UMich, $18 million on DEI, but we can't figure out why college is so expensive?

Actually the bolded is demonstrably false. Tuition and fees make up more than half the cost attending the University of Michigan. Room and board estimates are also exaggerated upwards by universities specifically make the tuition seem more reasonable, but there was a time in the past when what you said was true, and room and board actually was a larger piece of the cost of attending college than tuition.

https://finaid.umich.edu/getting-started/estimating-costs

Think about what? What you've said is demonstrably false.
https://versus.com/en/harvard-university-vs-texas-a-m-university

Yes we've all heard the myth about how tuition is a small component of the actual cost of college, but from your link it's 75% of 25%, which is bordering on a fifth overall. Michigan's budget is over $10 billion. You clearly didn't look into auxiliary funds either, because you don't appear to have a clue how that hurts your overall point. It actually means a larger percentage of the university's actual budget onto the students. Which brings me to the actual point I was making with the OP, which had nothing to do with Biden. If universities spent more of their income, regardless of the source, on instruction, then tuition would be lower. Bill Maher actually talked about this. The democrat on his show defended it, and she was clueless as to why Maher and Andrew Yang were laughing at her.

 

That would depend on the type of college, public or private. Public colleges are held accountable by whatever department of the education authority, through the state legislature. And in Texas, that has been controlled by the GOP since the 2000s. And yet, costs still go up at public universities.

I am not seeing a waste of money here if you are listing the salaries of deans and other administrative jobs. Even with DEI is not a waste of money per se. You may not like it, but DEI is just another euphemism for EEOC. And by law, colleges have to make sure they don't discriminate intentionally on any group. Furthermore, salaries is not the real reason why costs are going up. And those articles you are mentioning is mostly dealing with DEI, one of the new "boogymen" the conservatives love to drum up in their so-called cultural war.

Do I think colleges have issues? Yes, but it is not cost. Let's take a look at one of the most popular degrees, a general Bachelor of Business Administration, BBA for short. Does that degree teach the skills the business world is seeking for managerial jobs? Probably not. But they do have one of the highest unemployment rates among various degree fields. Even with concentrations in insurance, marketing, or management, it really does not teach the desired skill sets for a manager, does it. Even with accounting degrees, most people learn the basics and prepare for the CPA exam. And even that may not prepare you for everything you need in that field since those fields are ever-changing.

But in a lot of cases, what gets college students, and the families who must support them in some capacity, assuming no full scholarship is officered, is the room and board, which is usually two or three times the cost of the tuition itself.

 

It's been rising since the 1960s. It is not like all of a sudden when Biden became president, it began to rise. So, yes, your claim is simply BS.

 

I take it you don't understand the word "generally" in that sentence. And yes, I assumed the University of Michigan was in that category. That is my mistake. However, what you don't realize is what would tuition be if the state was not subsidizing the tuition costs with those funds. I will give you a hint, it would be higher. And that is why your argument is falling flat on the face as we speak.

Second, look at the link and understand what you are looking at. Look at none residents. It is over two times the amount than Michigan resident for the total cost of attending college. And they include everything, from books, to tuition, to room and board, to personal expenses, with an average of over $33k for Michigan residents and $72k for out of state residents and international students. But none of that has to do with the salaries you are showing here. That is a drop in the bucket compared to all other costs that the university has to pay. And that is a state salary, paid for by the state. They are quite literally state employees. And if you take the dean of engineering from your example, if she was in the private field, her salary would be at least around twice as much as what she is getting at the university level.

Third, look at what the general fund goes to for expenditures. 2/3 goes to academic units. That means professors and staff to teach the kids. Another 13.6% fores to executive officers and support staff. Some goes to financial aid. I guess you want to blame poor people now who are attending. And the rest goes to other university expenses, some 6%. And in the link by public affairs, a decrease in state assistance has driven up the costs of the University of Michigan. But since conservatives don't believe in socialsim, aka state supported funds to organizations. then their own arguments is the reason wny tuition is rising, again, that supply and demand thing.

Since the 1960s, tuition has risen some 747%. that is from 1963 to 2022. In the 1980s, it rose 121%. Your argument is not very solid and trying to blame one party is a logical fallacy on your part. It is why I said to think about that. It has been going on for quite some time, longer than Biden has been president. But universities nowadays are businesses and educaiton is now an industry with different components from books to research to obtaining as many national merit scholars and international students, to its athletic programs. And all that contributes to the cost of tuition, and the reason why places like Texas A&M is harder to get into than Harvard or Yale. And in Michigan, it is either the Wolverines or the Spartans even though there is a plethora of other universities, small or and mid-size in Michigan.

Do you even know what auxiliary funds are? Per the University of Michigan, auxiliary funds "come from self-supporting units that “pay their own way” and receive no taxpayer or tuition support. These include Michigan Medicine, Intercollegiate Athletics, Student Housing, and Student Publications." Seems to me that these programs are paying their own way. Athletics is a major part of the University of Michigan. Being in the Big 10 Conference, getting those lucrative TV contracts to show off the team in football, basketball, baseball, and so forth, helps pay the athletic department, which technically does not affect directly the cost Indirectly it does because that makes the University of Michigan well known, and hence, people want to go there, which increases the tuition costs based on supply and demand, you know, classical economic theory.

Again, this really has nothing to do with politics. budget priorities in the state legislature maybe, but not politcs. And if politics you want, remember, a decrease in state funding does drive up the cost of tuition because of capitalism, aka supply and demand. Your own arguments against what you think is socialism is hurting you, and why no one takes you seriously in this thread at least.

 

I never said salaries were the issue. I said where I'm at they're not the issue. It's positions that don't need to exist as the main problem with administration heavy colleges.

And the article I linked to details many many ways colleges are incredibly irresponsible with their spending. Colleges themselves deserve most of the blame. It's not federal or state governments that are the biggest problem here. There's a number of reasons for it. Just one is wasteful spending. Another you basically alluded to. Why are degrees being offered that are useless? If you're going to charge someone tens of thousands of dollars for a degree, it should lead to a job that makes that investment worthwhile. $50k on an art history degree is a horrible investment. Not to mention all the social science degrees that don't actually train you for anything.

I keep waiting for a mass exodus from 4 year school to 2 year schools. I think this would go a long way towards making 4 year schools more responsible with their spending.

No college needs to be building water parks and lazy rivers either.

You also mentioned room and board. I'd be curious to know if colleges are gouging students with those costs or if that's a necessary cost and is not something that could easily be trimmed to make more efficient.

 

Being administratively heavy is not something that allows tuition to rise. The University of Michigan is a very large university, both in terms of employees and a number of students, programs, etc. And if you look at the general fund in this link, some 13.6% goes to executive officers and service units combined. 2/3 of the expenditures go to academic units. So, I am not seeing the argument here or the logic to get rid of the salaries that the OP listed, espeically someone like the Vice provost, aka executive vice president, or an academic dean or any of the others they listed. Even if you take away DEI funding altogether, it won't decrease the tuition prices at all nor stop tuiition from rising. The link pretty much says it outright, that a decrease in the state funding is what is driving the tuitition costs to increase.

And if more is coming from students, isn't that capitalism by definition because people do want to get into the University of Michigan? Keep in mind that cost has a symbiotic relationship to the University of Michigan Revenue. And the biggest cost is the use of those building at maximum efficiency for students to achieve their degree. that is the biggest cost for any university.

 

Find me a community college that doesn't have DEI admin.

 

Well it's never just one issue. Being more efficient with the amount of administrators is just one measure that can be taken. No one measure will fix the issue. My question regarding this particular program listed in the OP, the DEI spending, is what's the college getting in return? My guess is not much if anything.

You can say it's capitalism yes, but students are still going in with the expectation that their degree will be worth the cost. They are essentially trusting the college in this regard and in many cases the college is letting them down. They're not getting what they pay for. Certainly some of that falls on them. I tell all my students that they need to research their degree to make sure it will help them get a job. However, if colleges are invested in student success, then they should be doing their part as well...and 4 year colleges are not. This goes back to my expectation that students will migrate to 2 year colleges simply based on cost alone.

 

I work at a 2 year college (about 5500 students) and yes, we have DEI admin.

 

Spending 18 million a year to teach students not to hate fellow humans because of their skin color, ethnicity or sexual orientation or University treat everyone equally is very little price to pay.

America has a history of racism. 18 million a year is nothing if that stope repeating some of those past mistake.

 

I didn't say when Biden became president. Did I?

He's literally trying to blame everybody else and fix a problem HE created.

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-student-loans/

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

 

You mean generally as in "in general"? Well "in general", room and board is the second highest expense in college. Second after what I wonder.
https://www.collegeraptor.com/find-...college-costs-include-more-than-just-tuition/

I think I just supported with numbers, that $2 billion of UMich's revenue come from students.

Do you think that the DEI department is the only bloated department in the university? Couldn't tuition be even lower if that money was removed from the budget and the savings passed on to students?

BTW, most engineering professors earn similar salaries to what they would make in private industry, it's why they don't work in private industry. English professors also earn salaries similar to what they would in the private sector. Engineering professors' salaries are usually an order of magnitude higher.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news...-large-gaps-faculty-salaries-based-discipline

The university's budget has doubled since 2010. The number of students has increase by less than 20%. It has nothing to do with state funding.

TAMU accepts more students than Harvard and is cheaper to attend. None of what you're saying makes sense.

It has nothing to do with any party causing the increased cost of attendance, and everything to do with one party wanting to shift the cost of attendance onto taxpayers without doing anything about the cost of attendance itself.

Auxiliary funds is basically only Michigan Medicine. It's a medical school and a big ass hospital system and essentially has its own budget independent of the university. If you remove Michigan medicine from the picture, now student tuition is covering about 50% of the university's budget. I do appreciate you making that point in support of my argument.

 

I'm not sure Alwayssa went to college, the lack of an ability to think is obvious. I've often wondered why public universities, which are government institutions, need to have the cost of attending fixed by government. Can't government just charge less for the cost of attending? This would be like Wal-Mart saying the milk they sell is too expensive and the only way to fix it is to charge more for eggs and bread.

 

It's quite the racket.

COOL. NOW ELIMINATE THE DEPARTMENT: Washington state fires first-ever director of equity after failing to maintain stable work environment.

But, folks are wising up.

'Johnson, who remained in the position for two years, said that her office announced plans as recent as last week which would hold state agencies accountable if they failed to prioritize equity,'

Well, she won't be.

She's an unreconstructed racist. 'Speaking on being a black woman, Johnson said, "No black person in their right mind…wants to be leading this kind of work, convincing white people they want to do something they have no intention of doing." But said that she was thankful for the opportunity and was told by people from "across the state" that she "gave them a voice."'

Sure she did.


Unemployed 'Equity' Director. She was going to hold those troublesome White Folks, 'accountable'.

While Democrat states across the US have jumped all in on this racist race-baiting crap,'Republican-run states have passed legislation that bans state agencies and institutions from centering policies around race.'

As the Chief Justice said: "The way to end discrimination by race, is to stop discriminating by race!'

 

Take 36 seconds out of you life and listen to this woman.

Woke Sociology Professor, Dr. Jacqueline Battalora, suggests all white people are psychopaths that aren’t fully human.

https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1656374473308684288

 

I think people are missing the point. This has nothing to do with wokeness. The point of this thread is to bring attention to the bloated bureaucracy that is the American college administration.

 

I'd honestly favor trade schools. People who can build and repair **** are going to be more valuable as ai expands.

You actually come out with something valuable and you avoid all this equity race baiting dead end bullshit.

 

There's also this:

"The University of Michigan paid out $9 million in settlement money to 8 women who say they were sexually harassed by the chief academic officer of the school.
That's over $1 million for each woman."​

BS: women get lots of money for sexual harassment

Looks like the University of Michigan is blowing money left and right.

 

I wonder how much money this university & others in America spend on sports? I'll bet its MUCH more than on 'diversity'. I wonder what impact that has on tuition fees & I wonder why people so upset about the impact of $18 mill on 'diversity' don't seem to have much to say about spending on sports. I cynical soul might suspect that they don't really care about the cost of tuition but care an awful lot about students being taught not to hate people who are different to them.

 

The University of Michigan football program generates $17 million more than it spends. Sounds to me like you want to get rid of women's sports.

The issue is not the university having people doing these jobs. It's having this many and having to hear about the injustice of how expensive college is at the same time.

 

1976, Student Loans legislated as unbankruptable.

College costs:

 

I didn't ask if Michigan made a profit on sports in one year, I asked how much money was spent on them and not just at Michigan. I doubt you know or care if colleges spend hundreds of millions on sports and make losses, because the media that feeds your prejudices knows that what will get you paying attention is a pittance spent on 'diversity.

As for your second paragraph, I don't believe a word of the first sentence. That is ALL this is about. That is all it has ever been about.

 

You brought up spending on sports. The majority of men's football and basketball programs are money makers for their respective universities. If you have the, you should share your numbers that indicate the opposite son. I attended a university better than any of those in Australia, and it had a great football program to boot.

It's in the title of my thread little guy. College budgets grow and grow every year, and the ratio of students to administrators decreases. Yet we can't figure out why college is expensive???

 

I don't think they get the point that's being made in this thread. You obviously do though.

 

Addressing a point that was never made. Wonder why?

Oooh, and now childish name calling. Guess we know what that means - you know that frothing at the mouth about $18mill in the vast budget of a university like this, let alone trying to blame it for expensive college tuition is utterly laughable.

Helping people learn not to hate those who are different from them clearly upsets some people, and they come when called. Every. Single. Time.