
Concealing the Calculus of Higher Education - jseliger
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/your-money/concealing-the-calculus-of-higher-education.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine
======
jimrandomh
This isn't mysterious. The easier it is to compare prices between colleges,
the larger a factor those prices will be in prospective students' decisions.
That creates downward pressure on tuition, which means the schools will get
less money. So they oppose the creation of tools that make price comparison
easier, using any excuses available.

------
DamnYuppie
I am not sure I agree with the title. The institutions alluded to in the
article are not "hiding" their data. They simply are declining to provide
access to it to an aggregator which would allow potential students to more
easily compare the costs across multiple institutions. They can still get that
data by going directly to the institutions site.

Also the comparisons to airlines in the article, in my opinion, is flawed. I
compare airline tickets based on cost, schedule, number of connections, and
frequent flier affiliation. Plane tickets are reasonably interchangeable based
upon any of the above factors. Yet going to a college is a far bigger decision
and the decision points are not quite as easily parsed and quantified as
purchasing an airline ticket. The consequences of the decisions are not of
equal magnitude.

~~~
baldfat
A big reason is many college's cost DEPENDS on your family's income. So if you
look at Stanford it cost $65,000, but if your family makes less then $125,000
it is actually free.

[http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/04/02/3642085/stanfo...](http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/04/02/3642085/stanford-
free-tuition/)

If the family makes less then $65,000 you don't even need to get any sort of
financial aid.

~~~
DamnYuppie
That still, to me, seems like a thing that could be accounted for by an
aggregator. They stated they were willing to work with the institutions I
don't see why they can't have specific rules per institution that aligned with
their policies.

~~~
baldfat
I quit my job as a librarian at a small liberal arts college because I felt
that the age of private colleges was going away. In the 8 years I have been
gone the school has lost almost 50% of the student body and Community Colleges
have multiplied.

Colleges are scared they won't survive the next next 20 years.

------
cinquemb
Ivy league schools and their kindred also seem to be aware that they are
inherently in the race to the bottom that "higher education" has become and
feel threatened, if they didn't, they wouldn't feel the need to go to such
lengths. I wouldn't consider obfuscation in the interest of propagating
information for those schools that supposedly want to help students make
educated decisions in a reasonable/technically possible manor, unless they
need "higher education" before they can decide such things from such basis.

Also, ECMC Group keeping the lights on for College Abacus is like putting a
band-aid over stab wound. Although, as long as young kids keep buying into the
racket because they are told by their elders who paid an order of magnitude
less for their "education" or for their “so much more than that” and
reinforced by those around them that they need $x for $y (whether academia can
only provide $x and if $x is the only way to do $y or not is irrelevant), the
show will go on.

~~~
taurath
And those who DID end up paying that order of magnitude more for their
education will always enforce that others had to also. Those with more formal
education nearly always prefer more educated colleagues regardless of whether
its necessary or even helpful for the job at hand.

------
baking
Another possible reason is that the college's calculators, while required by
the federal government, are not terribly accurate. In fact, they are pretty
much useless. A comparison would only show which calculators were out of whack
the most, which is not really helpful for students looking for cheaper
colleges.

------
jkot
Rising cost is fueled by student loans. Problem could be easily avoided, if
there would be upper limit on state guaranteed loans, perhaps $50,000?

~~~
Someone1234
So now poor students cannot attend top end schools, or expensive courses (law,
medicine, engineering, etc), but richer ones can.

I completely agree that something has to be done to limit the rise in tuition
costs; I personally think greater transparency requirements (e.g. the student
has to know how much study will cost before they can be accepted, a system
that compares all US colleges for a specific course, etc).

I don't honestly think students REALLY grasp how much college is going to be
costing them and what the payback period. How can someone spending $40K on an
English Lit major really think it is going to pay for itself? They must not
have looked at the specifics or figured out the repay period.

