<story><title>Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable</title><url>https://quillette.com/2022/11/02/bloated-college-administration-is-making-education-unaffordable/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>etempleton</author><text>I respectfully disagree.&lt;p&gt;It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what leads to that reputation? How do you measure quality of education?What makes Harvard better than any other college at educating students? How much better? What percentage? Okay now prove it. At least in a succinct explainable way.&lt;p&gt;No, prestige is based on awareness and reputation. That can be gained a lot of ways. Recently a lot of schools have gained reputation through athletics. If you are good at one thing people think you are good at everything and so that reputation becomes overall reputation.&lt;p&gt;Three repeatable anecdotes regarding college enrollments:&lt;p&gt;1. When a college builds a new fancy building they see an enrollment spike. Almost every time. Especially if it is student quality of life focused.&lt;p&gt;2. Colleges that have lowered tuition to increase price transparency have consistently seen enrollment drops.&lt;p&gt;3. When a college or University makes it to March Madness they see an enrollment bump.&lt;p&gt;Reputation is tied to many things. Academic quality is hard to quantify or measure and so any reputation based on academics is apocryphal and based in word of mouth.</text></item><item><author>kragen</author><text>I think you have the causality all backwards.  Colleges with quality gain prestige, which makes people willing to borrow extra money to go there, which creates windfall profits administrators can use to increase their personal standing by hiring more headcount and do things like paint the dorms and buy fancier food.  That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean people&amp;#x27;s priorities in college choice are primarily or even significantly determined by dorm quality or cafeteria food, much less administrative headcount that harms the educational experience if it has any effect at all on it.&lt;p&gt;If you want what colleges used to be like 50 years ago — more power in the faculty senate, greater academic freedom, more focus on doing research and less on grantwriting, greater freedom to research moonshots, very few adjuncts — you aren&amp;#x27;t going to find it at small private or public schools that are barely staying afloat.</text></item><item><author>etempleton</author><text>Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to some small low endowment private or public school for less money. Oh wait, you say, I don’t want to go there! The buildings aren’t as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren’t as many resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the website sucks. Why is this? Because they don’t have the human or financial resources to do so.&lt;p&gt;You get what you pay for. Student and parent expectations have changed and so have college and universities. If you want what colleges used to be like 50 years ago go to a small private or public school that is just barely staying afloat, it will be more or less similar to the so called halcyon days of low cost, no frills college.&lt;p&gt;The thing is—people don’t want this as voted for by their choice in school. The biggest drops in enrollment are at community colleges, state schools, and small private schools. If people were price sensitive cheap schools would have people busting down the doors to get in. They don’t. In fact, when a college lowers their tuition, they paradoxically often see a dip in enrollments.&lt;p&gt;Why? Because human brains are broken. We connate price with prestige and prestige with quality.&lt;p&gt;Colleges get punished if they lower the price, so what do they do instead? They increase the discount rate. Rarely do families pay the sticker price. Google any college tuition and you will see average price paid. It is typically anywhere from 50-75% of sticker price.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rahimnathwani</author><text>&amp;quot;When a college builds a new fancy building they see an enrollment spike&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Aren&amp;#x27;t most colleges turning away qualified students? If so, an enrollment spike is a decision by the college, not the result of increased demand.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bloated college administration is making education unaffordable</title><url>https://quillette.com/2022/11/02/bloated-college-administration-is-making-education-unaffordable/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>etempleton</author><text>I respectfully disagree.&lt;p&gt;It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what leads to that reputation? How do you measure quality of education?What makes Harvard better than any other college at educating students? How much better? What percentage? Okay now prove it. At least in a succinct explainable way.&lt;p&gt;No, prestige is based on awareness and reputation. That can be gained a lot of ways. Recently a lot of schools have gained reputation through athletics. If you are good at one thing people think you are good at everything and so that reputation becomes overall reputation.&lt;p&gt;Three repeatable anecdotes regarding college enrollments:&lt;p&gt;1. When a college builds a new fancy building they see an enrollment spike. Almost every time. Especially if it is student quality of life focused.&lt;p&gt;2. Colleges that have lowered tuition to increase price transparency have consistently seen enrollment drops.&lt;p&gt;3. When a college or University makes it to March Madness they see an enrollment bump.&lt;p&gt;Reputation is tied to many things. Academic quality is hard to quantify or measure and so any reputation based on academics is apocryphal and based in word of mouth.</text></item><item><author>kragen</author><text>I think you have the causality all backwards.  Colleges with quality gain prestige, which makes people willing to borrow extra money to go there, which creates windfall profits administrators can use to increase their personal standing by hiring more headcount and do things like paint the dorms and buy fancier food.  That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean people&amp;#x27;s priorities in college choice are primarily or even significantly determined by dorm quality or cafeteria food, much less administrative headcount that harms the educational experience if it has any effect at all on it.&lt;p&gt;If you want what colleges used to be like 50 years ago — more power in the faculty senate, greater academic freedom, more focus on doing research and less on grantwriting, greater freedom to research moonshots, very few adjuncts — you aren&amp;#x27;t going to find it at small private or public schools that are barely staying afloat.</text></item><item><author>etempleton</author><text>Double edged sword. What the author proposes can be found. Go to some small low endowment private or public school for less money. Oh wait, you say, I don’t want to go there! The buildings aren’t as nice, the dorms are cramped and drab, there aren’t as many resources, the food sucks, the Wi-Fi is spotty, heck even the website sucks. Why is this? Because they don’t have the human or financial resources to do so.&lt;p&gt;You get what you pay for. Student and parent expectations have changed and so have college and universities. If you want what colleges used to be like 50 years ago go to a small private or public school that is just barely staying afloat, it will be more or less similar to the so called halcyon days of low cost, no frills college.&lt;p&gt;The thing is—people don’t want this as voted for by their choice in school. The biggest drops in enrollment are at community colleges, state schools, and small private schools. If people were price sensitive cheap schools would have people busting down the doors to get in. They don’t. In fact, when a college lowers their tuition, they paradoxically often see a dip in enrollments.&lt;p&gt;Why? Because human brains are broken. We connate price with prestige and prestige with quality.&lt;p&gt;Colleges get punished if they lower the price, so what do they do instead? They increase the discount rate. Rarely do families pay the sticker price. Google any college tuition and you will see average price paid. It is typically anywhere from 50-75% of sticker price.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>etempleton</author><text>Bonus point: What are the highest regarded colleges in the US? The Ivies(with some notable outliers). What is it that ties them together?&lt;p&gt;An athletic conference.</text></comment>