Amerikan Colleges- Country Clubs?

[Dreadnaught]

I'll withhold opinion here, curious if this strikes a chord with anyone.

Rising Share of College Spending Goes to Recreation
By SAM DILLON
Published: July 8, 2010

American colleges are spending a smaller share of their budgets on instruction, and more on recreational facilities for students and on administration, according to a new study of college costs.

The report, based on government data, documents a growing stratification of wealth across America’s system of higher education.

At the top of the pyramid are private colleges and universities, which educate a small portion of the nation’s students, while public universities and community colleges serve greater numbers, have fewer resources and are seeing tuitions rise most rapidly.

The study of trends in revenues and spending by American institutions of higher education from 1998 through 2008 traces how the patterns at elite private institutions like Harvard University and Amherst College differed from sprawling public universities like Ohio State and community colleges like Alabama Southern.

The United States is reputed to have the world’s wealthiest postsecondary education system, with average spending of around $19,000 per student compared with $8,400 across other developed countries, says the report, “Trends in College Spending 1998-2008,” by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit group in Washington that advocates for controlling costs to keep college affordable.

“Our analysis shows that these comparisons are misleading,” said Jane Wellman, the project’s executive director. “While the United States has some of the wealthiest institutions in the world, it also has a ‘system’ of postsecondary education with far more economic stratification than is true of any other country.”

Community colleges, which enroll about a third of students, spend close to $10,000 per student per year, Ms. Wellman said, while the private research institutions, which enroll far fewer students, spend an average $35,000 a year for each one.

Undergraduate and graduate enrollments nationwide grew to 18.6 million students overall in 2008 from 14.8 million in 1998, an increase of 26 percent, the report said. Among all the sectors that make up American postsecondary education, public community colleges added the most students over the decade, growing to 6.3 million from 5 million.

Enrollment at private colleges and universities, by comparison, grew to 2 million students from 1.8 million in the 10 years.

Tuition, on average, rose more rapidly over the decade at public institutions than it did at private ones. Average tuition rose 45 percent at public research universities and 36 percent at community colleges from 1998 to 2008, compared with about 21 percent at private research universities.

But the trend toward increased spending on nonacademic areas prevailed across the higher education spectrum, with public and private, elite and community colleges increasing expenditures more for student services than for instruction, the report said.

The student services category can include spending on career counseling and financial aid offices, but also on intramural athletics and student centers.

“This is the country-clubization of the American university,” said Richard Vedder, a professor at Ohio University who studies the economics of higher education. “A lot of it is for great athletic centers and spectacular student union buildings. In the zeal to get students, they are going after them on the basis of recreational amenities.”

On average, spending on instruction increased 22 percent over the decade at private research universities, about the same as tuition, but 36 percent for student services and 36 percent for institutional support, a category that includes general administration, legal services and public relations, the study said.

At public research universities, spending for student services rose 20 percent over the decade, compared with 10 percent for instruction.

Even at community colleges, with their far smaller budgets, spending on students services increased 9.5 percent, compared with 3.4 percent for instruction.

The study also said that the recession that began in the last months of 2008 has dramatically changed the economics of higher education, probably forever.

“The funding models we’ve created in higher ed are not sustainable,” Ms. Wellman said. “We ran up spending in the ’90s and early 2000s to levels we can’t maintain, and this is true not only in the elite privates, but in many of the public institutions, too.”

Now, with private-college endowments battered and state legislatures slashing university budgets coast to coast, “policymakers as well as university presidents and boards must learn to be better stewards of tuition and taxpayer dollars,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/ed...education.html

[Aimless]

Hmm, why would you withhold your opinions?

Recreation is important for learning, but yeah, so maybe your unis are spending too much money on their fancy peacock-tails. Then again, don't they have to?? They're behind the times. The pharmaceutical industry has been ahead of them in this matter of prioritising marketing over improving their products for many years now.

[Nessus]

If everyone wants a college edumacation, ostensibly there will be supply to meet this demand. Not everyone who attends college wants to glean learning inasmuch as a certificate of their capability of passing some college, any college, as that is expected in the job market (I understand). Is it surprising that booze-hound colleges provide a booze-hound experience? Or, more importantly, that as the number of institutions rises, the competition for the kiddy-winks means resorting to pandering to the lowest denominators? I've mocked the US obsession with schooling institution sports before, but that's been a bit of a sacred cow I think.

Hmm, why would you withhold your opinions?

Recreation is important for learning, but yeah, so maybe your unis are spending too much money on their fancy peacock-tails. Then again, don't they have to?? They're behind the times. The pharmaceutical industry has been ahead of them in this matter of prioritising marketing over improving their products for many years now.

This is a wonderful post

[']['ear]

This is nothing new. The higher education amenities arms race has been going for quite a while. In a status- and money-obsessed culture, getting into the top schools has become an industry, since that is considered the path to prosperity. And there is something to that notion. Consequently the top schools are in a continuing arms race to attract the best students, and thus maintain their all-important US News and World report ranking. They can only do so much for the academic end, but they can do a lot for the facilities end to beef up the appeal. Sure, the superficial students are the ones who fall for that, but a heckuva lot of students are superficial at age 17, when they are looking.

Yes, this adds cost. Lots of cost. It also probably increases the class divide. I went to a top 10 private small liberal arts college in the mid 80s, and coming from the same family almost certainly couldn't afford to today (though many schools provide need-blind admissions, I think I'd have serious second thoughts about taking on that much more debt than I did then).

Did you see this at Penn, Dread? Certainly you graduated recently enough. I am too old, and there was none of that when I was in college (or maybe there was, since a fancy new student center was built a couple of years before I started, and a swank new student athletic center, not varsity but for all students, was built a few years after I left).

The REAL problem is that schools are also under pressure to keep costs down. So the concern is that education suffers for cosmetic reasons, and the overall quality of our universities decreases. We have lesser educational opportunities across the board, plus we are less competitive globally at a time when the developed world is continually competing better. All of this because the McMansion generation of kids can't handle living in a dorm with painted cinder block walls.

And during the same time America has swung to the right, resents taxes more and doesn't want to fund universities. This intensifies competition to get students, increase rank, etc., and education budgets will get cut more.


Edit: Huh, can't help but reflect on how much of this smells like Big Pharma, with their 1/3 of total budget going into advertising.

Edit 2: And I see Minx beat me to that analogy. Frack! That is Minx, isn't it? Changing stupid names mutter mutter.

[Loki]

That article is highly misleading. It includes career counseling, financial aid assistance, and student centers as being for "recreation", which is clearly ridiculous. The only valid point there is about spending on sports, but the article doesn't mean how much of the additional "recreation" spending is going to sports versus the areas that no sane person would oppose.

[']['ear]

Like I said, I've read several articles like this over recent years, but they actually cited stats. The quality of housing facilities has skyrocketed. Also, I can testify to my own alma mater doing this.

[Loki]

Is that really a bad thing? Most dorms are still worse than a studio.

[LittleFuzzy]

I have trouble blasting upgrades to the housing facilities myself. I spent several years at UCSC living in a multi-unit trailer set down in a quarry and considered it superior to the idea of living in a single in one of the dorms *returning students were always assigned to the singles by the housing office* The singles in all the old construction were freaking coffins. Incredibly bad lighting, no room to place lamps of your own unless you wanted to forgo space to put your textbooks, etc. And when I say they were coffins, I also mean they were actually shaped like coffins. Narrower at the door, and it widened out a little as it extended toward the window. I think the dimensions were something like 10' long *counting the closet and the window frame* and 6.5' wide at the window.

[']['ear]

Obviously my experience (and yours) was an N of 1, right? But I had no problem with mine. Spartan, but better than adding a couple of thousand per year in loans.

[Loki]

It's hardly unreasonable to give undergrad the option of living like human beings. I would imagine that living in a hellhole affects one's ability to learn.

[']['ear]

Mine was nowhere near a hellhole, and I'm skeptical that anybody else here experienced one, though the terms "spoiled kid" and "entitlement" do spring to mind.

But to make everything fancy is to price out people. Like me. Sure, give them the option to pay for an upgrade if they want. To make all of the facilities posh is to do exactly what the article says. I wanted to pay for an excellent education, not freakin club med.

[GGT]

“The funding models we’ve created in higher ed are not sustainable,” Ms. Wellman said. “We ran up spending in the ’90s and early 2000s to levels we can’t maintain, and this is true not only in the elite privates, but in many of the public institutions, too.”

Now, with private-college endowments battered and state legislatures slashing university budgets coast to coast, “policymakers as well as university presidents and boards must learn to be better stewards of tuition and taxpayer dollars,” she said.

I agree with the premise. While "touring" colleges and universities with my son, I saw it first hand. Brand new state-of-the-art.....dorms and student centers, multiple coffee shops and fancy ethnic food, sandwich shops with leather sofas and big screen tvs, climbing walls, Olympic sized pools, huge work-out gyms with saunas and whirlpools, marble floors with 3 story atriums and waterfalls to enter a library that had more space for lounging than books, plump chairs with drink holders and wifi and outlets for gadgets.

[']['ear]

A lot of this stuff affects rankings, of course. I remember a few years back an article talking about libraries padding their collections to move up in rankings. Then of course there was Macalaster college skyrocketing up through the rankings when they got a huge donation to their endowment. I remember asking myself, are they really better than they were last year?

But the posh investments are mostly a recruiting tool. Padding library size and other stuff is a different matter.

Funny how it reflects our current societal values. Superficiality over substance, and paying for things you can't afford.

[GGT]

A lot of this stuff affects rankings, of course. I remember a few years back an article talking about libraries padding their collections to move up in rankings. Then of course there was Macalaster college skyrocketing up through the rankings when they got a huge donation to their endowment. I remember asking myself, are they really better than they were last year?

But the posh investments are mostly a recruiting tool. Padding library size and other stuff is a different matter.

Funny how it reflects our current societal values. Superficiality over substance, and paying for things you can't afford.

Yeah They also used their bursar's office and "student financial services" as a recruiting tool, and how to maneuver the loan process. Never mind that some students or parents don't see the trap in borrowing $200,000 for a four year degree in.....well I won't name just one, but there are many degrees offered that don't have a job market. Then they act surprised to graduate heavily in debt with no career prospects, and end up living at home again.

I also hate to see how much money is spent on athletes and team sports, huge arenas and all that. I understand the "economics" of it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. It's not like it really makes our higher education BETTER.

[']['ear]

Actually, you may not understand the economics of the sports. It's profitable for top programs, but those are a minority. For most schools, big time sports lose money. There's a lot of misinformation on this score, of course, just as with the value of pro franchises to local economies. But what sports ARE successful at is recruiting students.

Heck, the local university where I grew up decided to go division I and add a football team. To pay for it (in part) they added $1000 to student fees. Great deal, eh? Especially for a school built specifically to educate poor black kids from the urban blight 20 miles down the road.

[Loki]

Mine was nowhere near a hellhole, and I'm skeptical that anybody else here experienced one, though the terms "spoiled kid" and "entitlement" do spring to mind.

But to make everything fancy is to price out people. Like me. Sure, give them the option to pay for an upgrade if they want. To make all of the facilities posh is to do exactly what the article says. I wanted to pay for an excellent education, not freakin club med.

By "club med", you mean making dorms similar quality to studio apartments? You yourself called dorms "spartan". It doesn't help that most dorms have 2 people per room. Pray tell which colleges have all posh dorms.

[GGT]

Actually, you may not understand the economics of the sports. It's profitable for top programs, but those are a minority. For most schools, big time sports lose money. There's a lot of misinformation on this score, of course, just as with the value of pro franchises to local economies. But what sports ARE successful at is recruiting students.

Heck, the local university where I grew up decided to go division I and add a football team. To pay for it (in part) they added $1000 to student fees. Great deal, eh? Especially for a school built specifically to educate poor black kids from the urban blight 20 miles down the road.

My only point was that using athletics to court more students, who pay more fees, to get more students....does NOT mean it's a better overall education. Especially if they're busy building bigger stadiums and parking lots, to sell more tickets, to build a fancy hotel-type dorm with restaurant food. Instead of actually recruiting great teachers and improving their curriculum.

[Loki]

Athletics are also pretty useful in getting alumni to pony up money. In fact, more alumni seem to care about anything marginally related to the sports teams than they do about massive academic problems.

[GGT]

It's the LaBron James effect. yay?

[Loki]

Eh? This has been going on since before LeBron was born (there's also the fact he never went to college).

[GGT]

*sigh* Our society is infatuated with superstars, in sports or Hollywood. We build entire schools and cities around that. We use entertainment to support things like education and tourism. I suppose it works, for capitalism anyway.

Just not convinced it's made our schools full of more educated people, or cities whose economies can stand on their own when a team (or player) leaves.

[LittleFuzzy]

Obviously my experience (and yours) was an N of 1, right? But I had no problem with mine. Spartan, but better than adding a couple of thousand per year in loans.

I mention it mostly because UCSC saw a large wave of new construction starting about a year after I arrived. Two new "college" administrative/housing units, two or three new academic buildings, and new "apartment" housing at several of the older colleges, which were a substantial improvement over the original housing, even in those colleges which already had student apartments and not just dorms.

I got to experience dorms, those trailers, old apartments, and new apartments in my time at UCSC. The school rightly considers it a good thing to keep a decent number of the continuing students on campus, thinking that it enriches campus life, even academically, and no one in their right mind, with any alternative, would want to stay on campus if they were limited to the old housing, despite the scary-high price of off-campus housing.

I should say that not all of the old housing was bad. As an entering freshmen I was in a double, and those are actually reasonable rooms *aside from the ground floor, which I was on, getting so hot from the furnace underneath that it was uncomfortable to walk on and could dry your clothes faster than the laundry room* The lighting is still awful but you can actually use a lamp and the window is large enough that you don't need supplementary lighting during the day. It's the singles in the dorms which were godawful. Well, those and the doubles converted to triples, and some of the old triples converted to quadruples, as a result of the insufficient facilities for the increasing size of the entering classes leading to, among other things, those two new colleges. Which also have much better dorms than the old colleges.

[Loki]

*sigh* Our society is infatuated with superstars, in sports or Hollywood. We build entire schools and cities around that. We use entertainment to support things like education and tourism. I suppose it works, for capitalism anyway.

Just not convinced it's made our schools full of more educated people, or cities whose economies can stand on their own when a team (or player) leaves.

You totally miss the point. College athletics isn't about superstars. It's about common attachment to something. You get this even in colleges where the sports teams are crap and have no decent players.

[GGT]

You totally miss the point. College athletics isn't about superstars. It's about common attachment to something. You get this even in colleges where the sports teams are crap and have no decent players.

Oh, I get the "point". Team Spirit, identifying with a group. It fosters loyalty, competition, pride: it connects individuals to a collective whole, some common thing to cheer for. It's not too different from nationalism or patriotism, just on a smaller scale.

I just don't think it's related to better higher education standards. European and Asian universities don't use athletic programs to improve their schools. They still have team sports and love their athletics, but it's not tied to educational opportunities like it is in the USA. So how is the US doing in comparison to the rest of the world, as far as highly educated college grads go....?

[Loki]

European universities also receive far less funding and virtually no money from alumni.

[GGT]

European universities also receive far less funding and virtually no money from alumni.

Yet they manage to have a highly competitive and top notch secondary educational system, and graduate students with an excellent education.

[Loki]

Yet they manage to have a highly competitive and top notch secondary educational system, and graduate students with an excellent education.

Erm, what does them having an excellent secondary education system have to do with them also having underfunded universities? As for their grad students having an excellent education, those grad students are rarely funded, have to work in inferior labs, with inferior professors, and are generally limited to a handful of good institutions per country.

[GGT]

Erm, what does them having an excellent secondary education system have to do with them also having underfunded universities? As for their grad students having an excellent education, those grad students are rarely funded, have to work in inferior labs, with inferior professors, and are generally limited to a handful of good institutions per country.

Only that it's not related to sports / athletics?

Others manage to have great schools and great athletes, but never mix the two. It's curious as to why the US thinks we can't have top notch universities, or athletes, without combining those two different (and sometimes but not always) diametric opposites, even when other nations manage to do so.

[Loki]

Only that it's not related to sports / athletics?

Others manage to have great schools and great athletes, but never mix the two. It's curious as to why the US thinks we can't have top notch universities, or athletes, without combining those two different (and sometimes but not always) diametric opposites, even when other nations manage to do so.

Eh? As far as I know, the US is the only country high-caliber student athletes, so no, other countries don't mix the two.

[GGT]

Eh? As far as I know, the US is the only country high-caliber student athletes, so no, other countries don't mix the two.

That was my point.

Yet, other countries still have great schools, with high-caliber students. They also have great and talented athletes. We even have the Olympics as the great global match to show us.

Academics does NOT have to be connected to sports. But in the US, they are. It's a shame that some very bright students can't get scholarships, because they're given to athletes instead.