I think many private colleges are vastly overrated and virtually all are overpriced if you consider the cost of more seriously affordable alternatives (studies routinely show
no earnings or career boost in actually attending the highest-ranked school to which you gained admission). Yet there's no question that going to college is a real bargain when you factor in increased earnings, lower unemployment rates, and especially the wider range of life options that come with higher education. The media and political discourse on college, which constantly hypes tuition costs and student-loan amounts that are rarely if ever representative, is inaccurate and dispiriting.
Given that, it's a real shame that government-mandated cost calculators for college are ineffective at best and actually discouraging at worst. It's not surprising, perhaps, but it's still a shame, especially when the biggest effect is on people who stand to gain the most by pursuing a college sheepskin.
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| Trends in Higher Education - The College Board |
WASHINGTON – Time to stock up on the ramen noodles. The average cost of attending college crept up again this year, the College Board said Thursday.
- The average sticker price, with room and board included, for undergraduate students attending a four-year college or university in their home state was $18,943. Out-of-state students at those schools paid, on average, $32,762. At two-year public schools, in-state students paid an average $11,052.
- The cost to attend a private, four-year nonprofit college: $42,419, on average, including housing and meal plan.
- For-profit schools cost about $15,230, but housing figures weren't available.
- Books and transportation costs can add more than $2,000 to the cost of attending college, and that rises even more for commuters.
Transparency in College Costs | Brookings Institution
Executive SummaryCollege Scorecard's flawed focus on average net price @insidehighered
This paper addresses the lack of transparency in the college pricing system, past attempts to address the problem, and proposals to do more in the future, with a particular focus on selective, private higher educational institutions. Despite recent federal legislation, students still have limited ability to anticipate the costs of college. Survey evidence indicates that the majority of students know no price other than the stated college tuition, despite the fact that many students would be expected to pay considerably less. For many young Americans, this information deficit reduces the likelihood that they will attend
college—and it reduces the quality of the institutions for those that do attend.
The Obama administration unveiled its new College Scorecard with much fanfare this month. Highlighted to college-bound students as a way to “get the most bang for your educational buck,” the Scorecard is intended to serve as a consumer guide for higher education. The first section of the Department of Education’s new College Scorecard features the average net price of attendance at the selected institution. To guide users, the scorecard categorizes these average net prices as low, medium or high.
There’s just one problem: no student is average.
Health and College Costs Have Much in Common
A Clearer Approach to College Costs | Brookings InstitutionAmong the many complaints about the U.S. health-care system is its opacity when it comes to prices consumers actually pay. Few doctors tell patients about costs, partly because they don’t know themselves; insurers have the last word. All health-care economists I know of—whether or not they support the Affordable Care Act—have supported more price transparency so that patients can make better decisions about procedures or tests of limited value, or better understand whether a doctor is ordering such things to reduce the chances of a malpractice lawsuit.
Mr. Levine suggests that federally required disclosures of the average net price, which are arranged by broad income category of an applicant’s family, aren’t helpful because averages can be heavily influenced by outliers in financial aid packages. Such aid may be determined on the basis of more than a family’s income. He suggests that colleges instead use simplified financial calculators that account for the multiple factors schools use to determine aid—of the kind that he developed for Wellesley College—and that they publish net median prices by income category, since medians eliminate the effects of outliers.
Now, if only health-care providers would do something similar.
Government Efforts
20 U.S. Code § 1015a - Transparency in college tuition for consumers | LII / Legal Information InstituteCollege Scorecard | The White House
Bringing Transparency to College Costs | The White House
College Affordability and Transparency - National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
The U.S. Department of Education's new College Affordability and Transparency Center provides a user-friendly and comprehensive look at college costs, but the data are limited and could be misinterpreted without the proper context. To ensure the information is useful and not misinterpreted,
users should be aware of the following.
Cost vs. Value - career value may be proportional to cost
Limits of Net-Price Data - figures only use first-time, full-time freshmen who receive grant aid
Location Impact on Cost - New York and California more expensive
A Work in Progress - bugs still being worked out
Old Data - obsolescent or improper data in database
College Affordability and Transparency Center
What are some reasons for the increase in college costs?Institutions placed on the CATC highest tuition or net price list are required by the Higher Education Act of 1965 to complete the College Affordability and Transparency Form (CATEF) to explain why costs have gone up at their school, and how the rising costs could be addressed. The CATEF Summary Guide to College Costs summarizes institutions' responses to their inclusion on the lists.
Institution responses frequently blame increasing staffing and facilities cost due to increasing enrollment. One has to wonder about efficiencies of scale - are they saying ratio of costs to student population increase with size?
Maybe the Web can help:
CollegeData: College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common ApplicationKiplinger's Best College Values-Kiplinger
College Costs: FAQs
Is the Cost of Private College Worth It?
LinkedIn Flexes Its Search Engine Muscle, Adds College-Finding Tools For Students | TechCrunch
University Outcome Rankings is LinkedIn’s big data play: millions of alumni profiles get analysed to produce a ranking of how schools fare based around particular careers — and presumably how successful certain graduates have been. The catch here is that it’s confined only to those who are on LinkedIn, meaning that some professions, and some schools, and some geographies may end up woefully underrepresented in the mix.
The third of these, the University Finder, is basically a tool to look for universities that is “personalised” to you: it takes parameters like your intended career, and even where you would one day like to work, to match you up with compatible institutions. Presumably there will be high and predictable correlations between places like Stanford and computer science and working at Google, Apple or another major Silicon Valley firm. Again, whether this will be able to surface more nuanced suggestions will have to be seen.
Previously:
spendergast: Engineering Education Gaps - U of MD ECE Curriculumspendergast: Is College a Ludicrous Waste of Money?
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