Octopus Overlords

Zarathud wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 12:11 pmCost has become highly tiered. When I graduated Loyola University Chicago, the new Jesuit President (an economist) discussed increasing base tuition and scholarships to increase perceived value, and capture more dollars from wealthy coastal parents who could subsidize tuition scholarships to locals. He argued if the sticker price went up, but your ACTUAL costs stayed the same then they could attract more highly qualified students.

I can understand that as something that private universities would engage in, but state schools that have a substantially smaller amount of scholarships that they give out?

I can't speak for how it is now, but in the four years I went to Rutgers back in the 90s for Engineering, I met exactly 0 students that were there on any kind of scholarship from Rutgers. At $1650 per semester, it wasn't exactly needed though.

To Smoove's point(s):

I can see that lost revenue from the State has helped contribute. The NJ budget and presumably state university budgets are public information. Why hasn't anyone quantified this for us? I see it given as at least a partial reason, but it seems like it should be easy to see what the state was giving Rutgers in 1992 per student (relative to tuition), and today.

To your other point about the makeup of the faculty - shouldn't that be driving costs down, not up?

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:56 am So the total cost of a year at Rutgers has risen from about $5329 to $32670. Inflation would account for a jump of $5329 to about $11470. So to answer the first two questions above - what caused the jump of an additional $21200 per year, and is it "reasonable"?

Administrative costs, aka technology on a constant refresh contributes but not that much. If it's like around here, it's because there is more and more going in to competitive campuses and campus lives. More entertainment, new buildings, new accoutrements, more staff, more staff, more staff... And then a good chunk of it is for donor payback and not for students. I remember my tuition was going to build a business school golfcourse that wasn't even generally available for students and to build a campus hotel. And that was when EMU had doubled it rates from about $800 to $1600 a semester when I was commuter over the eight years it took me to get my four year degree. And boy did we have to fight to allow me to be a commuter. After I was accepted and got my classes, they insisted that freshman year had to be lived in the dorms which would have taken tuition from $800 to some low thousands, even with in state tuition rates in 1988 money. They also said I couldn't work, as if they had any right to know. That was the first I had ever heard of "the college experience" a concept that would get bat around again and again. I have mixed feelings on such things. I was left out of a lot, but I also escaped debt, and I may have well joined several friends who joined AA and many others who partied worked up the bills and dropped out with debt and failing grades. There is no way to know for sure but that was the crowd I ran with.

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:15 pm
I can see that lost revenue from the State has helped contribute. The NJ budget and presumably state university budgets are public information. Why hasn't anyone quantified this for us?

Here's the link I posted a while back - between 2000 and 2014, NJ state funding cut $3K spending per student while costs rose approximately $5K for each student.

However, for 17 states the cuts per students were at least as large as the increase in costs per student (in other words, in theory, if the funding had stayed consistent, the cost for students would have dropped a little).

Using the data in that table, the cuts in the various states account, on average, for [back of the envelope math] approximately 83% of the increases (of course, states aren't equal - some have more public universities and students than others. And of course, this data is almost 10 years old at this point)

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 4:15 pm I can see that lost revenue from the State has helped contribute. The NJ budget and presumably state university budgets are public information. Why hasn't anyone quantified this for us? I see it given as at least a partial reason, but it seems like it should be easy to see what the state was giving Rutgers in 1992 per student (relative to tuition), and today.

You'd think so. At one point (like 17 years ago)I had detailed breakdowns for a community college (% changes to annual budget via reduced state aid), but they've been lost to the sands of time.

To your other point about the makeup of the faculty - shouldn't that be driving costs down, not up?

Middle-management. They added layers and layers of middle managers (with academic backgrounds) to help them attract more students - offices of student improvement, student engagement, donations, sports, etc... and to help fund the addition of staff and amenities that would help generate revenue, they cut F/T tenured positions and replaced them with lower wage temp / gig workers.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 12:17 pm

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 3:03 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 1:33 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2023 10:44 pm Self-pay discounts are common practice.

Which probably represents a more “fair” market price for the service. Lots of caveats there, and the quotes heavily emphasized.

I assumed it was an example that even the insurance amount is inflated.

Yes, this.

The insurance amount is at a level that allows the insurance companies to be profitable. I wouldn't call it inflated. Theoretically it's below premiums.

The billed charge is inflated because insurances usually have contract language that pay the lesser of billed charges or the contracted rates. So a hospital will never price below their highest insurance rate. And often several times that because some contacts pay a % of billed charge rather than a fee schedule. To say it is complicated is an understatement.

Also keep in mind that the price you pay a hospital facility (as opposed to say, a PCP office) includes the cost to keep the doors open when no one is there. ERs and hospitals are open 24 hours regardless of how busy they are. Yes, they can adjust staffing somewhat depending on census, but it's not cheap to keep doctors, nurses, and all the support staff on the ready 24-7. So you're not just paying for the service you receive but also the ability to get it whenever you need it. Obviously this is different for non-emergent services.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 5:01 pm

To your other point about the makeup of the faculty - shouldn't that be driving costs down, not up?

Middle-management. They added layers and layers of middle managers (with academic backgrounds) to help them attract more students - offices of student improvement, student engagement, donations, sports, etc... and to help fund the addition of staff and amenities that would help generate revenue, they cut F/T tenured positions and replaced them with lower wage temp / gig workers.

Harvard "boasts" an administrator ratio of 3:1 vs faculty and almost 1:1 per undergrad student. Admin costs were about $45K/student per year.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/12/27 ... ge-dreams/

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:54 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 5:01 pm

To your other point about the makeup of the faculty - shouldn't that be driving costs down, not up?

Middle-management. They added layers and layers of middle managers (with academic backgrounds) to help them attract more students - offices of student improvement, student engagement, donations, sports, etc... and to help fund the addition of staff and amenities that would help generate revenue, they cut F/T tenured positions and replaced them with lower wage temp / gig workers.

Harvard "boasts" an administrator ratio of 3:1 vs faculty and almost 1:1 per undergrad student. Admin costs were about $45K/student per year.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/12/27 ... ge-dreams/

One administrator per student? They must have a lot of free time.

Is it real or there is a corruption going on where they make up fake headcounts to steal money from the university?

Victoria Raverna wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:18 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:54 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 5:01 pm

To your other point about the makeup of the faculty - shouldn't that be driving costs down, not up?

Middle-management. They added layers and layers of middle managers (with academic backgrounds) to help them attract more students - offices of student improvement, student engagement, donations, sports, etc... and to help fund the addition of staff and amenities that would help generate revenue, they cut F/T tenured positions and replaced them with lower wage temp / gig workers.

Harvard "boasts" an administrator ratio of 3:1 vs faculty and almost 1:1 per undergrad student. Admin costs were about $45K/student per year.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/12/27 ... ge-dreams/

One administrator per student? They must have a lot of free time.

Is it real or there is a corruption going on where they make up fake headcounts to steal money from the university?

Institutions like Harvard do not exist primarily to educate students.

For Harvard, education is only one amongst several missions. I'm sure they'd argue it is their "core" mission but they like most higher education institutions service grants and have widespread R&D involvement, plus they have a significant endowment to manage. Also, Harvard and other elite institutions are a poor model to look at to figure out the big picture. It would be like trying to use the Top 4 Premier League teams as a model for all of English football.

“DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University is giving free tuition to students whose families make less than $150,000.

Full tuition grants will be given to undergraduate students admitted to the university who live in North and South Carolina, and whose household incomes are less than $150,000.”

According to the university’s paper, The Duke Chronicle, the Board of Trustees approved a 4.9% increase for the upcoming school year. Increasing the total cost of attendance to more than $83,000.

Yeah, but then you need to live in North or South Carolina. F- that.

Princeton is doing something similar, but good luck getting in. 5 percent acceptance rate. Insane.

Octavious wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:01 pm Princeton is doing something similar, but good luck getting in. 5 percent acceptance rate. Insane.

Yeah, I should have noted the fine print - which is that there are 384 slots (or something around there) total available for this program.

Debt for 800K+ people has been forgiven:

The Education Department announced Friday it would automatically forgive student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

The action is a result of what the department calls a “fix” to income-driven repayment plans. It's expected to total $39 billion in federal student loan forgiveness.

The department said the move will address administrative issues in the income-driven repayment system. Under the plans, federal student loan borrowers are eligible for forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of payments, depending on the plan. But for some, qualifying payments that “should have moved borrowers closer to forgiveness were not accounted for,” it said in a news release

But...capitalism!

Awesome, although the hand-wringing at his workaround is going to be intense.

It likely won't affect me. Thanks to disability, I've frequently had my loan payments on forbearance. I'm not sure I've made enough payments to qualify.

While it would be nice to not have that on my credit history anymore, it's unlikely to have a big impact on me. It's nearly impossible (short of the lottery I don't play) that I will ever be able to repay even a portion of it.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 12:38 pm Awesome, although the hand-wringing at his workaround is going to be intense.

It likely won't affect me. Thanks to disability, I've frequently had my loan payments on forbearance. I'm not sure I've made enough payments to qualify.

While it would be nice to not have that on my credit history anymore, it's unlikely to have a big impact on me. It's nearly impossible (short of the lottery I don't play) that I will ever be able to repay even a portion of it.

Apparently I was wrong - they're factoring months in long-term forbearance into this. I decided to log into the website to check exactly what I owe and how things stand. Good lord, what a terrible, clunky website. I feel like I'm back on 26k dial-up trying to visit an early Flash site. Click a link. Go make breakfast. Click 'use phone.' Go do housework. Click 'Verify phone.' Put in the code, read OO. Click continue. "An unknown error has occurred. Please close all windows and try again later." I've now verified my phone three times.

Seriously, it's taking multiple minutes to load each page.

It's the same kind of over-designed, overly sleek, sluggish, barely usable website that the utility companies use that make paying a bill a pain in the ass.

FWIW, my student loans have been wiped, about $18,000 worth from the mid-90s.

It doesn't really help me much. Since I'm on disability, I've been on forbearance for years. The only thing it really does is remove the extra debt from the back of my mind, and might help my credit score a bit (if it's ever removed.)

At the same time, it's a little heartbreaking. I didn't want to leave school, but I had to due to a family emergency on the other side of the country three weeks in to the semester that ended up taking a full month. And I spent years desperately trying to return to finish (my last semester was 1994, and I didn't fully give up on it until around 2013.) It hasn't been a possibility for a while, but now the book has actually been closed on the last 'active' part of the thing.

At least it's closure. I suspect you'll feel more positive about it in the following months, but as you've written, it's just a fresh reminder of a disappointing time in your life.

I've had similar things happen. It went back into the background relatively quickly. As you say, I hope it becomes one less burden to carry around.

Honestly, I mostly feel neutral about it. It isn't going to affect my finances at all. It'll boost my credit score a little, but I'm not really in a position to use it (I'm not apply for any jobs, nor am I likely to taking out a loan, moving into expensive apartments, applying for credit cards, or buying anything that involves payments - there's no room in my budget for more expenses.) And my credit rating isn't terrible now, just mediocre (I haven't missed a payment on anything - not once - in 15 years), and it'll still be mediocre after this, so I already qualify for pretty much anything I can afford.

I'm not on the floor over the college bit - it's mostly just a bittersweet realization and acceptance.

I mean, I'm glad that it's gone, but I'd have been happier had it gone to someone actually struggling to pay who doesn't qualify for forgiveness.

I wonder if it was better for the lender to clear nonperforming loans from their books. Was it a federal or bank loan?

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2023 4:18 pm I wonder if it was better for the lender to clear nonperforming loans from their books. Was it a federal or bank loan?

Lessee... I think it was a series of subsidized loans made through a bank, but it's been 30 years, and the loan has been passed around so many times that I honestly don't remember.

If you weren’t forgiven, then something was wrong with the program. It may not feel meaningful, but you’re exactly in the situation that government help is warranted — forgiveness is better than forbearance.

Well, finally got the message that I've been waiting for:

"Congratulations! We completed our review of your repayment and qualifying employment history under the PSLF
Program rules including the limited PSLF waiver explained below, and awarded PSLF credit based on these
requirements. We determined you have successfully met the requirements of the PSLF Program and your loans
listed below have been forgiven. Thank you for your public service!"

It was a pain getting everthing certified, and I had to call my student loan servicer to complain once about an improperly processed document, but it turns out that teaching for non-profits for 10 years+ was a pretty good idea.

I am now 100% debt free.

Congrats!

Woot woot!

Hamlet3145 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 27, 2024 10:26 pm teaching for non-profits for 10 years+ was a pretty good idea.

I am now 100% debt free.

I'd call that a good idea regardless, but you certainly earned the debt forgiveness.

attaboy

Kraken wrote: ↑Sun Jan 28, 2024 1:07 am

Hamlet3145 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 27, 2024 10:26 pm teaching for non-profits for 10 years+ was a pretty good idea.

I am now 100% debt free.

I'd call that a good idea regardless, but you certainly earned the debt forgiveness.

+1! Congrats!