Parece mentira que entre tanta gente en esta ciudad, no tenga a nadie con quien compartir la vista desde mi casa este sábado.
“Mediodía” por Café Tacuba
I stayed home from school today. I missed a meeting with Fabian Nuñez, the speaker of the California Assembly. But it’s okay, because other students went and probably did a good job of urging him to go to the UC Regents meeting next month and vote against yet another fee increase for graduate, professional, and undergraduate students.
I was telling Isa that we did our undergrad education at a good time. When we started, California had a lot of money in revenue and an economy that was doing pretty well. That meant that for the first time in years, the UC Regents not only froze fees (tuition), but they also rolled them back a bit. True, it still cost about $13-14,000 a year to go to school and live on campus, but it looked like a big difference compared to the cost of attending that other school across town where tuition, room & board, supplies and other living expenses were about $30,000. I still took out student loans, but it was the smallest part of my financial aid package, which covered all my costs. I had a Cal Grant pay for my fees — there is no such thing as tuition in California — and a Pell Grant pay for other expenses such as books and housing. My parents actually did not contribute too much because of our family income. By my second year, I started working about 10 hours a week at a workstudy job. I also got a scholarship or two. Education was affordable for me and my family, but I still came out with some debt. Education expenses remained pretty constant for my 4 years as an undergrad, but now they’ve more than doubled.
A first year student living in on-campus housing can expect to pay $22,653. That’s still half of what first years would pay at that other school, $44,582 ($32,008 for tuition alone).
Now, I’m a graduate student, and my fees are even higher. Last year, I had a research assistantship which included fee remission and a salary. This year, I don’t have that but just found out that I will have about $15,500 from my department for year of engagement funding. That may have been cool in 1998 when it would have covered my costs, but when my educational costs are esimated at $27,157 ($9,000 for fees), it still sucks. I’m just glad I’m not a student in one of the professional graduate programs (law, medicine, dentistry, nursing, public policy, public health, and film & television). Their fees were increased even more. So much for the advantage of an affordable… or even free (!) UC education.
Yeah, I know you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking. If costs at two major LA universities have gone from $13,000 to $22,000 and $31,000 to $44,500 in seven years, what’s it going to look like when we we have children?
College fees are out of this world. I AM scared about what it will cost when my daughter is ready for college. I am stressed out right now about what her college fees and she won’t be going for another 10 years!
Major bummer, if you add a “Cindy’s Ed. Fund” button to this blog, I’m sure many would give what they could to help. Also, I’d ask your department for an increase to your “engagement funding” — and maybe we could plan a fun fundraiser, a party?, a dinner?, a trip somewhere?, an online auction? or such….
Money is the main reason i decided on not moving to Boston and going to school out there this Jan.
It sucks. I can definitely relate about the price hikes….in my two yrs at ucla, i took out 20K in loans. Don’t you wish you were rich? I sure do! Hehe
I always find it interesting how so many people, on one hand, complain about the cost of education, but on the other hand, don’t see how many things they support have been the cause of that increased cost. Let me help connect the dots on why education is so expensive.
1. Government subsidization of schools decreases competition among universities, and like anything else, when a sector of the economy has less competition prices go up. In addition, universities usually redirect the money to programs that benefit high-income students – or that benefit no students at all. A much better way to help the poor go to college is to replace overall university subsidization with a progressive voucher system, in other words, a system where the government gives tax breaks and income directly to poor families that are sending their kids to universities, giving more money the poorer the family is. So instead of university subsidization, we should have poor family subsidization. That way we can guarantee that the subsidization goes to those it is supposed to benefit, the poor, and this also has the benefit of increasing competition among universities, forcing them to compete at a more equal footing with other new and for profit universities, and forcing them to compete for the new pool of poor students that would be created with the progressive voucher system.
2. Government backed student loans artificially increase the number of students going to universities, which increases demand, which again, increases the cost of education.
3. Traditional universities refusal to create, or work towards, a system that allows for the easy flow of class credits among universities. This helps to increase the universities monopoly, and helps to significantly stifle competition, two things that help increase prices. In fact, the University of California has been one of the most vocal opponents.
4. All of the recent add-ons of the modern day university have significantly increased prices, examples of those are given by economist Arnold Kling, he writes,
Remember that 1993 hunger strike that UCLA students did to get a ‘Chicano Studies’ department? Well, I hope they don’t think that that came at no trade-off, higher educational costs being the primary one.
With all of that said, I still don’t think that one can assume that educational costs are just going to keep going up and up. Even with all of the above, there are still some recent developments that have a large potential in significantly reducing education costs, for example, in the above article, Kling discusses having less location specific courses and instead have a single lecturer broadcast to students all across the country. For example, my company currently pays for masters in electrical engineering from USC and Stanford University, both of which broadcast their lectures to companies around the world. So in the end, we could get our masters from these universities without ever stepping on campus.
But what has the most potential for decreasing education costs, IMO, is outsourcing. Kling touches on this when he writes, “Rather than rely on an internally-selected faculty, a college might turn to a specialized supplier. That supplier might provide instructional videos and software in addition to live professors. Rather than enjoy the privilege of institutional tenure, professors might sell their lecture time through agencies that book popular speakers”.
But in the end, politicians like Fabian Nuñez and others are going to address the problem at the university level, not the poor family level, thereby making the costs of education more expensive in the long run, not less expensive. Let’s hope the markets are quicker than the politicians, so that, as they have in the past, they will help us overcome the bad decisions of our politicians in Washington and Sacramento.
Kelly,
Have her start working on her scholarship applications now.
Frances,
My financial situation isn’t so bad. My department actually did increase my funding after they found out I didn’t have an official research assistantship. My elected position comes with a nice stipend which would be equal to working about 10 hrs a week at the same rate I’d get as a research assistant.
Brenda,
Ouch. 20K for two years is horrible, but you got in when fees started going up.
HP,
That article you linked to says nothing about the UC opposing the credit thing. As usual, most of what you write is a whole lotta BS.
I dream REGULARLY of scholarships for my daughter. I am pushing her academically at home above and beyond what she gets at school. She is in a Spanish immersion school so she will be bilingual and biliterate. I also have had her in violin since age 3. I am going to work the scholarships at EVERY angle that I can. Every little bit will help…
You may not have to worry about your children. If you do go into academia, most schools have reciprocal tuition benefits. One of the few benefits for putting in so many years at school.
I like your entry quote.
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