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Comment by SixSigma | Hacker News Reader

My University has five floors of library and a multi million pound budget that includes student access to online electronic versions of books and journals.

It also hosts regular events and guest speakers.

It organises paid industrial placements for students, foriegn exchange programmes at no extra cost, it's own concert hall, a super-computer and, until he stepped down this year, you got your degree handed to you by Sir Patrick Stewart (Capt. Picard) but for my graduation I will have to make do with Prince Andrew.

There are more benefits my tution goes toward.

Economies of scale are a thing.

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"Economies of scale are a thing."

Yes, economies of scale are a thing. They generally cause average cost per unit of output to decrease, as total output increases.

As I said, for the $100k/pa cost quoted by the article, a single student could afford to pay for pay+tax+benefits for a 1:1 tutor, 20 hours per week.

Given that most university lectures/seminars/tutorials have a much larger student:teacher ratio, economies of scale should mean universities would achieve a much lower cost of tuition.

I get that universities do other things. I get that they need to build and maintain infrastructure. I get that they need to subscribe to journals. But all of that is spread over all of their students.

Regarding the example you introduced: The University of Huddersfield has ~20k students. Its total expenditure is ~120m GBP ($180MM) per year[0]. That's about $9k per student per year. That's less than 1/10th of the $100k expenditure per student quoted in the original article.

[0] http://www.hud.ac.uk/media/universityofhuddersfield/content2...

And my fees are $14k per annum. My debt will be about $70k upon graduation (living expenses etc.).

For three years of existence, I think that's pretty reasonable. I finished my first year with $1500 still in the bank and I lived in expensive accommodation.

Huddersfield is building a new $40m law school this year. It recently built a $20m business school and is debt free.

But my real point was that one-to-one tutoring is not the same as attending classes.

Yes, that's pretty reasonable. That's my point. Why do famous US universities need to spend 10x as much? Who benefits, over what time scale?

Since 1987, higher education institutions have doubled the ratio of nonacademic employees to faculty. There are now two nonacademic employees at public and two and a half at private universities and colleges for every one full-time, tenure-track member of the faculty.

Yet, the universities are pumping out roughly the same number of graduates.

Why such high growth in administrators? Is our education now better than 1987? How come every other industry is cutting costs, while higher education is increasing costs and beaurocracy?

It is interesting how produce-nothing bureaucrats always manage to multiply like insects. The same pattern applies to the government, health care, etc. That's why we urgently need to go back to free (or as close to free as possible) markets - to keep this scum in check.

And no, higher education is not a free market, despite appearances.

That ratio is also influenced by the shift away from full-time tenure-track positions. Contract teaching has been rising.

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