Penn State's "Tuition Problem": Its causes, its fallout, and its solution.
- Thread starter stormingnorm
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Your proposals are not sufficiently radical.
It's hard to treat Penn State as a public state university, when it is not treated that way by the government of the state that it resides in.
Can you provide a citation for that?
More total $$$ or more $$$ as a percentage of total budget?
My son is a graduating senior at a large, top ranked Ohio high school. (Average ACT 26. Yale made a recruiting trip to the HS). Not one senior is planning on going to PSU, undoubtedly because of the cost.
Good luck getting a straight answer on this from Barry. He has crossed over into a zealotry that makes real dialog impossible.
But what you are suggesting is correct - the state appropriates less per student today than it did in 2005. It’s not complicated.
Penn State is no longer a University chartered to provide a quality post secondary education to the citizens of Pennsylvania at a reasonable price. It is a FOR PROFIT university. Profit being high salary/benefits/pension of the upper admin along with the kickback business deals. Penn State tuition will continue to rise, while giving nearly no money in reduced tuition (their contemporaries in Rutgers, Delaware, OSU all provide much more 'scholarship's' en masse to reduce tuition cost) as they currently can sign up 10,000+ students a year who will pay full price. Penn State is really becoming a school for upper middle class and upper class mid atlantic & New England(PA, NJ, NY, DE, New England) families to send their kids. Penn State has an excellent reputation as a fun (dare I say party) school that is large and in general you come out with a quality education. Until they start not being able to fill their admissions with enough people willing to pay full price, they are not going to lower the tuition. More tuition dollars can support higher salaries and bonuses and other boondoggles for the upper admin.
One thing that needs to be remembered is that these numbers are generally calculated to support whatever side of the agenda one is on.
IIRC, back during the budget battles after the housing bubble, PSU would calculate the state contribution per student including more than the undergraduate enrollment (ie at least grad student and maybe law students). If I'm not mistaken, I believe the money appropriated is not meant to support graduate degrees so it should be calculated only against the undergraduate enrollment. "Lies, Damn lies, and statistics," as they say
Now, I'm of the opinion that PSU is not fully a state school, given that it is not part of the PSSHE and it is managed and chartered differently. But it's very blurry given that state elected officials sit on the BOT, etc. In a perfect world, the state wouldn't provide a dime to any college. Why people who choose not to go to college are forced to subsidize the education of their peers who will, on average, out earn them, is frankly, crazy. Talk about a regressive tax policy.
"I believe the money appropriated is not meant to support graduate degrees"
I'm not saying you are wrong, but what are you basing that on? I would strongly suspect that state appropriations include infrastructure and faculty support that absolutely would support graduate degrees (this is certainly the case at other institutions), but I guess it could be different at PSU.
Thanks for clarifying.
State appropriation is not sufficient to support Penn State if tuition is lowered. Penn State provides one of the highest levels programs in many areas. Cost of administration appears to be high compared to other schools but the devil is in the details. In some schools, half of the admin. cost is considered teaching where administrators teach a course. Frankly, overall cost is lower than it should be due to the rural location.
Penn State has added trillions of dollars into Pa. economy over the years. Greatness of Penn State goes unappreciated, too bad. Penn State should consider becoming a private school like Cornell. State of Pa. is not providing appropriate funding.
There are categories of Budget where dollars cannot be moved between categories (admin. figures reasonable shortcuts to trade dollars between the categories no doubt during extenuating conditions).
As a private school, Penn State will become smaller and smaller to fit the mold of Ivy League Schools. This will deprive educational opportunities to many deserving students.
I have served as Professor, Chaired Department, and Assistant Dean in other universities. Penn State is a big name school, this reputation helps the students to obtain quality employments. It costs money to create and maintain the reputation.
Upfront, I love Penn State and Penn State Football.
Penn State has added trillions of dollars into Pa. economy over the years. Greatness of Penn State goes unappreciated, too bad. Penn State should consider becoming a private school like Cornell. State of Pa. is not providing appropriate funding.
There are categories of Budget where dollars cannot be moved between categories (admin. figures reasonable shortcuts to trade dollars between the categories no doubt during extenuating conditions).
As a private school, Penn State will become smaller and smaller to fit the mold of Ivy League Schools. This will deprive educational opportunities to many deserving students.
I have served as Professor, Chaired Department, and Assistant Dean in other universities. Penn State is a big name school, this reputation helps the students to obtain quality employments. It costs money to create and maintain the reputation.
Upfront, I love Penn State and Penn State Football.
Should have said thank you stormingnorman for making the evidence apparent.
There is value in educating the population; however, Penn State should admit more in state students and lower in state tuition.
Just because there is value, doesn't mean the govt should be involved.
The govt can only give, what it first takes away. When pols pick winners and losers, everyone loses....except those directly chosen as winners.
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I would think one could make a very strong argument that “supporting higher education” is one of the best things a State could allocate resources to.
What I KNOW one could make a very strong argument for is that the way to do that is:
NOT to subsidize particular Universities for X dollars
But, rather to
PROVIDE those funds directly through the student - to be derived by the Universities only when they attract those students to their University...... by being the institution that those students choose to matriculate to.
( Imagine adding $1 Billion per year - or whatever the State currently spends in subsidies to the schools - to the PHEAA system, or something similar. Same cost - but now with market forces driving Universities toward greater economic responsibility and competitiveness)
The odds of that happening - for a list of reasons as long as my arm - are slim to none.
It simply would make too much sense, eliminate too much corruption, and have far too positive an outcome.
I'd respectfully disagree.
Let me ask you a very specific and direct question Barry. How much of your income are you willing to give to subsidize the education of other people? Please provide a number.
How much of a plumber's income should be required to educate the next generation of bankers, engineers, and US Steel executives?
Should residents' tax dollars go to fund other people's education, or to do things the govt actually is responsible for, like maintaining roads and bridges which is chronically underfunded?
If the investment in education isn't worth it for a student on it's face, then the govt has no business redistributing taxpayer money to distort the market.
In the end, people can afford X amount of education. Much like cheap student loan money, govt subsidies allows schools to ultimately spend and charge more because the customer/consumer/student isn't covering the entire cost. It distorts the market and ultimately leads to higher overall education expenditures.
Winter is coming for education. There is an unsustainable bubble that has been growing for a generation now. At some point in the future, people are going to walk away. Not the exact same point, but I think this guy sums it up pretty well.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. My only reply to your middle paragraph is that you can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or your aren't. Either "free" money distorts the market or it doesn't. It should not be a foregone conclusion that the State sets an arbitrary tax rate and then figures out how to spend whatever amount it collects. It should be the exact opposite. The cost of the govt providing essential services should drive the tax rates.
Some of the proposals are untenable at best. There is absolutely too many administrators in higher education, you can’t institute a complete hiring freeze. There needs to be some reorganization and reevaulation of what positions are really needed. Also, the facilities probably don’t need to be so grand.
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