http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/...367382.php

Don't like the price going up, but have to love the fact the headline ignores the fact that we raise need-based aid accordingly.

Yup - everyone who needs $ still gets it in full. So the net for many does not change.
Also, if I remember the numbers correctly, Rice funds a higher percentage of its operating costs from the endowment than any other school. If we're spending more, we'd have to be better at investing or fund raising just to keep pace with our peers. Of course, there's no reason to think we'd be better at investing than Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. so we can't lag too far behind on tuition - one of the only other sources of income besides investments, fund raising and grants. The game (academics and sports both) is just a lot more expensive to play than it was. From what I understand, even Cooper Union (our zero tuition model), is now planning to start charging tuition.

(03-22-2013 02:21 PM)NYNightOwl Wrote:  Yup - everyone who needs $ still gets it in full. So the net for many does not change.
Also, if I remember the numbers correctly, Rice funds a higher percentage of its operating costs from the endowment than any other school. If we're spending more, we'd have to be better at investing or fund raising just to keep pace with our peers. Of course, there's no reason to think we'd be better at investing than Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. so we can't lag too far behind on tuition - one of the only other sources of income besides investments, fund raising and grants. The game (academics and sports both) is just a lot more expensive to play than it was. From what I understand, even Cooper Union (our zero tuition model), is now planning to start charging tuition.

President Leebron recently did an interview with Evan Smith that touched on tuition, among other topics.

Conversation About Rice

(03-19-2013 03:57 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Don't like the price going up, but have to love the fact the headline ignores the fact that we raise need-based aid accordingly.

David Brooks column: The Practical University


this is in the comments:

American universities are failing because the administrations are largely controlled by postmodern bureaucrats who have replaced Aristotle and Newton with Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida. The Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, wanted to pull up and destroy the very roots of Western Civilization, particularly Christianity. He personally warned Lenin that Marxism might not be competitive when it comes to agricultural or industrial production or the creation of a high material standard of living or waging war. The mission of Marxists should rather be to penetrate the educational systems of the West and rid students of the notion that two plus two must always equal four. George Orwell understood this strategy well and dealt on the consequences of its successful implementation in "1984." The army of highly paid university bureaucrats who have taken over American academia has gutted the use of the Socratic method in education. Professors in the sciences are largely taken out of the education of undergraduates being rather rewarded for gaining research grants whose massive overheads can be directed to the postmodern dominated Divisions of Humanities. Remote learning largely eliminates the intellectual interaction between students, which is the bedrock of learning. If science is to be remotely learned and postmodern humanists control the classrooms, we are doomed.

James Thompson
Noah Harding Professor of Statistics
Rice University

(04-06-2013 07:57 AM)ausowl Wrote:  

(03-19-2013 03:57 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Don't like the price going up, but have to love the fact the headline ignores the fact that we raise need-based aid accordingly.

David Brooks column: The Practical University


this is in the comments:

American universities are failing because the administrations are largely controlled by postmodern bureaucrats who have replaced Aristotle and Newton with Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida. The Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, wanted to pull up and destroy the very roots of Western Civilization, particularly Christianity. He personally warned Lenin that Marxism might not be competitive when it comes to agricultural or industrial production or the creation of a high material standard of living or waging war. The mission of Marxists should rather be to penetrate the educational systems of the West and rid students of the notion that two plus two must always equal four. George Orwell understood this strategy well and dealt on the consequences of its successful implementation in "1984." The army of highly paid university bureaucrats who have taken over American academia has gutted the use of the Socratic method in education. Professors in the sciences are largely taken out of the education of undergraduates being rather rewarded for gaining research grants whose massive overheads can be directed to the postmodern dominated Divisions of Humanities. Remote learning largely eliminates the intellectual interaction between students, which is the bedrock of learning. If science is to be remotely learned and postmodern humanists control the classrooms, we are doomed.

James Thompson
Noah Harding Professor of Statistics
Rice University

I have a BA in political science and an MS in biometry.

My brother has a BA in English, a Ph. D. in applied mathematics, and is also a Professor of Statistics.

Neither of us was ever taught that two plus two doesn't equal four.

I do share the concerns over the de-emphasis of teaching undergraduates and the lack of interaction with on-line learning.

Back to the topic at hand, IIRC, tuition and room and board my senior year (78-79) was $7,000. The inflation calculator says that's equivalent to about $24,000 today.

(04-08-2013 10:03 AM)JSA Wrote:  Back to the topic at hand, IIRC, tuition and room and board my senior year (78-79) was $7,000. The inflation calculator says that's equivalent to about $24,000 today.

Just curious: what was the average price actually paid in 1978-79, and I wonder how that compares to today? It may well be (and one would hope) that the actual cash outlay per student has risen less than has the sticker price.

(04-08-2013 10:00 AM)JSA Wrote:  I have a BA in political science and an MS in biometry.

My brother has a BA in English, a Ph. D. in applied mathematics, and is also a Professor of Statistics.

Neither of us was ever taught that two plus two doesn't equal four.

I do share the concerns over the de-emphasis of teaching undergraduates and the lack of interaction with on-line learning.

I have a BS in Chemical Engineering, a BA in Managerial Studies and a BS in Political Science, plus a JD.

In the accounting classes I took for the Mana degree, I learned that two plus two equals exactly four. As a Chem E., I learned that two plus two is approximately four. As a lawyer, I learned that when a client asks you what you think two plus two is, the correct answer is, "What do you want it to be?".