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A &M, Worth a 13% Price Hike?

Click here to read about the 13% tuition hike at A & M.   This is for College Station, the small schools that make up A & M ‘s real ‘minority population’ are not at $4,000 per  semester.  About three years back ,the Legislature allowed the schools to start setting their own tuition. And of course UT wasted no time in moving from $2500 to $3500 in two years, A & M has of course followed suit, now $4K is the number.

An Aggie alum of mine makes the point that there are lots of ways for students to get over this hurdle, true there are Pell grants but their very existence only encourages the type of price gouging that these schools engage in.  Another defense, is, well it is still much cheaper than private schools, true enough.  But that too encourages every one to go up, and 13% is surely beyond even what the head in the sand FED would call inflationary.

Who is the consumer, the student, the business and govt that hires the graduate, the ‘research’ these schools provide?  This strikes me like witholding of income tax, since you never have it you don’t miss it.  After all school loans are not paid till AFTER graduation. How many students realize what  their real obligation is when signing on to grants, loans, etc.

University costs have outpaced the general level of costs for decades.  And while the ‘all our grads get great jobs’ story is true for say the top 10-20%, there are lots of students in liberal arts or other non specific outcome majors that end up at the outlet mall, hardly a feather in the distinguished alum list. And by the way, has any one repealed the bell shaped curve, don’t most students have a C average. Is hmm 4K x 8 or these days 10 semesters, $40,000 worth a job at the outlet mall or teaching school at what, $30 K to start?
What say you?

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3 responses to “A &M, Worth a 13% Price Hike?”

  1. Jason Raper Avatar
    Jason Raper

    I was reading an article several months ago that stressed the rise in student loans being taken out for undergrads…well all students. The universities see that there is money out there for them to grab, and why not grab it?
    I remember my father discussing my future with an academic advisor in the early 90’s, and back only 10 years ago, there were several requirements that he had to meet; one being income…which as a six figure earner he did not meet. Ofcourse I did not inquire at 18 about the details, but I do think that the rise in people pursuing their degrees has had an impact in loan availability and a subsequent effect in the cost of tuition.
    Loans are also not forgivable in bankrutpcy protection (am I correct?) so I am sure that lenders will stress their availability.
    Just a quick thought.
    Also, there is a certain stress on the must of college degrees now and if we think in perspective of econonomics, when demand goes up price goes up.

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  2. Jordan McClary Avatar
    Jordan McClary

    Since when did education become more of a business instead of an opportunity to learn. It seems as though school are more interested in touting the money they make, versus what they actually do for students and the community. In reality i understand what it is that schools like A&M are doing. They are charing you a Royalty fee. Much like artist do when they produce music they want royalites for the service they provide. Well school are doing the same thing. If you wanna graduate and use their name to get a big high paying job your going to have to pay a big price.
    Here is what I think the problem is. Most schools don’t follow activity based costing. They are spreading the cost of these higher paying degrees to lower ones like Liberal arts. This is an ineffective method as it punishes those who choose this route. If colleges were to use a more ABC method and charge more for those degree that high degree of worth and vice versa the system would become more realistic. There might actually be an incentive then for more people to become teachers. But hell, why pay for a $100K degree in teaching when you would could easily be a business person and make probably double the money over your lifetime? These are just my thoughts.

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  3. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    The big problem is that the end result is not rising in accord with demand. One probably cannot make much more money now than in the early 90s in terms of going to work with a BA, but the cost continues to skyrocket. Is the demand inelastic, I guess we shall see

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