The greed of super wealthy liberal colleges is astounding

According to the Washington Post, New York University is charging $66,000 a year in tuition. This includes room and board but is still a fantastically expensive figure. Columbia University is charging $63,000 a year, and even less well-known schools like Sarah Lawrence College and Harvey Mudd College are charging about $65,000 a year.

Now, to be fair, these figures include room and board. But even with room and board, these are fantastically expensive rates. Many schools like NYU play a game, where they say that their asking tuition is $66,000, but after scholarships and grants, the average tuition is "only" $34,000.

But if $34,000 is the "average," who is paying below average, and who is paying above?

Incoming freshmen, Nia Mirza, started a petition to get the school to lower the cost of attendance. Mirza, a 19-year-old from Pakistan, claims the price went up after she committed to early admission to the class of 2019. To be clear, it is not going to cost Mirza $71,000 to go to NYU. That figure is just a really detailed sticker price that doesn’t include financial aid discounts, like the $24,000 scholarship she received from the school.

There is no reason for college to be so expensive. The reason it is so expensive is because:

a) Students are subsidizing research and other activities unrelated to teaching.

b) Students are subsidizing a layer of bureaucratic employees (such as "Deans of Diversity") who, at best, do nothing and at worst, foment racial and gender hatred.

c) Many schools have enormous endowments, so big that they could practically let students attend for free. NYU's endowment is 3.5 billion dollars. That's bigger than the cash reserves of some small countries.

“Many schools have enormous endowments, so big...”

In fairness, many of those universities spend a reasonable portion of their endowment income to support the university. The last time I looked, Harvard contributed 4% of its endowment as income to the university’s budget, which is a reasonable and prudent amount.

As otherwise mentioned, the problem is with costs. Many of these costs are brought on by government regulation, which is encouraged by the richest schools, as it serves to heighten the barrier to entry of upstarts to compete with the already-established vendors.

That being said, outside of community colleges, often, the better the reputation of a school, the less expensive it is for a middle-income family. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are usually cheaper for the typical family than are schools lower down in the food chain, because of financial aid.

“Harvard paid Elizabeth Warren $700.000.00 for 2 years part-time work.”

When profs get that much it is usually due to their fund raising abilities.

They help create a bigger and bigger endowment by going out and talking to rich donors.

They may bring in a lot more in donations than their salary.

Dear ifinnegan,

In Warren's case, the gross amount of income included other sources, including legal consulting, work on government contracts, etc. As near as I can make out, she made something north of $200K per year in actual salary as a professor.

Which is average for a full professor at Harvard.

Great gig if you can get one.

sitetest

I have been saying for YEARS that the GOP should support two policies to stick it to these sorts of institutions:

-Make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy

-Make discharged debt subject to “clawback” provisions from university endowments and funds

Those two reforms alone - even if it’s not yet politically possible to get the government out of student lending entirely - would do a whole lot to starve the liberal propaganda apparatus at one of its major sources.

YUP....we are helping our grandson with Community College (Well...his Great, great, great Uncle left him some funds in our care)....we will think VERY carefully before helping him beyond that....depends upon what he decides to do. Would rather help him start a business than pay for a useless University degree.

Staff pay at a university must be outstanding?....Yes. For what they do. Have a Masters Degree student teach your course (one or two a semester), write your book on company time, and then have the college book store sell your book. All the while being paid by taxpayers. Nice gig.

Medical costs are also a “game”. The bill my wife got for a minor bump on the head requiring absolutely no medical action other than prescribing a few pain pills was “listed” at five figures, of which we paid about 1/20th of after insurance. I believe the numbers are BS so that they have negotiating room with those with no insurance, and then they get to “write off” the “list price” (which is pie-in-the sky that no one actually pays except those very stupid, wealthy, and insurance-free, meaning, no one).

“That’s a good one. Funny ha ha.”

Yeah, they occasionally throw them a bone.

If things continue as they are, I’d give the present educational system MAYBE another 7-10 years before it utterly collapses.

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