Finally got a job!

[Al B. Sure!]

One standard trick when they raise tuition is to just charge the increase to the incoming freshmen class and leave it the same for all the current students. This keeps campus protests to a minimum.

They also started having major-specific rates. The funny thing is looking at the Temple tuition schedule, if you attend the engineering school, the business school, the art school, the music school, health professionals, science and technology, and school of hospitality management, you pay more than the base tuition! What's funny is what does that leave? Unless you're education, theater/communications, and some of the liberal arts/social sciences, you're paying more than the base tuition.

I get that something like engineering is more costly for them to offer but what about a business education could be worth the extra $3K? There's no costs there beyond basic teaching costs (professor salary, classroom with a computer with powerpoint... umm, that's it)

[b etor]

What university? You have co-ops too? Are they mandatory?

I'm getting $20/hour at my co-op at the federal reserve.

With my scholarships I spend ~$30k annually on tuition.

Kettering University. It's an Engineering school in Flint, MI. $34K / year. http://kettering.edu/offices-facilit...ition-and-fees
Mandatory co-ops starting junior year, but highly encouraged before then. Depending on the company and year I know people making $10-25 / hour. We're either in school or co-oping year round until graduation. It's awesome.

[rah]

They figure why raise it for LAS students since they really don't learn anything.

And another trick is just adding more class specific FEES.

[Jonny]

Congrats HC.

I was an intro CS TA for 3 years back in school, I always found teaching very rewarding (though I imagine working with kids is quite a bit different than college students). Enjoy.

[Aeson]

It's a shame. Fortunately, the government doles out money.

Whining about the effect while applauding the cause is generally bad form.

[Al B. Sure!]

Whining about the effect while applauding the cause is generally bad form.

It's force feedback at the taxpayer's expense, then


Maybe the ease of acquiring credit for college tuition has a bigger role?

[Ben Kenobi]

Unless you're education, theater/communications, and some of the liberal arts/social sciences, you're paying more than the base tuition.

Interesting. UBC, at least when I was there, pooled the faculty of arts with faculty of science to help defray the tuition costs for the science folks. It came up several times, but every time I was there - the proposal to split them was rejected. Given that the arts students were the majority, in effect, the arts students were voting against their own self-interest by keeping tuition higher for themselves than it would be if it were split.

Personally, I supported it. If it encourages more people to go into sciences, the better.

[Fve Crathva]

After weeks of applying to positions to no avail, I finally got an interview yesterday with a summer camp that teaches classes to middle school students over the summer. I'm getting paid $15.00/hour to teach kids basic programming, web design and math.

I'm very excited

This is an awesome job. I've never done it full-time but I volunteer with the people who do it at my university. It's so much fun, plus outreach is one of the best non-academic activities you can put on funding applications if you ever wind up doing research for somebody.

[Dr Strangelove]

I think that if you look at tuition and fees for state owned colleges over the past 50 years you'd find that increases were way below the general inflation rate until the 1980s and 1990s when tuition and fees climbed dramatically to compensate for the "tax payer revolution".

[Ben Kenobi]

1980s and 1990s when tuition and fees climbed dramatically to compensate for the "tax payer revolution".

Ironically this also coincided with boomers leaving university. Odd that costs would increase after they left.

[giblets]

What's odd is the pace of increase in educational attainment was faster before the 80's:

Spoiler:

They were educating more and more people without charging much more per person.

[KrazyHorse]

That's not odd in the slightest.

The massive increase in post-secondary education was a one-time phenomenon that has largely run its course due to hitting a natural barrier in terms of innate abilities of the population as a whole. This barrier was hit a couple of decades ago in quantitative abilities, and more recently in general cognitive abilities. Meanwhile, the demand for these skills has been increasing the whole time (the further to the right on the skill distribution you go the more it has increased). Professors are pretty far along that skill distribution, and the signaling value of education ensures that they remain so. Thus, professors teach fewer, smaller classes and are paid more. Other costs have also increased, as meritocratic sorting has increased the resources of the average college student's parents, who have therefore demanded more and better ancillary services. Finally, increasing federal support for student loans has increased demand (i.e. reduced price sensitivity) among those who do have the ability to attend college. Another effect is the increasing use of college-provided need-based assistance which allows them to price discriminate.

[Al B. Sure!]

FYI, the maximum Pell Grant award is currently $5500/yr. The Pell Grants have been around since 1965 but I can't find data on changes in real award amounts over the past 45 years of the program.

The government does also subsidize education though Stafford loans which are interest-free for four years. That program has also been around since 1965.

[KrazyHorse]

The government subsidizes student loans far beyond the reach of those two programs.

[Hauldren Collider]

How, public universities?