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Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

> Sometimes I do wonder why American Universities charge exorbitant tuition fee?

Students demand a lot. Good profs. Dorms with AC. Sports teams. Medical care.

All that cost a lot.

States and federal gov't pays less each year. The difference has to come from somewhere?

In any case, its not perfect but I will take US colleges 100x over Japanese Colleges or Chinese Colleges or Mexican Colleges or 98% of the colleges in the world.

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I went to university in 2008. We did not have dorms with AC. The dorm I lived in was built in the 40s or 50s. Tuition (no relation to dorm costs) was still rising rapidly. Now my alma mater has new dorms with AC, but they cost far more than the older dorms (which are still available). Tuition has continued to rise since then, albeit more gradually.

My university did not provide free medical care. Professor quality has not quantifiably improved over that time.

Have sports team costs increased so rapidly in the last 10-15 years?

Even if US colleges are better than 98% of the world (which I doubt, it seems like you conveniently forgot Canada, Europe, Australia, etc.) employers are mostly using that degree as a box tick. Convincing students they need the exhorbitantly priced best when they really don't still seems predatory to me.

Personally I paid the equivalent of 16kUSD for a 4 year software degree in New Zealand, and my fortune 500 employer seems fine with it. A foreigner would have to pay double, but that's still far from US prices.

There is a big range. You can get a 4 year "software degree" from a community college in the US for no more than 20k USD. Most of the big numbers you see toted are for private university, or giant flagship campuses. Many schools do offer cheaper deals at the smaller campuses. Don't buy the hype that any college degree in the US cost $200k.

This seems to be based on some misinformation. Tuition only covers a small portion of a university's costs. The rest is made up by endowments, grants, donations, and other sources.

People have been going to college in this country for a long time and only relatively recently has the outstanding amount of loans and those in delinquency have shot up. I have a hard time believing the reason is having good professors and air conditioning.

I bet they'd gladly pay $10'000 less per year even if it meant no $100M football stadium.

If you read my posts further down, Football is one of the only net positives for most universities. So getting rid of Football may raise your tuition by $500.

Now if you got rid of swimming, lacrosse, cross country, track, cricket, etc. etc., that would lower tuition by a bit.

>Students demand a lot. Good profs. Dorms with AC. Sports teams. Medical care.

Why would you expect your university to provide dorms for you? This whole living on campus thing on Anglo universities was always weird to me. You'd only expect perks like that if you pay thousands of dollars a semester. Also Re:"Medical care": That's what universal health care is for.

> Why would you expect your university to provide dorms for you

Traditionally, you go to school hundreds or thousands of miles away from your family. You need someplace to stay, no? Growing up in a city and you will have much more options to "live at home"

> That's what universal health care is for

The US does not have universal health care. So not sure what you are saying, how could a university not charge for something that is required and not provided elsewhere?

>Traditionally, you go to school hundreds or thousands of miles away from your family. You need someplace to stay, no?

I still don't see why it's the university that has to provide this.

>The US does not have universal health care.

Well, there's your problem

The university gives students access to cheaper housing than they could find on their own. Not sure how that is any different from say, providing electricity for the classrooms. You need both electricity and a place to sleep to attend school no?

> Well, there's your problem

Sure, but that isn't going to change anytime soon. Just giving up on any problem because "whelp, no universal healthcare" is not a productive way to live life.

Sports teams are generally a net positive. You and I see the $3.5M salary for a football coach at a public university and think it's absurd, but the football program itself pulls in tons of cash directly and indirectly and is probably more than 'worth it' to the school overall.

edit: Looks like this is generally wrong. I'll leave it up but see below comment.

I hear that sound byte (bite?) here a lot. It does not seem to be true based on the news I read. Perhaps you have better sources than I. From what I see, 20 out of 1,083 NCAA schools made money on sports. The other 1,063 lost money.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athlet...

  Only 24 FBS schools generated more revenue than they 
  spent in 2014, according to the NCAA Revenues and 
  Expenses of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs 
  Report. That figure jumped from 20 schools in 2013, but  
  it has remained relatively consistent through the past 
  decade.

Don't forget to account for scholarships. You are giving free tuition to the football team, ladies soccer team, lacrosse team, ladies cross country, swimming, etc. etc. etc.

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/dec/22/ji...

  Only two sports were profitable at FBS schools, according 
  to the report. Football programs netted a median profit 
  of slightly more than $3 million and men’s basketball 
  netted a median $340,000. But the profits at most schools 
  quickly vanished after paying for a long list of other 
  intercollegiate teams, all of which lose money. The 
  median loss among of athletic departments was $11.6 million.

Hey, that's news to me. I heard this in terms of specifically the UC schools' major sports endeavors, so maybe it's still true there, but thanks for the sources.

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