for a total of 3 points in a given term)
Fewer or more than 3 points in a given term $1,086 per point
Noncredit foreign language courses $1,750 per course
Noncredit creative writing courses $2,700 per course
Chemistry F0001y $2,172
Summer 2006
Per point $1,030
Noncredit foreign language courses $1,350 per course
German S1121D $5,400
Columbia Arabic Summer Program $2,700 per language course per session
Russian Practicum $2,700 per language course per session
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
No longer. The typical student today (and his/her family) now reaches graduation with massive debts (unless fortunate enough to have it made at very high level income and/or inheritance levels). Even my teaching institution, CUNY, abandoned free tuition in the 1970s so that too many of my students are obliged to stagger study years with earning ones -- or must drop out simply because they can't make ends meet.
Where are all these monies going? Judging from what one observes our corporate models of higher education are gobbling tuition funds for secondary uses -- per Thomas Sowell:
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sowell-tuition
How much are Bollinger and crew pulling down plus perks?
And how is Columbia paying for all that real estate that it is currently purchasing in Manhattanville (or will be paying off future interest on loans taken for those purchases)? Needless to say tuition is covering a good bit of this stuff one way or another.
I admit that we at Brooklyn College -- where junior faculty are struggling along with adjuncts to survive and tuitions leap upwards for our students each year -- are the beneficiaries (?) of a recent &79 million or so library upgrade -- thanks also to the largesse of the Dormitory Authority. I tell my students that as tax payers they had better enjoy it now, as they will be paying for it for the rest of their lives, if they stay in NY.
So perhaps someone in the Columbia Business School might put a spread sheet to work to figure what percentage of parents' and students' contributions in tuition and loans are respectively allocated to:
a) corporate salaries?
b) building projects?
When I was at Oxford our business operation at my college was run single handedly by the college bursar who also tutored me in Greek. That was it plus some cooks and "scouts" who cleaned things up.
See the Columbia tuition rates below and start saving if you have children struggling to get educations now in NYC. We do better at Brooklyn, incidentally, in national awards for our students at far lower tuition rates -- 2 Rhodes, 3 Beineckes, and a Truman Fellowship recently and entry to all the professional schools, including Yale and Columbia Law, NYU Medical among my own students, etc. But even our tuition is now paying far more than half our operating expenses. This is no way to run higher education -- $39,200 for next year's undergrad tuition? Help! Ed Kent]
http://www.ce.columbia.edu/as/tuition.cfm
Fall 2006/Spring 2007
3 points $3,920 flat rate
(for students registering for a total of 3 points in a given term)
Fewer or more than 3 points in a given term $1,086 per point
Noncredit foreign language courses $1,750 per course
Noncredit creative writing courses $2,700 per course
Chemistry F0001y $2,172
Summer 2006
Per point $1,030
Noncredit foreign language courses $1,350 per course
German S1121D $5,400
Columbia Arabic Summer Program $2,700 per language course per session
Russian Practicum $2,700 per language course per session
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 11:38 AM
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