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UT to give full scholarships to in-state students from families making less than $65K


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8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I already said I support and applaud the tuition program, so y'all can step right off that soapbox pronto.

I am firmly of the opinion that top 6% auto-admission standards with nothing but a "holistic" review for the remaining 25% of the available spots is damaging to this university.  I was pretty fucking clear on that.  I think the auto-admit standard could be drafted such that it doesn't penalize at least some of the kids who are outstanding students while still maintaining plenty of spots for kids from underperforming and poorer school districts.  At this point the policy is grossly constructed and doesn't best serve the needs of both the university and the state as a whole.

Ok, but this thread and my post was about the tuition thing, not the auto-admission thing. I get that it is university related, but it is a tangent, and it wasn't entirely clear that your last post was only addressing the tangent.  Hell, you even said "altruism" which seems to pretty clearly implicate tuition and not admissions.

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13 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I already said I support and applaud the tuition program, so y'all can step right off that soapbox pronto.

I am firmly of the opinion that top 6% auto-admission standards with nothing but a "holistic" review for the remaining 25% of the available spots is damaging to this university.  I was pretty fucking clear on that.  I think the auto-admit standard could be drafted such that it doesn't penalize at least some of the kids who are outstanding students while still maintaining plenty of spots for kids from underperforming and poorer school districts.  At this point the policy is grossly constructed and doesn't best serve the needs of both the university and the state as a whole.

That's great. I think the top 6% guideline is complete bullshit as well. I fucking hate it. That is also a completely separate and unrelated issue entirely to the topic of conversation here, which is a financial aid package for certain household incomes. 

Listen, I see that you tried to switch streams to the 6% conversation you don't like, but Dahobbs comment about perfect being the enemy of good was specifically saying "Don't let an imperfect admission system now ruin what is generally a good thing." Then you made your comment about it being a detriment to being a world class university. He was talking about tuition, and you were still talking to yourself about 6% admissions. So yeah, you weren't "pretty fucking clear" on it and you're the guy trying to talk about the top 6% and not a financial aid package. But you know, any confusion must be everyone else's fault and not yours. 

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2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Ok, but this thread and my post was about the tuition thing, not the auto-admission thing. I get that it is university related, but it is a tangent, and it wasn't entirely clear that your last post was only addressing the tangent.  Hell, you even said "altruism" which seems to pretty clearly implicate tuition and not admissions.

This is approaching dead-horse territory, but you quoted my entire post and then commented about not letting perfect be the enemy of good.  I didn't realize you weren't referring to my comments about the effects on auto-admission rates.  

Towards that end, I think my initial point was valid -- how big an effect it will be is surely unknown, but we know the general direction.  I think it's reasonable to expect the university to anticipate effects on admission rates when enacting new policy, and modify as necessary.

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On a more relevant subject:

Thanks to whoever posted the link regarding the Rice tuition assistance program.  Any other info about top-tier schools (in state or not) with similar programs would be greatly appreciated.  I assume most public schools typically just assist in-state students.

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3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

This is approaching dead-horse territory, but you quoted my entire post and then commented about not letting perfect be the enemy of good.  I didn't realize you weren't referring to my comments about the effects on auto-admission rates.  

Towards that end, I think my initial point was valid -- how big an effect it will be is surely unknown, but we know the general direction.  I think it's reasonable to expect the university to anticipate effects on admission rates when enacting new policy, and modify as necessary.

I'm sorry I misunderstood you. I do somewhat agree with you on the top % rule, but I do see some value in its ability to open up the university to the entire state rather than those that attend exclusive high schools. More nuance would be fine, but at some point the administrative burden starts outweighing the benefits. I'm pretty sure any effect on UT's admissions by the new tuition assistance is going to be de minimis. 

 

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5 hours ago, Rougarou said:

This and like TwiceHorn said about the 3 year average makes a ton of sense. I was just thinking I could see a lot of people with a lot of money in the bank who are self-employed professionals, like lawyers or something outside of industry that is pretty flexible, potentially taking a year to do missionary work or pro-bono work in order to help little privilege Johnny get free school for a year or two. 

It sounds like the juice to defraud this thing wouldnt be worth the squeeze which means it's a great policy.

I guess they could lie or move everything into the Caymans, but again, people who are hiding things in tax shelters aren't going to be concerned about the cost of tuition.

Here are questions 90, 91, and 92 on the FAFSA which take your concerns into account.

90. As of today, what is your parents’ total current balance of cash, savings, and checking accounts? Don’t include student financial aid.

91. As of today, what is the net worth of your parents’ investments, including real estate? Don’t include the home in which your parents live. See Notes page 9.

92. As of today, what is the net worth of your parents’ current businesses and/or investment farms? Don’t include a family farm or family business with 100 or fewer full-time or full-time equivalent employees. See Notes page 9.

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10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

On a more relevant subject:

Thanks to whoever posted the link regarding the Rice tuition assistance program.  Any other info about top-tier schools (in state or not) with similar programs would be greatly appreciated.  I assume most public schools typically just assist in-state students.

I can't help you with more information about other schools, but my wife worked at rice for years as an event planner. The tuition thing is extremely new to them starting in 2019. I don't think it's a coincidence that UT's rolling out this program now. I think we'll start to see this kind of thing become more prevalent at other schools in the state in the next year or two, except at aTm. 

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A&M's response will be to send all their underprivileged students to the State Legislature to beg for money personally instead of through administrators. Turns out the plan to balloon enrollment to 80,000 solely to have more graduates donate to the athletics program in the future was fucking stupid just like everyone told them it was fucking stupid.

Did I mention they're fucking stupid?

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15 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

A&M's response will be to send all their underprivileged students to the State Legislature to beg for money personally instead of through administrators. Turns out the plan to balloon enrollment to 80,000 solely to have more graduates donate to the athletics program in the future was fucking stupid just like everyone told them it was fucking stupid.

Did I mention they're fucking stupid?

You're lucky, Huck. Your kids might fortunately miss the tidal wave on incoming aggie teachers, even moreso than there are currently, getting employed by area schools in the next 5-10 years. 

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16 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

I guess my "I like this but" post is if tuition growth continues apace this is unsustainable. It seems obvious to me that 

1) college is way, way too expensive currently 

2) too many kids go to college 

I have no problem helping smart, underprivileged kids break the cycle and get an education. I also agree that way, way too many fucking kids go to college, and that financially motivated "colleges" like university of phoenix should be done away with completely. No one hiring takes them seriously, and they're money pits. I don't think college is too expensive currently, per se, but I certainly believe that too many people  go to college. 

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41 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I don't think college is too expensive currently, per se.... 

Wow. 

There sure is some evidence that it is, including the rising default rate.

 

I recall that in the late 90's, back when books were more expensive than tuition, ROI on a Texas MBA was around 0.

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4 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Maybe your dumb kids should have studied harder and received merit based scholarships to UT. Then you wouldn't have to live like one of these filthy poors who are now going to be driving around in Ferraris since they get to go to school for free. 

Hank Scorpio is a national treasure. That is all. 

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9 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

If tuition had tracked the CPI since I attended UT it would now be about $1,500 a semester.

 

Get off my lawn.

Lol. It was about 1500 a semester when I finished up. I know it’s more now but it’s still cheap. How cheap should college be if you qualify? Its an honest question. 

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5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Lol. It was about 1500 a semester when I finished up. I know it’s more now but it’s still cheap. How cheap should college be if you qualify? Its an honest question. 

Cheap enough for a $65k houshold?

Maybe the answer is it should be cheap enough that median income can service student loan debt.

 

For sure, if I were King, I'd at least limit future increases to cpi. Shit is borked.

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2 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

Cheap enough for a $65k houshold?

Maybe the answer is it should be cheap enough that median income can service student loan debt.

 

For sure, if I were King, I'd at least limit future increases to cpi. Shit is borked.

Cheap enough now that its free for a 65k household? I think were closer to agreeing than we are to disagreeing 

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Haven’t read this whole thread. I saw the news and thought it sounded great. It would have paid for me to attend UT for sure. I ended working 70+ hour weeks waiting tables to cover everything and the only thing saving me regarding being able to make tuition was the emergency tuition loan I took out every semester to enable me to put elements of the school expense off until October or March. 

Can’t figure out who would be against this but this thread is 3 pages long, so, Surly. 

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18 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

There is a not-insignificant perception out there that UT-Dallas may actually be the equivalent or better to A&M when it comes to academics.

Well, we've been doing the college tour this summer and seen UT, Texas A&M, and UTD.  Looking only at STEM majors, I would say that any of those schools is going to put out a decent undergrad.  The UT system is now publishing actual outcomes (salaries) for their graduates by major and campus, and UTD and UT are comparable.  Texas A&M is publishing outcomes to some degree but it's hard to compare directly.   Texas and Texas A&M have a "college feel" that is still pretty thin at UTD, but UTD is trying.  UTD focuses on getting you an education, an internship and a job offer and on into grad school or a corporate job with as little student debt as possible.

Before our tour, I never realized the small-town great advantage Texas A&M has.  Few students are from College Station, so everyone is forced to live on campus or in an apartment.  A lack of commuter students really helps the on-campus vibe.  Texas has all of the west campus high-rise construction and students are packed into a dense neighborhood.  Lot of folks live just blocks away from each other.  Different ideas, but both help create a great environment.

Simple things like planting shade trees, having more students on-campus or really close, and closing off parts of campus to auto traffic really make a campus feel more comfortable.  If you haven't been to UT in a while, Speedway is now a pedestrian walkway and it feels totally different to walk through campus than it did in the 80's.  Campus is no longer covered in grackle shit...  

Long term, the UT system should extend the free college idea to all of their campuses and put money into making their campus look and feel great for students.

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May I take issue with characterizing this as a "scholarship?"

Look, I'm not saying it's bad policy, or that I'm against it.  In fact, I think it's good policy to take the best and brightest, regardless of income, and use them for betterment of society.  It seems like this is designed to make sure that the best and brightest (top 6% at least) do not take lesser paths, because of lack of resources.  Given the chance to vote on this issue, I would vote for it.

However, the definition of scholarship is:  a grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement.

As best i can tell the only academic or other achievement required here is for your parents to be below a certain income.  In my world, that means you didn't achieve anything.  Perhaps if we want to be an institution of excellence, we start with using the proper nomenclature.

That is all.

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On 7/10/2019 at 12:25 AM, Helobious said:

The valley whites figured this out a long time ago. Private school through middle school, then 4 years at the public high school. The schools down there are overwhelmingly poor & low-performing but largely void of many of the problems you’d see at a similar school in an inner city. Almost a perfect situation in a way. Cakewalk to the (top 6% now), auto admit to UT or A&M. Somehow most of them seem to do fine in college and lead successful lives. 

This is VERY TRUE.    Not just the Valley, but much of South Texas and it crosses ethnic lines around here.  

Where I  live here in the Corpus area, the ISD is one of the better ones in the region.   But near us are some not so well performing ones and they have open enrollment.   So once they get to high school, they suddenly decide to go to school at one of those other ISD's because they have smaller classes, better chance to play ball etc is what their parents say.  But they end up in the top ten of the less than 100 grads and they are in at A&M or UT.   Whereas if they would have stayed here, they might  have missed that top 10% by a number of spots.  

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Back on topic...

How would this work with a divorced family?  Let’s say the primary custodial parent makes $64k and claims the student as a dependent. The non-custodial parent makes well over that and pays a generous amount of child support but does not claim the child as a dependent.

1.  Is the student’s household income based solely on the custodial parent?

2.  Is the child support that parent receives considered as income, thus pushing them over the $65k threshold?

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Question.

Does this cover the tuition only part of a student's expenses?    Will it cover the "fees"as well?

Because as many of us know as parents who are paying tuition for a college student of if you are college student yourself, the so called fees add up to a huge chunk of the bill every semester.  When my oldest who is now a Senior at UTSA started a few years ago,  I nearly hit the ceiling when I got the bill and saw a fee for almost everything including breathing on campus.   I thought the fees for things like computer labs and athletics that were maybe five or six line items after the tuition charge  during my college days were ridiculous and a backdoor way to get more money, but now it's like holy moly they find a fee for everything.  

 

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18 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

On a more relevant subject:

Thanks to whoever posted the link regarding the Rice tuition assistance program.  Any other info about top-tier schools (in state or not) with similar programs would be greatly appreciated.  I assume most public schools typically just assist in-state students.

I can't speak to Public Schools, but this is now pretty common at most of the top private schools.  I think most of the Ivy's, other than Cornell and maybe Brown, have some sort of tuition waiver program for low income students. I'm pretty sure Stanford does as well.   Basically, UT is just joining it's financial peers with this program, although it's less generous than H/Y/P And Brown is truly need blind/debt free, meaning you won't get a loan as part of your financial aid package, they will make up the difference with grants/scholerships.  

Davidson is also need blind, but I don't think they have a straight tuition waiver.

For those that don't have high school kids:  Most schools ARE NOT need blind, they are need aware.  Meaning they take your financial situation into mind when putting you through the application process. 

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9 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Back on topic...

How would this work with a divorced family?  Let’s say the primary custodial parent makes $64k and claims the student as a dependent. The non-custodial parent makes well over that and pays a generous amount of child support but does not claim the child as a dependent.

1.  Is the student’s household income based solely on the custodial parent?

2.  Is the child support that parent receives considered as income, thus pushing them over the $65k threshold?

Because UT is a public school, unless your instate docs are different, they only see the FAFSA, which is filled out/ based on the custodial parent.  The non custodial parent shouldn't make a difference.

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17 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Back on topic...

How would this work with a divorced family?  Let’s say the primary custodial parent makes $64k and claims the student as a dependent. The non-custodial parent makes well over that and pays a generous amount of child support but does not claim the child as a dependent.

1.  Is the student’s household income based solely on the custodial parent?

2.  Is the child support that parent receives considered as income, thus pushing them over the $65k threshold?

Wait, Mom, are you and Dad getting a divorce?

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18 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

A&M's response will be to send all their underprivileged students to the State Legislature to beg for money personally instead of through administrators. Turns out the plan to balloon enrollment to 80,000 solely to have more graduates donate to the athletics program in the future was fucking stupid just like everyone told them it was fucking stupid.

Did I mention they're fucking stupid?

Pssst ...... https://financialaid.tamu.edu/Aggie-Assurance

 

I was pretty sure I heard about this at aggy years ago. And I'm pretty sure I heard about a similar program at Texas State first. I'm surprised nobody's brought this up yet in the public, but we're not exactly ahead of anything or breaking new ground here. It's a very low-risk program on a school's part. They can count heavily on Pell & Texas grant to cover a LOT of these promised funds.

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33 minutes ago, CoTex said:

May I take issue with characterizing this as a "scholarship?"

Look, I'm not saying it's bad policy, or that I'm against it.  In fact, I think it's good policy to take the best and brightest, regardless of income, and use them for betterment of society.  It seems like this is designed to make sure that the best and brightest (top 6% at least) do not take lesser paths, because of lack of resources.  Given the chance to vote on this issue, I would vote for it.

However, the definition of scholarship is:  a grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement.

As best i can tell the only academic or other achievement required here is for your parents to be below a certain income.  In my world, that means you didn't achieve anything.  Perhaps if we want to be an institution of excellence, we start with using the proper nomenclature.

That is all.

As far as I've read it appears many media outlets are mischaracterizing this as a scholarship, not necessarily UT. It's not a scholarship by any means, and won't be classified as a scholarship through UT's financial aid office because there are no scholarship funds. They will be grant funds (funds not based on merit, just need) added to whatever Federal/State grant funds are already awarded to cover the full tuition cost.

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I'm certain that many wealthier parents will fight this plan because they will see it as "punishing" them for having money.  And if tuition continues to increase but poorer students get a free ride, the wealthier have an argument that their kids' tuition payments are funding poorer students' tuition.  And given the fungible nature of money, it doesn't really matter the exact source of the money.

This is similar to how people with commercial/private health insurance are funding the shortfalls caused by treating Medicaid and even some Medicare patients.

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11 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I'm certain that many wealthier parents will fight this plan because they will see it as "punishing" them for having money.  And if tuition continues to increase but poorer students get a free ride, the wealthier have an argument that their kids' tuition payments are funding poorer students' tuition.  And given the fungible nature of money, it doesn't really matter the exact source of the money.

This is similar to how people with commercial/private health insurance are funding the shortfalls caused by treating Medicaid and even some Medicare patients.

You don't seem like such a nice guy, Nice Guy.

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18 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I'm certain that many wealthier parents will fight this plan because they will see it as "punishing" them for having money.  And if tuition continues to increase but poorer students get a free ride, the wealthier have an argument that their kids' tuition payments are funding poorer students' tuition.  And given the fungible nature of money, it doesn't really matter the exact source of the money.

This is similar to how people with commercial/private health insurance are funding the shortfalls caused by treating Medicaid and even some Medicare patients.

lol what the fuck are you talking about. The poor kids get a free ride and it's good and you're a fucking piece of shit the end. Fungible nature of money. Get the fuck out of here you imbecile. 

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9 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

lol what the fuck are you talking about. The poor kids get a free ride and it's good and you're a fucking piece of shit the end. Fungible nature of money. Get the fuck out of here you imbecile. 

Lol. I think it’s a great policy but I also think some will complain.  

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On 7/9/2019 at 11:33 PM, BurdineBandit said:

This thread and a thread on someone asking about moving to Austin have really opened my eyes to who posts on this board. Y'all muhfuckas rich as shit. "Can I really be expected to live somewhere around Austin with a meager $150,000 income between my wife and I who don't have kids yet but plan to soon?" If you don't get the f on....

Well, we were making less than half that amount when we bought our house in SW Austin 18 years ago. Now our family income isn't much more than $150K. We have 2 teenagers & we've paid off our house in SW Austin. So yeah. It can be done without being rich. And we have a very good life on that income, travel where we want to, which is a priority for us, drive good cars, etc, because we don't throw away stupid amounts of money on stupid shit ... except eating out. We spend too much on eating out.... /csb

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2 hours ago, CoTex said:

May I take issue with characterizing this as a "scholarship?"

Look, I'm not saying it's bad policy, or that I'm against it.  In fact, I think it's good policy to take the best and brightest, regardless of income, and use them for betterment of society.  It seems like this is designed to make sure that the best and brightest (top 6% at least) do not take lesser paths, because of lack of resources.  Given the chance to vote on this issue, I would vote for it.

However, the definition of scholarship is:  a grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement.

As best i can tell the only academic or other achievement required here is for your parents to be below a certain income.  In my world, that means you didn't achieve anything.  Perhaps if we want to be an institution of excellence, we start with using the proper nomenclature.

That is all.

Well that’s one definition. Merriam-Webster defines it merely as “ a grant-in-aid to a student (as by a college or foundation).” No mention of any requirements for said aid. Dictionary.com explicitly opens it up to other criteria:  “a sum of money or otheraid granted to a student,because of merit, need,etc., to pursue his or her studies.” Surely you’ve heard of need-based scholarships?

There’s nothing wrong with the nomenclature.

 

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51 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

Well that’s one definition. Merriam-Webster defines it merely as “ a grant-in-aid to a student (as by a college or foundation).” No mention of any requirements for said aid. Dictionary.com explicitly opens it up to other criteria:  “a sum of money or otheraid granted to a student,because of merit, need,etc., to pursue his or her studies.” Surely you’ve heard of need-based scholarships?

There’s nothing wrong with the nomenclature.

 

“What is - Your mother’s a whore Trebek!”

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I’m interested in how this will affect the flow of other types of assistance.  What’s the incentive to apply for other assistance if you are an automatic admittee and meet the income limit?   Is outside money going to start flowing away from the university or stay at UT but move up the income ladder?  If it’s the former then this thing could have a multiplier effect for lower income students.  

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So, we're now using an endowment to artificially inflate (or justify) the high administrative costs of running our University?  Our overhead is already exceeding 55%, so now we can just raise that up and guarantee everyone fat raises.  While I like the step they are taking, I would also like to see them trim some fat to help make the money go further.

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12 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:

This is VERY TRUE.    Not just the Valley, but much of South Texas and it crosses ethnic lines around here.  

Where I  live here in the Corpus area, the ISD is one of the better ones in the region.   But near us are some not so well performing ones and they have open enrollment.   So once they get to high school, they suddenly decide to go to school at one of those other ISD's because they have smaller classes, better chance to play ball etc is what their parents say.  But they end up in the top ten of the less than 100 grads and they are in at A&M or UT.   Whereas if they would have stayed here, they might  have missed that top 10% by a number of spots.  

Skidmore-Tynan HS must be busting at the seams !!!!!!!!

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9 hours ago, Izhmash said:

So, we're now using an endowment to artificially inflate (or justify) the high administrative costs of running our University?  Our overhead is already exceeding 55%, so now we can just raise that up and guarantee everyone fat raises.  While I like the step they are taking, I would also like to see them trim some fat to help make the money go further.

And this is one big reason college is so fricken expensive these days.  Doesn't matter which college, large or small.   

I wish more students and their parents for that matter would start demanding more be done by lawmakers on the state and Fed level to focus on this aspect vs giving kids more money via loans to keep the cycle going.   College administrators have played this game real well to date and have let the politicians play everyone by throwing more money at the cost of higher ed and have not lifted one finger to cut those administrative costs other than some token cuts here and there.    

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