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Comment by Hermitian909 | Hacker News Reader

Stanford and other top institutions can't really be compared to other schools, students fees are not how these institutions make money. There are massive business arms tying in to fortune 500s, political think tanks, government institutions, etc. It's a whole different game for schools at this level.

To understand administrative bloat in the US it's much more instructive to look somewhere like University of Idaho where the business of charging students for services rendered is the main game in town. It's there you can see how administrative services have drastically ballooned costs for just the education.

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Arguably, Stanford is a venture capital and real estate firm which operates a school on the side for the tax exemption. Back in the early 1990s, Stanford split off their endowment and land operations into a separate company, the Stanford Management Company. That worked out very well. They had startup money in Cisco, Yahoo, Google... Over time, the SMC tail came to wag the SU dog.

> Arguably, Stanford is a venture capital and real estate firm which operates a school on the side for the tax exemption

You forgot about the massive hedge fund – and the professional sports teams.

Also, the top institutions also offer substantial need-based aid, so the top-line tuition number is really only applicable to households with income over ~$200-$250K. At Harvard a family with $150K income will pay $15K, see https://college.harvard.edu/guides/financial-aid-fact-sheet I think this is typical across the Ivies. That's basically in-state tuition at UMass https://www.umass.edu/admissions/undergraduate-admissions/co...

Great find. You missed the best part: <<Families with incomes between $75,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0-10% of their income...>>

That means for income <= 75K, Harvard tuition is free! That is impressive. Their system looks fair in comparison to other US universities. This system looks similar to progressive taxation (higher income pays more taxes).

For readers not familiar with US university system: This will not include "room & board" (housing & food).

For Harvard, that's not true – financial aid covers the cost of room and board.

(There is a student contribution of ~$3,000/year, which is fairly easily met through on campus jobs).

Cripes! That is even better.

Yes, but the foreign students pay full price, AFAIK.

Per Harvard's page linked above: "Foreign students have the same access to financial aid funding as U.S. citizens."

well, good thing I added the AFAIK. It's not as simple as I thought.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-lis...

https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/international-studen...

Tax-funded universities are less generous, though.

That doesn't rule out indirect influence, no? The likes of Stanford are what other universities aim for, so if the implicit message is 'If you want to play in that league, you need a massive administration and pretty facilities for them', then you shouldn't be surprised to see other universities, who don't necessarily have the same financial means, trying to mimic that.

> students fees are not how these institutions make money

"Student income" was 15% of Stanford's $7.4B budget (excluding capital improvement and hospitals) in 2021-22.

So... only $1.11 billion or so.

source: https://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances/

They can be compared since universities are direct perfect substitutes.

Price sets expectations. If you tie your service to lower tier pricing , you are indirectly communicating that your service value is substantially lower.

This calculus is literally happening in administrators minds. They so much have admitted this in the past.

Just want to caution that the legalese is really important here. I know that at Stanford all the IP and patents stay with the researcher. Meaning that they keep all the money from their discoveries. Contrast this with the UCs where you have to sell the UCs your patents and IP for $1.

> Stanford and other top institutions can't really be compared to other schools, students fees are not how these institutions make money. There are massive business arms tying in to fortune 500s, political think tanks, government institutions, etc. It's a whole different game for schools at this level.

Then they are welcome to stop charging students fees.

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