Consultant to continue analysis of cost, value and affordability at Penn State
- Thread starter BobPSU92
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"Since joining Penn State as its president in 2014, Eric Barron has made access and affordability one of his six key imperatives."
Well that sure has gone well.
Well that sure has gone well.
What restaurants make up the other 5 key imperatives?
Wait until he notifies them that PSU is the second most expensive public university in America.
barren: What do we need to do to be first?
to be fair, that Freeh review must have really tired him out
Consultant: Hire more consultants
Yeah. "That's outside our current scope, but we can address that in a separate project."
Access and affordability? Without affordability there won't me much access.
That whole article was one big heap of corporate circle jerking doublespeak. One goal is to "enhance revenue". The consultant will "recommend new or underused sources of revenue and cost control opportunities". I'd love to know the new and underused sources of revenue they identify. They can't force the state to increase the appropriation which has been shrinking every year. They can keep jacking up tuition which will chase away many qualified students. Or they can do what has been their recent trend - accept more out of state students and collect their currently $33,000+ tuition every year. Luckily the university doesn't have taxing authority. Imagine if it did.
I'm all for controlling costs but I don't think they have the ability to do that.
OTOH, they had the foresight to effectively shut down the money pit known as the Outing Club. I'm sure they're glad to be rid that albatross.
Why would colleges want to make college more affordable? There's too much money to be lost by doing that.
Until people quit racking up ridiculous student loans for overpriced college, there's simply no motivation to make college more affordable.
Until people quit racking up ridiculous student loans for overpriced college, there's simply no motivation to make college more affordable.
`Predicted report: statements lauding the current administration for its efforts in keeping tuition affordable and controlling costs, with paeans that a PSU is one of the great values in higher education. Then a few ticky-tack recommendations on cost savings.
Or, "pay us a bunch of millions and we'll suggest ways to save a few thousand"
I doubt any of that is his fault. I am no Barron fan, but the money is spent years in advance. The University is still choking on the Spanier era of building.
With the fines, the only lever is tuition. Most of the donations are targeted and not able to be spent to reduce tuition but instead as scholarships.
LdN
And spend millions on studies.
They should do a study to determine if studies are worth doing.
It’s bullshit! Colleges are corporations with only one thing in mind today... profitability. Not higher education. Thank god they are publically traded.
It’s a vicious cycle that Sallie Mae is paying. Note how significant student debt is and continues to rise! Schools are simply milking the mother cow and letting the kids pay for after graduation. The bubble will burst.
Does the state make PSU’s financial statement public?
It’s a vicious cycle that Sallie Mae is paying. Note how significant student debt is and continues to rise! Schools are simply milking the mother cow and letting the kids pay for after graduation. The bubble will burst.
Does the state make PSU’s financial statement public?
Except that the numbers don't quite bare that out. You should look them up.
I graduated from Penn State 30yrs ago this week... over the years the Board of Trustees, essentially a Rogues Gallery, has commandeered my alma mater and shaped it into AT&T ...
relieved my son has decided to stay hundreds of miles away from it for his post-secondary education... the more I read the more I roll my eyes at this buffoonery...
I graduated from PSU longer ago than that, and I'm the proud father of two Schreyers grads since then- but sadly I'm advising my grandchildren to go somewhere else.
For about 135 years PSU mission was to provide a quality higher education at an affordable price. Sometime in the mid 90's that turned into PSU becoming a profit center for a select few. Upper management with their large raises and golden parachutes, local contractors with getting large contracts for all the building going on at PSU, and the like. This was and is being done on the backs of students who now graduate with a mountain of debt so those select few can become millionaires.
The only way to make the costs of University Brick and Mortar education cheaper is to drastically reduce the ability to finance it through student loans.
If most parents were paying with their savings Penn State would not be able to accommodate students who in the present cannot afford it. Borrowing 80% of the cost of a college education results in having a mortgage without a home to live in
If most parents were paying with their savings Penn State would not be able to accommodate students who in the present cannot afford it. Borrowing 80% of the cost of a college education results in having a mortgage without a home to live in
10% of consumer debt is now student loans which is second highest to mortgages (68%). It was <5% in 2008! It’s another scam. Overall consumer debt is over $13 trillion exceeding pre recession times and the highest ever. The crooks have just found a way to redistribute since the real estate bubble burst. Oh, and auto loans are at 9% vs. 5+% in 2008.
PSU hasn't stopped building and buying property. I don't think that's Spanier's doing.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Looking at all you people who are complaining about high gas prices yet purchased SUV's b/c gas has been "cheap" for a couple years.
Maybe Stormin can correct me if I'm wrong but PSU is not a public university. It's a "state-related" university. I'm not certain what other university systems in other states operate in a similar "state-related" fashion but it's a bit of apples and oranges (I think) to compare PSU to all other true public universities.
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ATT is profitable..... provides large returns to shareholders..... and is governed by a 13 member Board (11 of whom are elected by the shareholders).....
So - - - might not be a spot-on comparative
AT&T provides horrible service, ruins the consumer experience as soon as they et their tentacles in there... profit-recipe involves raising prices and lowering the level of service(s), at least to private individuals.... in that aspect I believe I’m right on
Could you help me understand the difference then between the state public schools i.e. IUP, Clarion, Shippensburg, West Chester etc. and the state related schools of PSU, Pitt, Temple, Lincoln in terms of their funding in comparison to other B1G schools?
If anything positive can come of this, they might find that University Park and a few branch campuses are subsidizing over a dozen other branch campuses that lose money. They might recommend an ideal model of two of three branch campuses instead of nearly two dozen. I hope someone finally takes a look at that.
I paid for my undergraduate tuition, room and board with summer jobs and part time work at school in the late sixties - early seventies. I doubt a student could make enough to do that today. Penn State is the land grant university of Pennsylvania and too many PA kids can not afford to attend...something is intrinsically wrong with that. And the snow job that student loans has become is criminal. Banks can’t give out enough of student loans because they are the next best thing to a guarantee...the debt can’t be erased through bankruptcy thanks to a decision of the Clinton administration in the 1990s. So kids are first sold the lie that the only way to secure a future is to borrow money to go to college, or worse a for-profit diploma factory.
I love Penn State and my memories, but as for sending my kids there...not gonna happen.
I love Penn State and my memories, but as for sending my kids there...not gonna happen.
It will be interesting to see how and if they address this. One thing that consultants know is how to provide management with a document it wants.
Virtually zero college students can make enough to cover attendance. Maybe some that speculate with really high risk investments (bitcoin) in their spare time.
Google says full cost of attendance is ~36k in state and ~52k out. PSU has a 15 week summer this year. Figure 40 work hours per week. that gives a student 600 hours to work if they start the Monday after finals and work til the Friday before classes start with no days off. Before you even factor in income taxes, in state a student would need to make 60 an hour, out of state almost 90. Sign me up for whatever job pays 90 an hour with minimal to no experience or college degree. Any kid who found one would be better off sticking with it over attending PSU.
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Barry: ?? I am very dubious of your and ChiTown's statements to the effect that PSU is either the most expensive or second most expensive public university in the country. My youngest son has been going through the college application process over the last six months, and PSU, Wisconsin and the University of Washington are the three out of state (i.e., non-California) public universities we looked at . Wisconsin has a slightly higher tuition than Penn State, at least for out of state residents. The University of Washington has a substantially higher tuition than Penn State, at least for out of state residents. The room and board costs in Seattle would also be substantially higher than in State College. So, of the three public universities we looked at, PSU was the least expensive.
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The comparisons Barry cites are for in-state students. For out-of-state, the most expensive are three Va schools (UVa, VMI, and W&M). The rest of the Top 10 include six Californa Us and UVM.
Well, I have been paying out of state tuition to PSU, so THAT is what I was concerned with. You also have to be careful to compare apples with apples, as some sources report total cost of attendance estimates (i.e., tuition plus room & board), and others report tuition costs only.
UDub's 2017-2018 tuition was $10,974 for in state students and $35,538 for out of state students. I paid just over $36,000 in tuition this year to PSU for each of my graduating seniors. So the 2017-2018 out of state tuitions for UDub and PSU are pretty much a wash. All of those figures are tuition only. UDub's housing and board costs would be more.
Cal's 2017-2018 tuition was $14,194 for in state students and $42,208 for out of state students. That is tuition only.
UDub's 2017-2018 tuition was $10,974 for in state students and $35,538 for out of state students. I paid just over $36,000 in tuition this year to PSU for each of my graduating seniors. So the 2017-2018 out of state tuitions for UDub and PSU are pretty much a wash. All of those figures are tuition only. UDub's housing and board costs would be more.
Cal's 2017-2018 tuition was $14,194 for in state students and $42,208 for out of state students. That is tuition only.
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Not sure why you bring up the cost to attend a public university for an out-of-state student. The point of being a public university is to receive public (state) monies in order to make attendance cheaper for residents of the state. I imagine that the legislators who appropriate money to their state schools could give a rat's ass what those schools charge to out of state students other than, perhaps, thinking that it's not enough.
It's pretty simple, Art. I brought up PSU's out of state tuition because THAT is what I have been paying. Barry may have intended to reference only in state tuition in his earlier posts stating that PSU was the most expensive public university in the country, but I did not read it that way.
Secondly, you would be foolish to think that state legislators "could [not] give a rat's ass" about what their state's public universities charge out of state students. In most states, legislators have been steadily cutting appropriations for their public universities, blithely trusting (i.e., hoping) that the universities can make up the budgetary shortfall with federal grant moneys and tuition increases, for both in state and out of state students. The percentage of out of state students at Cal has gone up a bit over the last 5-10 years due to the additional tuition that out of state students pay. That has prompted a bit of a backlash in California, and legislators are hearing it in spades from California voters.
I would not argue the notion that PSU's tuition for in-state students is a bit high in comparison to in state tuition for students in public land grant universities in other states. It is certainly an issue to be considered, both by Pennsylvania residents and PSU leadership, which should want its tuition to be somewhat competitive with what similar public universities in other states charge their students.
But I have not been paying in state tuition. I have been paying the considerably higher out of state tuition, so that has understandably been my own personal focus. It happens to be fairly competitive. Certainly not the lowest, but not the highest, either.
I'm just glad that I am done paying it. Unless my third son decides to attend PSU.
Contest is everything. If you read closely you would have noted that Barry's numbers were in-state tuition. If you want to frame it in the context of the out-of-state tuition you pay, suggest you open a new thread and start by posting your FAFSA.
I've yet to hear or read about a state legislator who advocates that their public universities look to out-of-state students to resolve their financial problems. They may think that, but the instinct of self-preservation will kick in before they say it.
