Student Loans...urgggh! :: RunningForums.com

cherylpf wrote:

MechEngDropout wrote:

Yes. In state tuition to a state university. If you go to a private university or college, the same tuition amount is applied and you make up the rest. The basic TOPS covers just tuition, which is around 1800 a semester. If you have a 24 on the ACT, you get a stipend of 400 a semester, and if you get a 27 on the ACT, you get a stipend of 800 each semester. It's good for 4 years, or 8 semesters. You have to maintain a certain GPA while in college, or you lose the scholarship.

Freaking awesome. I wish I had that available...I got a 27 back in the day.

And if you got a 30 or above, they waived the GPA requirement. A good friend of mine got a 32, thereby eliminating the stigma of his 2.0ish GPA. He then proceeded to drop out during his second semester.

Cappy wrote:

TOsteve wrote:

Wouldn't the most socially responsible thing to do be to work toward an education system that does not discriminate against people lacking item 3 and uses only items number 1 and 2 as admission criteria?

Yes it would

YES ! Thank you for summarizing so nicely what I was trying to say!

kristin31 wrote:

Cappy wrote:

TOsteve wrote:

Yes it would

YES ! Thank you for summarizing so nicely what I was trying to say!

He's good at that, thats why we keep him around even though he's Canadian (kidding, kidding)

MechEngDropout wrote:

So unless citizens and corporations step up with scholarship funds, all that is left is the government. And you'll have a really hard time convincing me that the government should pay 25k a semester for one person to attend a good school instead of 5k a semester for five people to five pretty good schools.

But you're still thinking within the context of a half privatized education system. What if all educational institutions (including the top ranked universities) were public? Socialized education has worked in many European nations, why can't it work in North America?

In my mind, a civilized society views education as a right, not a priviledge. I also believe that the only way the right to education can be guarded is if it stays under public control. The system we have now is kinda half private and half public. This assures that, in the majority of cases, the best possible education will first be made available to the rich. Speaking for myself, that's what I find a little repugnant.

TOsteve wrote:

MechEngDropout wrote:

I admit that I'm ignorant to what has been implemented in Europe. My concern is that when you have top tier colleges, specifically engineering/science colleges, reduced to a public college that is not bringing in oodles of money from tuition, the amount of research and the quality of the faculty will be severely compromised. Is the government going to step in and provide full funding for a team of professors that are the best in the field?

Cappy wrote:

Still having a way's to go on my student loans, is keeping me from going back for my MBA,

and what really bugs me about the cost of higher education is that a lot of the colleges are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in endowment money and other investments, and they still charge astronomical tuition.

Some things to consider:
1. Higher ed institutes aren't spending more than 5% of the endowment in any year. Not all schools are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in endowment.
2. The cost of your tuition doesn't cover the cost of educating you. They're operating at a loss.

Gogirlgo wrote:

Cappy wrote:

You probably know more about this than I do, and I realize not all colleges/universities are sitting hundreds of millions, but the fact remains they have this money and spend very little of it.

Some interesting data: and Harvard recently went 25 billion, so 2.4 billion in one year is not a bad gain

Quote:

College and University Endowments, 2004
1. Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.) $22,587,305,000
2. Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) 12,740,896,000
3. Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.) 9,928,200,000
4. Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford, Calif.) 9,922,041,000
5. Univ. of Texas System Administration (Austin, Tex.) 9,360,113,745
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.) 5,869,800,000
7. Columbia University (New York, N.Y.) 4,493,085,000
8. Univ. of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.) 4,243,352,775
9. Emory University (Atlanta, Ga.) 4,086,000,000
10. Washington University (St. Louis, Mo.) 4,083,958,000
11. Univ. of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pa.) 4,019,000,000
12. Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) 3,884,629,679
13. Univ. of Chicago (Chicago, Ill.) 3,620,728,000
14. Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) 3,314,228,858
15. William Marsh Rice University (Houston, Tex.) 3,302,000,000
16. Texas A&M University (College Station, Tex.) 3,240,693,652
17. Univ. of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, Ind.) 3,123,454,523
18. Duke University (Durham, N.C.) 2,832,921,999
19. Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.) 2,454,294,000
20. Univ. of Southern California (Los Angeles, Calif.) 2,399,960,000
21. Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.) 2,264,845,000
22. Univ. of Texas at Austin (Austin, Tex.) 2,038,938,294
23. Univ. of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, Calif.) 2,037,297,000
24. Univ. of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.) 1,981,274,000
25. Mayo Foundation (Rochester, Minn.) 1,968,200,000
26. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.) 1,909,337,000
27. Univ. of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minn.) $1,774,436,617
28. Brown University (Providence, R.I.) 1,672,827,000
29. Univ. of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) 1,527,525,000
30. New York University (New York, N.Y.) 1,472,012,509
31. Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) 1,470,000,000
32. Rockefeller University (New York, N.Y.) 1,409,735,600
33. Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) 1,389,266,399
34. Univ. of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.) 1,370,498,000
35. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, Calif.) 1,307,413,000
36. Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) 1,291,781,000
37. Univ. of Rochester (Rochester, N.Y.) 1,257,146,000
38. Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, N.C.) 1,232,118,534
39. Boston College (Chestnut Hill, Mass.) 1,224,889,000
40. Univ. of Washington (Seattle, Wash.) 1,215,571,905
41. Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind.) 1,207,131,043
42. Wellesley College (Wellesley, Mass.) 1,180,405,000
43. Pomona College (Claremont, Calif.) 1,149,720,000
44. Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio) 1,139,292,045
45. Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Ga.) 1,129,819,594
46. Pennsylvania State University (University Park, Pa.) 1,106,800,000
47. Univ. of Richmond (Richmond, Va.) 1,103,390,000
48. Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Tex.) 1,092,840,531
49. Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, Pa.) 1,080,026,000
50. Michigan State University (East Lansing, Mich.) 1,049,411,455
source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112636.html

Quote:

Univ. of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, Ind.)

When did they rename Southbend? Did they just incorporate the area around the University as a new town?

Cappy wrote:

Aren't endowments really strict on how they are spent in that they dictate that only the interest is to be spent or small fraction of the principle or whatever rules they set? What I did with endowments at my last job didn't involve setting them up so I'm not sure, but in my head thats what I was thinking. If thats the case, that list doesn't really say much on how much the university has available and spends. This is also the reason why people like gifting to endowments because the money lasts MUCH longer. Or so I thought. Feel free to correct me.

Also, Miss Jenn, I saw that and Penn State, I thought that and thought that was in "State College, PA" dunno

5% of 25 billion is 1.25B. I know it still sounds like a lot. The endowment is never ever to be spent down so looking at it as a spendable item isn't realistic.

From that 5% has to come all the financial aid that the gov isn't covering (if you're a private college, that means all of it) and every other cost in a year, not to mention the cost of putting up new buildings, making smart classrooms, etc.

Claire, want to chime in?

Gogirlgo wrote:

What's the purpose of the endowment then (I honestly do not know). It seems to me (for lack of knowledge) that having that much cash even if it is on paper is not an efficent use of funds, when the interest alone could be used for more deserving students

Gogirlgo wrote:

Wow. Sorry it took me so long to see this. Ok. Now, regarding endowments. An “endowment,” or “endowed fund,” is created by donors to provide long-term sources of funding. Endowments can be very specifically focused or they can be generally designated for the most critical research needs. Endowments are permanent funds in which the principal is held in perpetuity and only the interest generated by the principal amount is expended annually. The corpus of the gift is never spent. It is invested, and a portion of the income (payout) is made available each year to support the designated program.

So yes, of course endowments are very important, but they do not fund that much of the operations of the instiution. Just to give you an idea of the size and scope of operating a university, Temple's operating budget for FY2005 was approximately $756million. This is a school with 34,000 students and a relatively small urban campus. Our endowment is only about $155 million, most of which is made up of gifts that are to be used for a specific use. Because we are state related, we depend on state funding, which is decreasing every year. This year we asked for $180million...hopefully we will get it. We also depend largely on tuition dollars. We unfortunately have had to continue to increase tuition over the past several years due to the cuts in state funding. However, along with each increase, we also increase the amount of $$ in scholarships by the same %.

This whole discussion is exactly the reason why I got into higher ed and why I do what I do. My job is to try and make the university run more efficiently so that we can cut operating costs and not have to raise tuition. I struggeled a lot to pay for my undergrad which was actually very affordable considering the cost of compable instiutions. I too felt that the system was flawed as is catered to either the very rich, or the very poor. However, that being said, I am now on my third degree and I don't have any students loans. In my personal experience, I have always found a way to make it work without taking loans.

Ok....I'll get off my soapbox now Mr. Green

Student Loans...urgggh!

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