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Share Your Thoughts on How Colleges Can Cut Costs
College Parents of America welcomes your suggestions on ways that colleges can do more to educate your children, but take less out of everybody’s wallet in the process. Please share your thoughts on how colleges can cut costs in order to better hold down the prices they charge families. Your fellow parents will learn and benefit from your suggestions.
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on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under College, College Costs.
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August 20th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Its sad to see that those who need the aid the most end up getting the least amount of financial aid. Some things that could be done are cutting down on the amount of freebies they offer (who really needs ten novelty shirts for a food eating competition).
How about getting rid teachers/professors who are at the school solely for research purposes. There are some teachers that teach a single class but suck up a lot of school money and resources for money so they can have their name on a report. There are so many professors that teach a single class (which is often lead by Teacher’s Assistants) then go back to their research which may be good for them and for everyone, but it seems like they take more from the university than they give to students.
One more thing is raise
August 6th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
We need to support our best qualified students and this must also apply if they transfer. We all know that at the age of 15 or 16 most students do not know what they are going to do on Friday night but we require them to decide what college they will attend two or more years down the road? Our athletes are given a much bigger priority and colleges make them special category. It seems our society does not reward the students with high test scores, grades and motivation but leaves them worrying about their financial obligations. Is this course helping the US to compete with other nations that reward educational merit? Unfortunately, I think the US is already seeing the result of these actions. More merit scholarships and less punishment from FAFSA if you work to provide for your family. Maybe more colleges could guarantee the price of admission for four years? Colleges need to become more creative or the best and the brightest might be shut out!
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Besides turning down the thermostats as Cindy suggested, I would advise colleges to cut their advertising budgets and curtail the flood of mail they send to prospective students. As a taxpayer here in Maine, I am really irritated with the TV ads for our state university. Colleges should be working closely with the high schools to recruit students instead.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:12 am
turn down the heat in the dormatories…..last winter my son and his roommate had the windows open all winter it was about 80 degrees in their room. there are no thermostats in the rooms to regulate the temperature in the rooms, but i believe most dorm rooms are too hot.Turn down the heat let the kids wear more than just tee shirts in minus 7 degree outside temps. how much would that save??? thermostats in most homes are at about 70 degrees why not college campuses?
July 31st, 2007 at 11:39 am
Unpleasant to bring this up but it is a reality–those exempted from aid money subsidizing the education of those needing aid. Instead of using endowment money lowering their US News and World Report college rankings they use to entice students colleges double the real cost of education on those who don’t qualify for aid which hurts the 50-200K families.
If we paid for our own child’s college education the real cost would be around 20K. What happens is we pay for our child, and someone elses’.
I’m not writing this with any goal of changing this operating policy as I believe it’s institutionalized/etched in stone, but seeing what we’re paying and our kids walking out of school in the future with 60-100K in student loans to pay back one day isn’t amusing.
They have us.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Another way that colleges can be forced to behave more like businesses would be to end the antitrust exemption they have been given under Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA) of 1994 for their collusion in setting procedures for financial aid. Because of this process, all of the top private colleges, and many others, use exactly the same standards for need-based awarding financial aid, and agree to eliminate merit aid. Because of these rules, the 568 Group of colleges don’t have to compete financially for the top students. While the idea is to free more funds for need-based aid, the effect is to remove any incentive for colleges to review the reasonableness of their financial aid rules, since virtually all peer colleges operate by the same rules.
An appropriate area for review, for example, is the penalty exacted on those with no pensions who are trying to save for retirement. The 568 Group schools treat annual contributions to a 401K or IRA as funds that are availble for tuition when evaluating a family’s ability to pay. So, as defined benefit pensions go away, as the Federal government authorizes “catch-up” contributions to encourage personal saving for our own retirements, as Social Security becomes more actuarially threatened, the 568 Group rules penalize parents trying to save for retirement. A $10,000 annual 401K contribution is deemed available for tuition, and thus directly reduces a family’s eligibility for aid. At the same time, the 568 Group rules ignore the value of lifetime defined benefit pensions in calculating a family’s financial position. Could it be because most of the university professors and administrators, and the elected officials who could change the law, are eligible for such pensions, and so prefer the way the rules work for them personally? Do the political sentiments of these college administrators reflect a bias toward redistributionist aid programs (”robbing Peter to pay Paul’s tuition,” as Mr. Boyle’s column suggests)? Or can they just not see that, for those without pensions, saving for retirement is not play money, but essential for old-age living and medical expenses that don’t change just because one has an educated child? Competition among the colleges might provide the incentive for them to revise their rules to be more sensitive to the real world.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I am dealing with my son going to a local University that seems blind to his financial needs. HE has decided to live on his own now at the age of 23, yet he does not meet the ridiculous federal guidelines of being “independent”, so he is having trouble getting extra help towards his tuition. Thanks to the wonderful FAFSA and such, someone seems to think that we can just pull money out of our…(you know)…and yet, with another kid in college as well, we are out of options.
This whole thing of rising tuition costs is crazy, and because we are not in the “minority or foreign national categories” as Americans, we cannot get any extra help for our kids in college.
This higher education thing is out of control here in Texas, and in the US.
Yes….I think colleges need to get real and act like many businesses do. Take control of your costs and quit gouging the parents and students for your lack of fiscal responsibility.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 pm
If colleges want to save money they should get rid of the football program or do it at a much lower level. Fitness is important, but even the ticket prices are so high that most students can’t afford to go to games. Getting rid of something that is run on the caliber of a professional football team would cut down a great deal on the costs of running a college. People will still give to their alma maters with or without football, or football on the grand scale that it is now.
Most important though, for the benefit of our entire nation, the US government must provide scholarships for the best qualified students, qualified in terms of performance, test scores, and motivation. If these students can go to college without financial worries for themselves and their families, it will only help our entire nation in the long run. If they fail to graduate, then the scholarship would become a loan. The scholarships must also encourage students to study in whatever fields are currently short of workers. It is in the best interest of the entire nation for the most qualified to get a free ride with their educations.
Those who are not well qualified in terms of performance, test scores, and motivation should perhaps be looking to some other sort of work preparation than college.