LordShiva and DaShi's homework: Teh Disadvantages of Elite Education

[KrazyHorse]

$90,000 to offer one 3 credit hour course? That is not even possible. Maybe at Harvard, not a typical Canadian public university.

The total budget of the University of Regina is about $120 million. There's over 8,000 undergraduate students that are going full time (3 classes a semester, 6 classes a year is the minimum for full time). Even assuming that all classes cost the same, all classes have an enrollment of 50, none of the students take more than 3 classes a semester, and none of the $120 million pays for graduate students or part time students, you arrive at a figure of about $120,000 a class.

Though, you have to consider that science classes are going to cost more to offer than the Arts classes, there's about 1,500 post graduate students, there's about 3,000 part time students, most full time students take more than 3 classes per semester. So there's no way a Introduction to International Studies class costs even near $90,000.

Shane:

a) Science classes don't cost much more to offer than arts classes. Lab equipment is cheap as ****

b) You've also completely neglected the amortized cost of the buildings, land etc. That number is not factored into the annual budget, at least when there's no new construction

I would believe 120k, but not 30k

Having been behind the scenes I can tell you that **** is expensive.

[Jon Miller]

As an example, a physics graduate student gets paid ~20k. We cost the Prof ~60k.

JM

[snoopy369]

To be fair, most of the difference is tuition...

[snoopy369]

In any event, you can't take the budget and assume that any significant portion of it goes to any particular thing. You have to factor in fixed costs [land, building upkeep, etc.], research [which does not directly impact most students], etc. There's a lot going on that is not related to per-student costs.

[notyoueither]

Why would you not figure capital requirements in per unit production costs?

[snoopy369]

Depends on why you're doing the calculation I suppose, but they're not as simple as dividing the one number by the other.

I honestly didn't entirely follow why the question was brought up. I assume it has something to do with why education is so expensive. I don't see a reasoned-out calculation there, just a back of the envelope calculation, which isn't particularly informative. It ignores the endowment, ignores other donations, assumes a fixed budget (which is totally ludicrous as schools have widely varying budgets), doesn't make it clear whether things like research grants [again irrelevant to the costs of education] are included, etc.

[KrazyHorse]

Snoopy, unless the supplier can price discriminate he must charge everybody the same price. Tuition costs will not reflect the MARGINAL cost per student; they represent (substantially) the AVERAGE cost per student.

[snoopy369]

Again, it depends on what you're calculating... if you're calculating what to charge someone, that's one thing. If you're calculating what it really costs to add a few more students, it's another [you have near 0 fixed costs, unless you go over a barrier that requires a new building or something]. It also depends heavily on how much new construction/etc. is being done in the year, doesn't it...

In any event, I suppose if you're arguing who is subsidized, it's much more complicated; without the one group of students, the costs for the other group of students is much higher. Take away those art students, and the science students have a much higher fixed-cost element of their overall cost to educate.

It's also ignoring the opportunity cost for the land the university is on (Imagine what you could charge for condos, malls, high end retail, whatever, if you razed Harvard!), and an awful lot of other factors that are important and hard to determine, that factor on both sides of the argument.

And what about the professors' salaries? Are these research professors, funded by grants and just teaching a couple of classes because they must? Are they teaching-only professors who are paid entirely by the schools? Who knows?

[KrazyHorse]

at the thought that UofS has loads of purely research profs



The money in a university flows from sciences to arts, not the other way around. Purchases of equipment and receipts of external grant money are generally taxed at a ridiculous rate by central administration (at McGill and Hopkins ~50%). This money flows into the general fund, and is distributed across the entire university. Thus, research-heavy science departments fund research-poor arts departments.

The proof is in the pudding on the existence of public subsidies; the UofS gets 90 million dollars a year from tuition & fees, but even its operational budget (the part that goes to pay for CURRENT professors' salaries, administration etc.) is 380 million.

The public subsidizes both science and arts departments. Personally, I would avoid subsidizing either, but at least science subsidies lead to higher tax receipts in the future; arts subsidies lead to higher unemployment payments.

[snoopy369]

Yet most of the people actually making money out there are in management [ie, arts degrees].

Also, a bit confused about your 'taxed' comment. I don't believe grants at Chicago are 'taxed' at all; if the NIH sends you a R01 grant, you get the full benefit of the $1M over time.

[KrazyHorse]

Yet most of the people actually making money out there are in management [ie, arts degrees].

No.

In fact, I bet you that at EVERY PERCENTILE of the income distribution science OR engineering graduates meet or exceed the income of arts graduates.

Management = arts degree is ****ing hilarious.



There are, of course, some people in management with arts degrees. They do outnumber science & engineering graduates by a significant factor.

Plus, you've got to be kidding if you think that "management = money" is true. Mangers with little or no specialized knowledge or experience get paid FAR less than people with such technical knowledge.

[KrazyHorse]

Also, a bit confused about your 'taxed' comment. I don't believe grants at Chicago are 'taxed' at all; if the NIH sends you a R01 grant, you get the full benefit of the $1M over time.

You have no idea what you're talking about:

http://researchadmin.uchicago.edu/guidelines/300/303.shtml

For-profit companies who fund basic research at UChicago see 40% their money siphoned off to the university's general fund.

The same companies lose 25% of grant money on clinical studies

Nonprofits only pay the Uni a tax of 20%

I can't believe you're unaware of this. This is a MAJOR issue in research-heavy departments.

[KrazyHorse]

Federal grants are often subject to different rules, because the gov't is able to negotiate better with the unis (it has tremendous market pricing power due to its huge size)

They still pay SOMETHING to the uni, and I guarantee you that it's far above the costs imposed on the uni through use of its facilities.

at the thought that 100% of grants go to researchers.

[KrazyHorse]

http://researchadmin.uchicago.edu/guidelines/300/304.shtml

Here's the rates for federal funding. Note that even for OFF-CAMPUS research there's a huge charge against grants. That gives you some sense of how much profit the uni general fund is turning on external grants (if the research is off-campus it's pretty ludicrous to claim that there are large infrastructure costs to the uni...)

[snoopy369]

Specifically excluded from the MTDC base are equipment, capital expenditures, charges for patient care, tuition remission, rental costs of off-site facilities, scholarships and fellowships, Physical Sciences Division Central Shop charges, and the portion of each subgrant and subcontract in excess of $25,000 (e.g. $5,000 would be excluded from the direct cost base in a subcontract of $30,000).

That's sort of an important point, I'd think... at least for Tam's lab, nearly all of the grants are single grants far in excess of $25k (her lab has two R01 $1MM grants, and one or two smaller grants in the hundreds of thousands]. So let's say her lab pays $50k/year in "tax" and takes in $700k/yr. That's not even 10%...