Cutting Tuition Prices So Students Can Borrow Less

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | December 2, 2019 | Jenna A. Robinson

[karpov]

In the past few years, large public universities have garnered headlines by freezing tuition. Purdue University, the Pennsylvania State System, and every public four-year university in Virginia have all frozen tuition and fees. And three University of North Carolina schools—UNC Pembroke, Western Carolina University, and Elizabeth City State University—have cut tuition to $500 per semester for in-state students. That reduction is a boon to students and parents who must foot the tuition bill. But it is made easier by taxpayer subsidies; state universities aren’t entirely tuition-dependent for their revenues.

Small private universities often find it more difficult to keep tuition down, but it can be done. Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina is one example. Belmont Abbey cut tuition 33 percent in 2013-2014, to $18,500, where it has stayed for six years. In an interview with the Martin Center, Belmont Abbey president Bill Thierfelder and CFO Allan Mark explained how and why they made such a dramatic change.

Thierfelder said that making tuition affordable has always been a priority for him. When he arrived at Belmont Abbey in 2004, he cut tuition for the college’s non-traditional program. As a Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey has always prioritized keeping its doors open—a tradition that began with the Benedictine monks who founded the institution. Belmont Abbey has always attracted students from the middle class and those with large families. Keeping it affordable was a necessity.

Thierfelder and his team considered cutting tuition for the school’s traditional program in 2004 as well but found that other small private schools that had tried to do so had failed.

“It’s the Chivas Regal effect,” he said. People often associate higher tuition costs with a better standard of education, even if that’s not the case. But after the recession, parents and students starting looking for [cheaper] universities.

[RideForever]

It would be cheaper to teach the concept of return on investment in high school.

[knarf]

2nd reply !

[wiseprince]

Want to make it affordable, cut any subsidies for it, regulate industries such that a lack of a college accreditation alone is not in and of itself justification for not hiring any individual (I agree, this is not enforceable but helps to remove any stigma of not having a degree). Regulate how much lenders (banks and a few others) can lend as a percentage of a college loan. Does this leave education to the rich? Maybe, but employers don’t only hire the rich because that wouldn’t be sustainable. Once people find out you can get a job without a degree that’s what they’ll do

[Liz]

US STUDENTS ARE FORCED TO INCUR DEBT TO GET EDUCATED
THE CRAVEN OBAMA GAVE $100 MILLION TAX DOLLARS TO TEACH MUSLIM GIRLS IN MOROCCO

THE DEPT OF EDUCATION NEEDS TO EXAMINE THIS DISGRACEFUL USE OF TAX DOLLARS.

BACKSTORY Then-pres Obama took $100 million from the State Dept to “teach Muslim girls on Morocco.”
Obama made the announcement on the occasion of Michele's visit to Morocco.
The Chicago-based Obama Foundation is “holding” the $100 mill till “needed.” (cue laugh machine here)

Then-F/L Michele, her mother and daughters in the Moroccan palace.

Look at that smile----Obama gave her $100 million tax dollars "to teach Muslim girls." AND GET THIS: The $100 mill
is to be held by the Chicago-based tax-exempt Obama Foundation, to be doled out when needed (cue laugh machine here).

==========================================

NOTE WELL: The $100 million in the Obamas pockets came out of the Millenium Challenge Fund at the State Dept----

This was then-SoS Hillary's fave slush fund.

ACTION NOW: Demand the books be opened-----taxpayers demand to know where the Millenium funds are going.

Call President Trump: Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414

US CONGRESS SWITCHBOARD: (202) 224-3121

U.S. Department of Justice Comment Line: 202-353-1555 Switchboard: 202-514-2000

To report tax-free non-profit crimes:
EMAIL enforcement@SEC.gov
To report fraudulent fund-raising:
FBI tip line web site----https://www.fbi.gov/tips
FBI electronic fraud unit----www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes/internet-fraud
FBI Major Case Contact Center: 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Simple...undo the Obama take-over of college education loans. The government will loan money to anybody with a pulse and IQ above their shoe size. With all that “free” money available, universities were able to increase tuition way above inflation and get away with it.

There is nothing as unaffordable as something the government tries to make affordable.

[PapaBear3625]

One thing that Trump’s Dept of Education has done in the last year or so, is update the College Scorecard website.

For each college (and for many of them, for each offered major at the college), you can see the average debt the student graduates with, successful graduation rate, and other important factors.

The new feature, is that now you can also see the median first-year salary of graduates, and compare with other colleges, and thus make an informed choice as to whether the tuition expense really translates into higher earnings.

https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/search/?state=NC&cip4_degree=b&sort=completion_rate:desc

[Liz]

FOREIGN MILLIONS GOING TO ELITE US COLLEGES
SCHOOLS ALLEGEDLY TAKING AND HIDING FOREIGN CASH
Daily Caller ^ | 6/15/2019 | luke rosiak / FR Posted by bitt

The US Department of Education has launched an investigation into foreign cash secretly flowing into U.S. universities and sent letters to Georgetown University and Texas A&M Thursday. A Senate report found that 70 percent of colleges that took money from a Chinese propaganda program broke the law by not disclosing it. Almost all of the colleges contracted to shape U.S. textbooks on the Middle East received massive funding from countries in the region. The Department of Education is going after U.S universities over supposed ties to foreign governments, after some allegedly took huge quantities of foreign cash and hid it from regulators.

At the top of the list are Georgetown University (Bill Clintn's alma mater) and Texas A&M, which have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar, a middle eastern nation with suspected links to international terrorism (Qatar is a large donor to the Clinton Library Foundation).

Both schools received letters from the Department of Education Thursday saying they should have disclosed that funding but their filings “may not fully capture” the activity, the Associated Press reported. The letter warned that they could be referred to the attorney general to “compel compliance.”

Georgetown was also asked about possible ties to Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, as well as Saudi Arabian money. Both schools were ordered to disclose funding from Huawei and ZTE, Chinese firms suspected of spying. (Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

[brownsfan]

The only way to fix the situation is to starve the beast. Quit giving federal loans for college education, or at the very least, cap it at a level that will pay for say, a trade school?

Colleges know they can charge whatever they want, as long as they aren’t too far out of line with other colleges. My alma mater tore down a perfectly fine student center to make a nicer one. Then, they built a new gym, just because. When that was done, they built a fine football stadium for a team that stinks on ice, playing before almost no one.

Starve the beast, when attendance falls, tuition falls.

[bigbob]

Wanna really make it affordable? Eliminate tenure and put all faculty on merit-based performance management and can then when they fail to deliver results or follow guidelines.

[Bruiser 10]

The university as we know it is an obsolete 200 year-old model.

Online degrees!

Cut outrageous professor salaries.

Do away with tax-funded non-productive administrative positions.

Keep you kids at home where they can’t be indoctrinated.

There! Solved!

[DIRTYSECRET]

4 glasses in a bottle of wine. I always drank 3. I told my ex if she really wanted me to cut back she could drink 2 of the glasses. She’s still my ex.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Classrooms taught online with only lab work classrooms needed. The remainder of the campus should be library and research facilities for faculties. Tuition could be dropped considerably.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Tuition at public universities have increased and 2 to 3 times the rate of inflation for the past 15 years or so. Tuition for my last semester in 1996 was about $1100 per semester. The tuition at the very same university is now $4900. That’s well over a 400% increase in 23 years while inflation says it should be about $1800.

[PapaBear3625]

Want to make it affordable, cut any subsidies for it, regulate industries such that a lack of a college accreditation alone is not in and of itself justification for not hiring any individual (I agree, this is not enforceable but helps to remove any stigma of not having a degree). Regulate how much lenders (banks and a few others) can lend as a percentage of a college loan. Does this leave education to the rich? Maybe, but employers don’t only hire the rich because that wouldn’t be sustainable. Once people find out you can get a job without a degree that’s what they’ll do

The explosion in demanding a college degree happened when the Supreme Court, in the 1971 Griggs v Duke Power case, ruled that giving tests to job applicants, and using the results in hiring and promotion decisions, was illegally discriminatory if it resulted in "disparate impact" (fewer minorities being hired).

Get rid of that, allow companies to hire straight out of high school based on SAT test scores, and you eliminate much of the college industry.

[norwaypinesavage]

There’s a simple solution to the student loan crisis: require the loans to be funded only from the endowment fund of the university they attend. What better place to invest the endowment than in their own students? Besides that, the money gives a fixed return!
You will quickly see the university sponsoring only programs for successful degrees

[dsrtsage]

Perhaps if they cut back on the club med feel to start

[Dilbert San Diego]

This point bears repeating.

College costs have risen precisely because of the increasing amounts of loan money available to pay those increasing costs.

In general, students and their families have to think longer term, in my opinion. Borrowing to get a degree in a marketable field in which students can get good paying jobs and careers might make sense. Borrowing to get a degree in women’s studies or some other field for which you are not qualified to embark on a job or career, should be discouraged.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Club Med, LOL. Yes some colleges have really made their facilities much more luxurious, shall we say.

Back in my day, the mid 1970s in college, the dorm was very basic. The cafeteria food was also very basic. There was no workout center or recreation center. There was a gym, but again, equipment available was very basic.

Part of the increase in college costs has been the trend for so many colleges to make their facilities more like a Club Med or nice hotel.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Good idea. Harvard has an endowment in the billions. So do some other major universities. And those endowments earn investment income.