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Perhaps a price tag for each specific class would be a better motivator. Knowing that you paid some number of dollars to learn this subject has a bit more impact than saying that an EE degree costs twice as much as an arts curriculum. And why should an hour lecture by a physics prof cost more than 60 minutes on literature? It's the labs which cost more to run, so price them realistically.
Based on this flawed logic, I can think of a number of worthless majors that schools should be paying the students to attend.
My college, the University of Kansas does this. Our business school is one of the only undergraduate programs at the university to have differential tuition, and the funds are solely for the use of the business school. The other programs that charge differential tuition are pharmacy and law, which also have higher earnings potential. We complain about the extra costs, but it actually makes most of us take more ownership in our b-school and how it is run, since it's OUR money supporting OUR programs. It probably does have a somewhat negative effect on recruiting future students, since the other business schools in Kansas do not charge differential tuition, but with higher accreditations and more majors to pick from than those others, it's easy to see where the extra money is going.
How to do you expect more students to complete STEM education when you charge them more to do it? Let's price our education based on the skills we need in the marketplace, not how much money the degree makes today. The pay scale is based on low supply and high demand. You would think an economist would understand that.
The market has spoken: engineering majors are more valuable to society. We should be motivating More students to go in the talent-needy hard sciences.
Ridiculous. Students who succeed in more difficult fields, who earn more are already punished by the Income Tax System of the United States. Why continue to punish the successful?
Why not reduce the costs for those degrees that offer increase benefit to society as a whole. STEM degrees come to mind, primary and secondary education would be another. Let's foster a culture that promotes organic growth not penalizes it.
The costs to offer a class should be the basis for the tuition. It should cost less to have a humanities education since the labs and expensive texts in engineering and the sciences are not there. Colleges and Universities are bloated now with senseless extravagant spending and overstaffed situations. Tuition is out of control.
So the "economist" decided to completely ignore the shift to the demand curve as schools artificially increases the cost of earning STEM degrees. The result of implementing this plan is for schools to turn out an ever increasing amount of people with worthless degrees while the STEM programs produce fewer and fewer graduates.
I have two daughters majoring in engineering. We have to cut all but the basic necessities in order to afford that. Now you want to increase tuition because engineers make more than liberal arts majors? No one is forcing anyone into a field of study…unless this stupid idea becomes reality. Let's discourage our kids or saddle them with a huge debt load from the start. Great idea!
In terms of graduate school, universities already do this to Medical and Law students. Compare it to the cost of attending med or law school to someone attending for social work and the result is staggering. So you get the joy of paying for law school then being harangued for making money once you graduate. 'Awesome'
Seems like the price sensitivity is an argument for REDUCING the price of STEM majors, where there is already an increased cost of EFFORT to graduate in those majors.
what is the unemployment rate for engineering grads vs other majors?
In many cases, engineering schools are charging more by increasing the number of required hours for a degree such that it takes at least 5 years to get a degree. This is in addition to very expensive textbooks and lab fees that many other degrees don't have to pay for.
From a purely economic sense, isn't the real question, why offer degree programs where the cost of education far exceeds the earning potential of the degree?
Prices in the real world (as opposed to the heavily subsidized and regulated school world) vary based on both the cost for the business and the demand from the consumer. Prices may also drop, even to zero in order to get a better reputation, to draw people in, etc. Differential tuition may make sense, however this does not mean that STEM and labs will cost more. Lower demand may make them cost less. The reputation that a solid science program can provide may make it cost less for everyone, or only the better students. In graduate school, there is already a trend to provide STEM students with far more financial aid than humanities students, because they can be of more use to the school.
Different things work at different schools, why not experiment and figure it out?
instead of charging more for the worthwhile degrees drop the worthless ones like women's studies, gender studies, black studies
They should charge the liberal arts students extra for wasting the schools endowment.
When an engineering degree demands 160 or more credit hours…. BA Journalism as few as 126 credit hours and BA English not many more…. What are more useful in the world? Engineers? Journalists?.
Let the free market decide! The quality programs (engineering specialty schools) will succeed, and the liberal arts schools will drop their worthless programs anyway. The real question is "Why do we have English majors in the first place?" The whole system is broken due to over-encouragement for attending college in general, not the degree awarded. One more bite of lunacy won't fix or harm anything.
Perhaps the next step should be to charge students more that work harder and get better grades because that is a potential marker for motivation and future success that schools would want to reap the present value of. And of course there should be a tuition surcharge for students that are naturally "smarter" and more highly motivated to reduce the tuition for those less fortunate. If we would put our minds to this we could probably make higher education unaffordable for everyone. But at least that would be fair.
Is this a joke? Do we want to incentivize people into 4-year degree programs where they can earn and contribute to society, or live a life of frustration?
Universities should charge a premium to major in frivolous topics and a discount to major in STEM fields.
Base tuition should be the same for every major. Special fees should be used for specific courses that cost the school more to teach. When you charge a person more for degrees based on earning potential, you are overlooking one very important word: potential. You are not guaranteed high salaries or even a job with science or engineering degrees. Furthermore, tuition should not be used to direct a students academic path. That should be up to the student alone, not society. Education is not supposed to be job training and when that becomes its sole purpose, we abandon American exceptionalism.
Well this does make sense when you consider the source of the study – people in education.
A liberal arts major had to come up with this idea…..just sayin
Engineering/science professors are paid more than English professors and don't forget the cost of the labs.
I had biology, chemistry, and physics classes and each one included 4 lectures and at least 1 lab a week. I had the use of everything from an electron microscope to a GC Mass Spec that was paid for out of tuition dollars.
English classes are cheap to teach with large lecture type classes.
I benefited by having a single tuition for all majors but why should an English major's tuition subsidize expensive lab equipment for the engineering and science students?
this article sheds important light on an underdiscussed area of research that many college students conduct while in school. the parties, the drinking, other mind-altering, ahem, broadening substances. none of these things are free, and many college students must either pawn textbooks or even forego a full load of classes each semester to finance their research activities. and not only will none of this research add to their ability to earn a living after graduating, or not graduating, university. in fact, there is significant evidence showing that these students are negatively impacting their earnings ability. so the question that has been asked, and finally, here in the wall street journal, answered, is how do you pay for the research these hard working students are conducting? it's obvious. they're negatively impacting their ability to earn a living while in college, so, logically, we should pay them to do it.
Joke of an article. Back out to the real question. Do you want to let Liberal Arts Majors pay less so you can continue to attempt to find relevance in these dead studies? Subsidies the worthless on the backs of the hard working.
STEM programs should be cheap or free to qualified students (the ones proven good at math and science) – since the country requires these for its economic survival and a country has only so many resources that it can spend on education. The liberal arts vanity programs should be much much more expensive so that the less gifted children of the wealthy can subsidize the really important and necessary programs.
Nursing programs take more personnel and more time; it's a lower student-to-teacher ratio. So of course it should cost more; personnel costs are higher. Now, a physics class which has 120 students and one professor? Should cost less. Chemistry lab — again, low student to teacher ratio, should cost more, even if it's being taught by a grad student. Classes where you learn from tapes, don't interact with a live person and never set foot in a classroom except to take the tests? Very, very cheap, regardless of subject matter.
They already do this for law and medical students. Once the school is done raping these students, they're handed off to the government who charges them a differential tax rate that takes more money out of their pockets. Why should the bright students that actually advance society be punished while the geniuses in the art, women's studies, and English departments are rewarded for talking about their feelings?
Wow. How long would it take until more incredibly stupid ideas like this one emerged from the highbrow academia ranks? "The share of degrees awarded in engineering and business decreased within three years after putting in place the differential tuition program." — all you need to read in this article. The US is suffering from a tremendous lack of technical competency in the business world, and our children are VASTLY behind the rest of the developed world for science and engineering. Great, so those tough, long hours dedicated by engineering students, delaying gratification — lets make it that much more enticing to reduce their costs if they drop the hard challenge. I agree with posts about economic factors, poor kids would likely not choose engineering. What trumps everything in this article, is the seeming (only) support for the argument is coming from a "survey" from "the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute" — what percentage of this prestigious body might have a self-interest to protect in this survey????? gee, you think perhaps a few — possibly the majority are academics in the nauseating liberal ranks? Of course they'd love the job security of full classes of pupils heading out into the world with zero skills that will land them jobs –
Wow. Just incensed by this article. I was a liberal arts (legal studies) degree btw. But I learned over 20 years, it wasn't enough. I switched to software development, then went for an MBA. I can't believe the BS I was fed when I was young, and this kind of idiocy needs to be squashed. We need exactly the OPPOSITE of what this article states. We need to reduce or make free education for the sciences. We should triple the tuition for liberal arts – you can read poetry in your older days anyway rather than when you are young and it is meaningless.
If the intent is to better match labour supply to labour demand, a more effective tool would be to allocate college spaces on this basis rather than disrupt the equality of opportunity that this life stage is intended to bring about.
Excellent idea – why should liberal arts students subsidize the more expensive educations of those who will almost certainly make more money? Business and STEM students should pay for what they're costing the school, which is considerably more than what an English student's program costs.
Colleges already do. Back in the late '90′s at The University of Texas at Austin I was paying 3-4000 per semester. My friends in liberal arts were paying 1-2200 per semester.
Sorry I forgot to mention that the cost difference was due to needing more hours to graduate with an Engineering degree than liberal arts.
"Should Colleges Charge Engineering Students More?"
If you want less engineering students, by all means go ahead.
As a student who comes from middle class America, I have to debate the logic behind the implementation of this policy. I know for a fact that my parents would not have paid for the business major I am receiving if instead I could go to the same school for English or Humanities. You want to destroy the future generations of America and there skills entering the workforce, make them pay more to be more knowledgeable.
What a silly proposal. Price is driven by cost not outcome.
Are tehy going to stop outsourcing engineering to India/China?
Perhaps we need to question why an engineering student needs to take half of his/her course load in general eduction / liberal arts credits in the first place. Students could either add more relevant courses to reach the usual 120 credits instead of being forced to take things like philosphy and art appreciation or they can reduce the credits needed for graduation (and therefore the cost) so only courses required for the major are needed. When half the courses are taken have no relevance to the major or to future earning potential, we have a problem.
This middling bull just promotes mediocracy. It's stressful enough for someone to get a STEM degree. While they live in the library, worrying about grades and debt, humanities majors are doing keg stands
If only they awarded student loans on the basis of intended major….
This is bass ackwards. Engineering and science departments typically bring in lots of external funding through sponsored research programs by NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. Thus the amount of tuition dollars spent on an engineering student's training is undoubtedly less than that spent on a '[insert minority here] Studies' major. Universities should be charging more to the liberal arts students whose departments are entirely supported by tuition dollars.
If, you really want to reign in college cost, have everyone boycott going to college for two years and watch how fast the prices come down.
Engineers already pay a higher tuition to public schools. Those with higher incomes tend to pay more taxes which are then used to subsidize the public schools.
If schools are allowed to make more money from Engineering, do not be surprised if the low-value departments disappear.
Charging engineering students more…..what a wonderful idea….then we can get engineers from Canada, China, India and Russia. Our math problem in elementarty/high school is now solved. What idiots we have running this country…..but let's keep making race and gender more important than everything else….time for me to get a drink and toast myself for being old.
. . . and if you can't find a decent paying job in your major after graduation, the university /college will reduce your debts according to your actual compensation.
Colleges and universities can't account for the majority of their expenses. They are equivalent to the DoD when it comes to tracking where everyone's tuition + all the government grant money goes. Is this even feasible? Wouldn't it be better if they sought corporate sponsorships kind of like how they do with ESPN, TV coverage rights for their sports teams? Just think they could name their buildings after their corporate sponsors and plaster their logos all over the place and earn huge advertising fees.
No-they should charge the law students, the non science students etc. They should welcome the hard science students because they are the students who are in short supply and will help create the next "great thing".
The colleges already get more tuition out of an engineering studunt. Typically, enginnering students have to take 30 more units (more or less) to earn their BS degree over other majors (BA) . As such, a BS in engineering is more of a 5 year plan as it is, rather than a 4 year plan for a BA (assuming of course a student takes a full load). On top of that, book prices are at least twice that for engineering over other majors – and you need to hang onto the book for reference rather than selling it back. Why penalize a student who picks a major that leads to a better paying career?
So gender studies and the like would be free of charge?
Public universities are subsidized by taxes, so the amount of subsidy for a given major should depend on the amount of tax revenue expected from graduates. The STEM students will pay a lot in taxes, so they should get more of a subsidy. The humanities students, on the other hand, will spend more time on unemployment assistance, in lower tax brackets, and on welfare, so their subsidy should be much smaller.
A few notes:
First, and I've been anything but reticent to point out in the past, the ridiculous "majors" particularly among the social sciences, could easily disappear. Forever. A pipe dream, I know, but it's nice to imagine the scenario.
Second, and this particularly applies to the basketball and football programs, the funds saved through the disassociation with intercollegiate sports is potentially in the tens of millions of dollars saved every year. And, yes, this is true despite the fact that at SOME (very few) institutions the net result from their sports programs is a financial boon. By the way, physical activity should be highly encouraged at institutions of higher learning, but the modern paean to big-time collegiate sports does, in the aggregate, siphons much-needed funds from the academic side of higher education.
Third, and kind of off-the-subject, but some posters have seemed to denigrate English majors. I'm not a graduate in that field, but language is perhaps the most important study (among the non-STEM fields) in higher education. The ability to communicate effectively and concisely is paramount; yes, this is true regardless of field of study. And this applies to engineers. Consider the following hypothetical report from an engineer:
The beam is forty-two inches long.
The crossbar is forty, too (also)
The crossbar is forty-two (42)
Here, the homophones "two" and "too" drastically change the meaning. And, yes, the resultant ambiguity written by someone not knowing better could lead to catastrophe.
English is vital.
Yes. It's supply and demand for both the costs and the results. A physics professor costs more to hire than an English professor.
There should be no disrespect for English majors. Clear communication is important. However, writing a business letter is easier than calculating a series of differential equations applied to accelerating bodies at relativistic speeds.
Also, there is more value in having a degree in physics. I can make more as a physicist than as an English teacher.
Obviously, the instructors for the lower-paying career studies should receive lower pay themselves since what they're being paid isn't worth as much.
This is crazy. There is a shortage of STEM grads in this country. All around the US, millions of jobs requiring STEM skills sit unfilled because there aren't enough graduates. Why on earth would be want to discourage people from studying fields greatly in need? If anything, STEM majors should be subsidized to incentivize enrollment in these in-demand fields. If the schools want more money, they can always hit them up for donations after graduation.
Since I didn't bother to proofread very well:
First line of hypo: The beam is forty inches long.
Not to mention the redundancy of the word "saved" in the first sentence of my second point.
I think an inverse relationship between tuition and earning potential would be much more advantageous. I think anyone who wants to study women's studies, advanced pottery, medieval literature, etc. Should have to pay more. If you want to waste your time in college studying something that is not marketable just because you enjoy it, than you should have to pay for it. Engineering graduates are in high demand, for every engineering student that washes out and becomes a Coms major we have to export that work out of country and pay someone else to do it, taking money out of our economy. We have plenty of McDonalds drive through workers, we don't need to make their degrees cheaper.
@Alexander Hamilton, if upper division English courses are teaching students the difference between "two" and "too", then those degrees really are worthless. Furthermore, if you didn't learn the basic communication skills necessary to function in society by college, I doubt you're capable of wrapping your head around differential equations.
Paul: I agree. My point was that masters of the English language is a necessary and vital component contributing to the success in ANY field. And, as evidenced by my (admittedly simplistic) hypothetical, ambiguities in language could possibly lead to disastrous results.
That said, the STEM majors are particularly more difficult majors than most others, and the demand for qualified instructors is significantly higher. But just as mathematics is the language of science, English is the "language" of communication; communication is how humans convey meaning. And meaning MATTERS a lot when it comes to engineering.
This has to be one of the most ABSURD concepts I have ever been exposed to.
7:48: Yes, I get your point, but that wasn't my point. I admitted (after you wrote), that the example was SIMPLISTIC, but as an associate editor of the Law Review in law school, and as the editor of the political section of the law school's newspaper, I identified a number of (sometimes egregious) grammatical and usage errors. Errors, incidentally, that were not only made by law students, but also made by some well-respected professors from prestigious law schools. Also, though, that the professors' submissions were usually much less error prone, they, too, (ALSO) occasionally blundered. And, on rare occasion, their meanings were a tad ambiguous.
In summary, though the "two" and "too" example was simplistic, it was nevertheless an example of the real-world ambiguities that the improper uses of language can beget.
By the way, I'm fully committed to proper language instruction BEFORE college. But, as evidenced by the ever-increasing trend of remedial English instruction in higher education, its importance cannot be diminished.
Punish the Capables, Subsidize the Parasites
No wonder this country is on the down slope…
College costs are based on the overall cost to run an institution. Changing the tuition fees based on a major is the equivalent of taxing the rich for working hard. If the English majors don't like the ROI, get a real major
"Women and minorities were more likely to be negatively affected by increases in tuition than men and whites."
What does this mean? Loans are now granted by sex and race? That's how most people are funding their tuition costs is by loans.
I assume the author means white males are less likely to avoid a major because it isn't "on sale" compared to cheaper alternatives, but without more information I assume it's another useful tidbit on race that the media likes to write.
Ok, let me get this straight. The country is struggling to train enough STEM majors. The problem is so acute that one of the big draws for the new immigration bill is the increase in H1B visas for technology.
So our plan is to increase the cost in the US to get this type of education while subsidizing the less in demand education.
Sure that's a good plan
What?! Last time I checked all my friends that were English majors graduated before me because I had real classes to take. That means I had to stay in school longer, and pay more tuition fees. Lets say on average it takes an English grad 4 years to grad, but it takes an engineer 5. That's means the engineering student is paying 25% more than the English student.
So, let me get it straight: let's punish doctors, nurses and programmers so that we can have less of them. In 20 years we'll have more expensive medical care with less doctors and stay behind in technological innovations. At the same time, let's encourage more useless and self-indulgent professions that already have their respective job markets fully saturated with people who can't find a job because _nobody_ _needs_ _so_ _many_ English majors. Brilliant!
> fees for majors should align with program-specific teaching costs and post-graduation income potential
I agree it _may_ be ok for fees to be aligned with program teaching costs (in my personal opinion, a dubious propositon for the society as a whole)
Hmm, we don't have enough engineering students, lets make them pay more for their degree.
utter idiocy, complete and absolute stupidity
then again, I'm an engineering student so i may be more than a little biased
Nope. Not fair.
The cost of degrees that produce less value to a society such as history, literature and philosophy should cost more than science based degrees that help drive innovation in a society. We may have to one day rely on ourselves to once again be a predominately manufacturing society should wage parity between the US and China grow closer in the coming decades.
With this type of pricing skew, it would be a compelling incentive for lower income students to pursue the degrees with the highest earning potential such that they can better their situation with practical training that is more likely to give them employment opportunities as well as the potential to intern while in school. Most engineering programs have this type of co-op program to enable professional experience and the building of an employment network for post graduation opportunities.
Should Colleges Charge Engineering Students More?
Oh yes. Brilliant! While we are at it lets charge science, technology, math and computer science (STEM) majors more too. Hey it's not like we NEED engineers or scientists to compete in a global economy. And so what if china, India, Asian nations and Europe all support and subsidize their college students majoring in these subjects.
I mean does it really matter if our competitors have the fastest growing number of STEM students in the world? Especially, since the number of STEM students in the US is declining, and what students that we do have majoring in STEM subjects and the vast majority of graduate students in these fields are foreign exchange students.
I am sure that we will be able to continue to lead the world in science and technology by using all those with social science or other non-technical degrees. Morons!!
The article opens with "Why does a student majoring in English have to pay the same tuition as an engineering student with much higher earning potential?". As a number of comments express, the proper question would be "Why should students studying in fields valuable to the economy subsidize the English department, its faculty and its students' tuition?"
Seriously, cost-based pricing makes economic sense; outcomes-based pricing does not. If any University seriously believes outcomes-based pricing is a good idea, I suggest they go to full contingent tuition, allowing students to attend without tuition charges in exchange for a share of the student's post-graduation earnings. This idea does work for trial attorneys.
It makes far more sense to charge higher tuition for Gender Studies, Black Studies, Native American Studies, and the other junk majors. That tuition surcharge could then be placed into a welfare account that they could use after they graduate and can't get a decent job.
The purpose of a university is to offer an education and to allow students to freely explore various subjects. So, universities should not adjust their tuition, depending on the major of the student.
There is a separate issue: the high cost of a college education. The high cost is due to the fact that the government subsidizes the cost of education. If Washington eliminated the grants and loans and "forced" students to pay the full cost of college, then students and their parents would make more rational decisions on selecting an affordable college.
Universities that charge excessive tuition would lose students, and the revenue stream would dry up. Such universities will then act rationally and keep costs under control.
Here is a case in point. The City University of New York had been paying well-known adulterer, General David H. Petraeus, $150000 per year to teach one class per semester on a part-time basis.
We should then charge less for each theoretical engineering course and charge more for hands on classes like Java programming etc. College is going to turn into technical school.
Funny, US is copying China model for degree specific training to become blue collar workers while China is copying US for general education training such as liberal arts for better entrepreneurs.
This made me laugh until I realized this was meant seriously. We are doubling and tripling H1B visas because we cannot produce enough engineers domestically and keep up with the demand. Why not give English majors a discount and a financial incentive?! You may think it absurd but it is not any more so than discouraging those that have the wherewithal to pursue a curriculum in which the mortality rate is about 70 percent — last I heard. We should give STEM people incentives for National Security and Economic Growth is really in their hands.
First of all, the hypothesis is not true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In our school (top 5 engineering school in the nation), engineering students are charged at least $3,000 more than other majors, including English majors etc.
Please double check your sources when conducting news reports!
I think it should be somewhat opposite instead, for two main reasons I can think of;
1) Anyone, I mean anyone who can read or write English can graduate in it. Engineering on the other hand requires a great deal of analytical ability. I think the level of hard work and difficulty engineering students have to go through in order to graduate are "punishment" enough for a better salary degree.
2) In this age of technology, we need more STEM graduates in order to have an edge over others. China is rapidly modernizing its STEM "fleet", which at one point in future will develop into a fierce competition in International market. So to attract students towards STEM programs, incentives like more scholarships and lower fees are rather good ideas.
If anything this study should be looking at the opposite of the its hypothesis. In this day and age we need to develop more Engineers and Scientists to keep up with the global economy. Michael below said it best. We are 'importing' students from other countries to study engineering because we cannot find enough people to study it here. We should be incentivizing students to become engineers and pursue jobs in STEM fields so that we can compete in the coming decades as China and India expand and increase the level of education that their citizens receive.
Brilliant. Let's take the majors where workers are productive and in high demand, like engineering, and charge them more, discouraging students and causing even worse worker shortages.
Also, let's take the majors people take when they don't want to work too hard, where they won't learn any useful skills, like Communications, and let's subsidize those, encouraging people to pick those majors and forever make themselves unemployable and a drain on society.
We'll increase unemployment, decrease competitiveness, and drown students in debt.
Just brilliant. Why is anyone considering this and why is this is being posted? Is this just click bait? If not, the author might want to think first and write second.
This guy is an idiot.
How does this trash get on here?
When colleges only inspire what's within a student's financial reach….it's time to close their doors.
The blog is so close to being dead on the money (pardon the pun). Flip it on it's head, there is a skills shortage in high tech, sciences, healthcare, etc. Charge more for degrees with skills that are not in demand. Math, science and basic programming should be encourage if not required. Want to be a writer? Take electives, start a blog, WRITE, but while in school focus on employable skills.
This is stupid.
Why aren"t we seeing articles about why the majority of the nation is enrolling themselves in a useless liberal arts degree that they saddle themselves with debt for and never use?
What does it say about this country that folks don't even aspire to a more challenging degree that has an actual earning potential?
what they are really saying is " we can get more money if we find a way to charge higher tuition on some of our students who are successfull." there is no rationel reason to charge higher fees just because some will possibly make more money in the end. what would make more sense would be to place surcharges on students who go into positions of college administration or politics.
Sure, charge as much as you can, anyway you like………it's the American way. However, before we jump into supply & demand economics, we will have to rid the system of all artificial subsidies that distort fair value. This means no more college loans, grants, subsidies………unless, they are provided to such a small number of students that their economic impact on pricing is irrelevant.
Championing different prices for different subjects based on future prospects and value is meaningless in America's current subsidized system.
The idea of differential tuition is not new….but in the past it depended on the cost to educate, not future earning potential.
STEM degrees often require laboratory sciences which are expensive to provide.
On the other hand, STEM majors don't consume much library services.
College is an investment, but more and more now, colleges do not educate. They give assignments and the students teach themselves. If we as a society get into this self learning stage, we should actually be charged less as a student.
As someone who started the Engineering major, but has yet to finish, one of the main reasons I stopped going to school was that my income put me above the financial aid level, my grades were average so I was unable to get scholarships. With little to no credit history I could not secure loans and I needed a job to support my family (Wife and 2 kids – at that time). The school that I had chosen to go to increased their tuition by about 20% each year at the same time as cutting their teaching staff by 20% each year. I only chose to go their because they were the closest to home. All of these things have combined to send me home and let me worry about my degree later, because little mouths need to be fed. I decided to pursue my career goals on a different path. Now I am a PE (without a degree), because in my state you can take the test if you have the experience (experience I gained on the job often puts me above college graduates.) I studied on my own and passed the test.
I think that these days many colleges put too much emphasis on getting as much (money) as they can out of students rather than putting as much (knowledge) into them as they can. There is a growing movement of somewhat smaller colleges moving towards flat rate tuition (pay a flat fee for 6 months and get as much done in that time period as you possibly can). This is more along the lines of what we need. Why would we hamper the growth of others to make money? That mentality is so evil. I'm all for the system of allowing people to learn for as cheap as possible. Do instructors need to be paid, surely, but if they are just reading out of a book and assigning homework, you could hire any literate bum off the street to do that.
Perhaps we should flip this discussion around and take the viewpoint that we should raise tuition on useless degrees such as philosophy. If that degree cost $10K more per year than an engineering or math related degree, someone might think twice. It might also reduce the amount of people that graduate with a bachelor's degree in (insert liberal arts major here) that has $100K in debt and makes $20K per year forever. Besides, it is widely known that for the US to remain competitive in almost any industry, we need more STEM majors. What's a good way to do that? Lower tuition costs for those majors, not raise them.
How about a post graduation 5% tax? Actually taxing earnings not a nebulas earning potential. Free or next to free during attendance and pay say 5-7% tax on your earnings for 15 years.
I agree with JB. They are doing it backwards. If there is a better job market for the engineers and nurses they need to decrease the tuition and encourage young people to pursue those tracts. By lowering the cost of tuition for say, an English major, you are encouraging more English majors. Impacting the decision making and path of 19 year olds is much different than dealing with rational and efficient market. This appears to be put in place by some politicians or selfish special interest group.
This is typical socialist anti-innovation bs. Charging more for STEM degrees that will make America a more competitive and advanced nation is ridiculous. It can be easily assumed that people earning these degrees will have a higher average income and will pay more taxes throughout their career so adding an extra burden when they are students doesnt make much sense.
In college back in the early and mid 80′s I was an engineering student. There were times I literally had NO food for days just trying make it to study engineering. Jimmy Carter's economy destroyed my ability to afford college. I had an idea for a LED based television monitor screen back then. Had to drop out as I could never afford college past 100 hours. Shame. Maybe my ideas would have led to some innovations. I had good grades, just no money.
@Dillon: Lets not get into socialism vs capitalism on this subject. You could as well say that charging more for a more "valuable" degree is capitalism anti-innovation bs.
The fact is, society needs more engineers and does not need that many more literature majors. No matter your political outlook, anyone can see that charging MORE for engineering degrees will not improve the situation. Anyone claiming that doing so is "fair" because engineers tend to make more money (also, where do these supposedly well-paid engeineers work, and are they hiring???) should, just as you say, remember that those engineering students will be more likely to get jobs and pay taxes, so the "fairness" works out in the end.
If pay and benefits are calculated to charge tuition then teachers should pay triple what any other major pays. In terms of hours worked,days off, pay,benefits,job security,retirement age they have a better deal than anyone.
"Should Colleges Charge Engineering Students More?"
No, they should be charging every student less. This could easily be done by going through the ranks of endless and mostly useless administrators and diversity officers (and their attached staffs) present in the higher education system and removing that heavy layer of fat.
Engineering students often spend longer than four years in college due to the complexity and load of the courses they take over that of humanties students. They do end up paying more (it is cheaper to carry the highest number of hours per semester you can successfully handle over adding semesters).
And if they earn more afterwards, they will pay more in taxes.
I graduated from engineering school one semester before all of the computer jobs vanished. Friends of mine in the same class had job offers rescinded. Had our tuition been based on earning potential, all of those students would have been unemployed with desirable skills and higher debt. Also, I'm one of those low-income background students…I did choose a field based on its earning potential and not merely for fun. Higher costs would have increased the amount of federal student loans I needed to pay for my undergraduate degree.
Should be the other way around — charge the slackers who want to pursue stupid degrees that will have them end up on welfare more and students who leave college with degrees that will make them more useful less.
End result will be more useful degrees and less degrees in mommy's basement.
We are short of good engineers as it is, If anything, the blue chip companies should be getting involved in apprenticeship schemes and offering discounts where possible for committed students where a company can cover some of the costs on a payback through work scheme.
Why stop there? Why not also charge more based on race and sex? It is well known that orientals and caucasians, and men earn more, so they should pay more. Give me, give me, give me…this country is a joke. At some point the general population will learn that in a system if the in's don't equal or exceed the out's that the system will FAIL.
How about charging tuition in line with the laws of supply and demand, based on major? At the very least, continue equal rates for all, but those who choose Arts and Humanities as a degree choice should never have the option of a 4 year bachelor degree and instead be required to complete a Masters program at minimum, in order to obtain any degree whatsoever! The most commonly awarded degrees tend to be "softer" humanities – particularly psychology, criminal justice, political science, and communications – therefore, they contribute the greatest demand. They should pay more instead of the minority who pursue more demanding disciplines such as engineering, business, science, medicine, and mathematics, who create the least demand. If students who are less academically compelled to put forth the effort in seeking a bachelors in difficult disciplines, or a Masters in the Arts or Humanities, then it's very likely today's overburdened college systems would see less overcrowding, and therefore more relaxed tuition rates!
As a current engineering student, I am shocked and disgusted by this article. As many other comments have stated, those with a higher earning potential do indeed end up paying more in the long run. They also end up paying more in the short run by taking on the stresses of a more challenging degree. I have sacrificed much of my time due to my program, while my friends in non-technical majors are out partying. In a way, the opportunity cost associated with earning a more challenging technical degree is significantly higher than that of a liberal arts degree.
On the other hand, I acknowledge that such degrees are more expensive to fund, and it is potentially justifiable to impose fees due to the greater cost of labs, etc. However, it is unacceptable to justify higher tuition based on higher long term income potential.
Are you kidding! My grandson is about to begin classes in mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. The tuition is over $60,000 a year. This is already outrageous and without schlorships and loans this is out of the reach of most families. If the professors would teach a full schedule (not just 2/3 classes a week) colleges wouldn't need so many. Everyone in this country needs to cut spending and it's about time colleges do the same.
My first reaction has been echoed above several times: Really? On reflection, it seems to me that the idea behind the justification for charging more for technical training is another admission that the promise of a liberal education has failed. Trained engineers are in demand, not the well-rounded and well-educated liberal arts students taught to be leaders. I am old enough to have met and worked for truly well-rounded and well-educated men and women schooled in a rigorous program and they were impressive. And they were leaders. If my fellow readers think we're short of engineers (and we are), I would argue that we could use leaders even more. It would be better to keep the tuition the same and make the liberal arts program worth the fees.
Sure it cost more for STEM programs and they get paid more, but society receives greater benefits from these graduates. Without competitive rates and adequate compensation, nobody would enter these challenging programs when they could just do humanities and have less work in college. I know I wouldn't of even tried not to mention I couldn't afford it. This is coming from a 4th year Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering undergrad.
Let's reward the people that major in alternative life styles and black studies and charge more for degrees that are real and create jobs and wealth. This would fit right in with the failed community organizers vision and ideas for America.
Since the federal government plays an oversized role in financing higher education, I would like to see an analysis from the taxpayers' point of view. My guess is the government gets its loans repaid at a higher rate for the STEM program graduates, which would imply the other degrees are getting a de facto discount on their tuition.
As it may be the case that certain degrees are more costly to teach than others (as in the case of engineering degrees) and also that there is a shortage of undergraduates in some fields (engineering and computer science) and a surplus of undergraduates in others (business and law), would it not make more sense to lower the cost of tuition for the those students pursuing degrees in fields where there is a shortage of worker-supply while raising the cost of tuition in the fields where there is a surplus? This approach may help to balance out the number of students in each department at universities, and it could also help a greater percentage of undergraduates earn jobs upon graduating. This may also aid in solving the problem related to the idea that certain degrees are more costly to the university than others.
Before anyone comes to bat calling this a "socialist" or "anti-american" concept, please rethink and consider you views in light of the current system. As it is now, most students at full-time undergrad universities pay the same tuition regardless of their field of study, the number of resources they consume, and the number of classes that they actually take. The idea of paying the same price regardless of the consumption is perhaps the most socialist idea of all. My proposed concept would effectively bring in supply and demand economics in order to solve problems relating to cost for universities and worker-supply for industries.
Why can't liberal arts cost LESS? Do not charge MORE for engineering! Drop the cost of the softer degrees.
This has to be one of the daftest articles printed by WSJ in years. So we drop prices and make it attractive for kids to take degrees that lead them nowhere?? That would be like discounting cigarettes because they lower lifespans and reduce SS costs.
Engineering students have it hard enough trying to stay sane during their curriculum, don't add more cash into the formula. This article is really thoughtful, not to mention a bit racist and sexist. It effects everyone the same, don't try to tell me otherwise.
Whats the standard for Art Students after all this? or Culinary? The fields have low earning potential and are usually set on freelance or contract. Yet the schooling costs a fortune!
Why would you make one of the most difficult degrees to obtain, and one of the most important skillsets we need in the world more expensive to achieve? The world needs more engineers/problems solvers, especially in the situation we're in now.
I have a daughter beginning her baccalaureate studies in engineering this fall. She has been warned that there will be a little less free time than other disciplines, thus limiting her ability to work on campus. Yes, engineering degrees do assure graduates a better starting salary out of college, but, unless they get an advanced degree, or pursue a specialty, their incomes plateau a little more quickly than average. Thus, much of this will equal out. This study is troubling in that the Obama "spread the wealth around" philosophy seems to be in play here. Just because my daughter busts her butt, staying up late at night studying, she should be penalized by high tuition? this stinks.
I would love for this "Economist" to attempt an engineering degree. Maybe get out into the world more and see what is actually usefull and what the world needs.
If the government is trying to rebuild America, then this is an incredibly foolish idea. Americans need real jobs, not part-time low paying jobs. Though soft degrees are valuable to society, they don't create those jobs. The STEM degrees, however, give our youth the intellectual resources our country needs for innovation. That innovation will put Americans to work in jobs that will support families. Our universities should cater to people who are smart enough and disciplined enough to pursue such demanding courses of study because our economic prosperity depends on them.
I think that differential tuition makes a lot of sense, but I think schools have the concept backwards. Why not charge higher tuition for the non-science degrees? As a society, we want more graduates with science and engineering skills. Economists should be the first to support the principle that lower prices will increase the quantity demanded! If you want more STEM degrees, lower the price on those goods.
Most people will not like MY answer as ot pertains to a bigger picture than most people want to address. While many have admitted over the course of the higher unemployment bubble in 2008 – 2010 and then America's need to change the skill set of its workforce to stay competitive in the world market this would makes no sense. Additionally, men are seen now seeking roles the within Nursing industry, which was long regarded and held in vast numbers by females.
So why do you ask? My answer is the onslaught of a larger minority population number growing to be the majority. Today 4 out of 5 babies are currently born today in US hospitals are of color (Biracial, Latino,Asian, Black,etc) Historically Engineers boast the highest paid on average of any other career path. Additoinally, Enginneers are some of the few disciplines when once graduated can immediatle produce some form of workforce results. The higher tuition would slow the progress down for THESE indivuduals to access these powerful and very respected roles. Lastly this wouls also garner a greater earning power by these individuals thus creating a new WEALTH pool. That's my two cents
Why do we even offer degrees in English? People speak English already.
ain't no reezun to pay more for an englush degree i mean all you can do is somethin like teach englush i mean who needs eegllush teechers anyway? if yur an inguneer then all you have to do is add and subtrak and stuff.
If you were to raise the price of a major, it would have to be based on the cost the school has to pay for that department. Therefore, an argument of an university increasing an engineer's tuition based on the reason that the cost of labs are more expensive compared to english classes that don't involve labs, might be soluble. To simply say that should raise it because engineers have better future potential is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
To add, if there are cheaper majors, people would be more inclined to get them. Based on that logic, engineering and STEM majors should be LOWER to encourage the students to go into those fields which will ultimately have a better result on the overall economy in America.
Absolutely the worst, most distorted and potentially damaging article I have ever seen. Stupid is as stupid does
Wrong Argument. We need a lot more Engineering graduates, especially with Masters Degrees. So, subsidize them and charge LESS, not more. In contrast, we have too many liberal arts, education, and soft classes like ethnic studies, so charge them MORE. Government is real good at meddling and trying to micromanage supply and demand relationships in various markets. So, this should be familiar ground to government regulators, managers, and bureaucrats.
The prices should stay the same. If we need more Engineering students, and I'm pretty sure we Need More Engineering Students because you can't escape all the incessant, alarmist declarations that WE NEED MORE ENGINEERING STUDENTS, then it's stupid to charge them more.
This would do two things. 1) It would discourage poorer people with the potential to be engineers from taking on the cost; 2) It would promote the asinine belief that engineers are better than writers, businessmen, psychologists, and designers. That's a recipe for attracting the wrong kind of student to what should be a respectable field of humble, technical problem solvers from all walks of life.
Wait wait wait… is this an Onion article? You got me, WSJ, you prankster.
This just sounds like a way to keep the money in the hands of the rich. You're encouraging poorer people to choose a major with a lower earning potential. Sounds like a terrible cycle to me.
Only if we need fewer engineers.
what of engineering teachers getting paid more then?
This policy sounds terribly muddled. What is the goal? Social engineering to promote disciplines where the labor force experiences shortages? (In that case, STEM majors should be heavily discounted and English or sociology should carry a stiff financial penalty). To make universities more economical/efficient by recouping the actual cost of educating students in a given field? (Then the price of tech-heavy degrees like computer science, cinema, medicine and architecture should go up, while text-based fields like business and law should be reduced.) To means-test majors for a more "socially just" student debt burden? (Then majors like fine art, philosophy, social work, early childhood education, acting and music should be heavily subsidized, while accounting, pre-med, political science, engineering etc. should be squeezed dry).
Any way you dice it, this policy produces flawed and sometimes downright foolish consequences.
"Why does a student majoring in English have to pay the same tuition as an engineering student with much higher earning potential?"
One reason is that they get essentially the same services – a room with someone to lecture to them. Labs are an additional cost to engineers.
A second reason is that we don't need more English majors. They have less value economically because they are not in demand. Why would you artificially increase their numbers with subsidies?
If an engineer does not succeed in his/her calling, does the university need to rebate them the difference?
Rather than charge engineers more, why not just charge English majors less?
Most undergraduate engineering curriculums require a minimum of 128 credit hours. Some are up to 134 credit hours plus lab fees.
Most liberal arts English included require 120 credit hours. There are no lab fees for sitting under the campus trees when the English professor wants to give an outdoor lecture on the poetry of Spring.
Economists need to drill down on actual tuition and fees costs at major Universities instead of using average tuition costs. They would be better economists and need nothing higher than 6th grade math to figure it out.
Or maybe… we should charge less since they (engineers) are creating more value to society, as the architects of taming science for the betterment of humanity, than business or finance major, or the lowly major in history who can't get a job.
Disregarding the reasoning given by so many people here, that we should be *encouraging* the fields that are mote important to our society…
The cost of education is *already* taken into account in the entire scheme of things. Their salary is based on the cost of their education (debts), the rarity of their skills, and their talent. Increasing the cost of education would force us to pay even more for engineers as they would demand a higher starting salary, which then inflates their long-term salaries through the rest of their career.
Since engineers are the ones who design and make pretty much everything we rely on, the cost of everything will then go up.
This is a horrible and short-sighted idea, even from a purely economical standpoint.
If you are smart and diligent, why don't you major in Engineering instead of English?
They already to pay more. Higher incomes = higher taxes.
This will not empower the workforce or the economy tied to skills and availability of engineering resources. MBA is a different equation because it is not a craft skill. But for engineering (which is the foundation of structure and growth of any socio-economic fabric), creating a opportunity leverage based on affordability could create a lack of interest and pursuit in acquiring that training among less solvent students.
So if an English major writes a series of best sellers…can you retroactively charge them more tuition? Also..with what doctors are actually making now..medical school should be free.
Continuing this thought process, should English professors get paid less and engineering professors gets paid more? After all, where is this money going? If the majority of it goes into infrastructure that all students enjoy, then why should there be a fee difference? Separately, so much of what college offers is the experience outside the classroom. It's in learning independence and stepping into the social experience as an individual.
Hold up. I don't know about other places, but this is already a practice in many (if not all) Canadian Universities. I'm an engineering student at UofT, and we pay nearly double what the rest of the undergraduate students pay.
Wouldn't a reverse change in prices be more effective for the upcoming job market? Both Canada and the US are needing more hard sciences, medical, engineering, mathematics, etc. Charging more for these programs would only decrease supply and increase supply of the degrees that we currently do not need, such as English. These hard sciences and maths also have a lower participation rate by women, and are a common path for varying immigrants and minorities; decreasing the price on these hard sciences would favour the inclusion of these demographics providing not only a larger supply pool, but a more diverse one at that.
What this demonstrates is college students are price sensitive. Prices should be higher for majors not needed in the work force. I would not advocate lower tuition for needed majors but preferential loan/scholarship treatment to aid students pursuing majors needed in the workforce. Actually lowering the tuition for majors requiring a higher level of scholarship would flood the programs with less than optimum candidates. If teaching talent at an institution is paid at a higher rate than other similar professionals at the same institution then those programs should charge more. We need to stop subsidizing majors that hold little promise of employment.
The main issue I see here is that it incentivizes lower income jobs, and seems to increase the chances that lower income students and minorities will be restricted from engineering paths. It's an excellent idea if the objective is to juice the more profitable students, it's a horrible idea if the goal is to improve the level of equality in education or ensure that the price is fair.
What about a Degree in *Media Studies* and the only job you can get is either at McDonalds or as a Care Assistant for the elderly? What Degrees should be free ?
In my opinion, tuition for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) majors should be lower to encourage students to pursue these programs.
I think government needs to get rid of financial aid. It bloats tuition costs and takes advantage of young professionals. Tuition is flat out wayy too high and nowadays employers really only care about job experience anyway.
This opinion is very wrong and very much against educational philosophy.
Education tuition fees should not be based on the profit that someone would make but ensure that the institution is actually offering the best education to their students.
This opinion expressed in this article actually is towards the benefit of institutions that want to make profit. It does not take into consideration the benefit of students who want to study and will make engineering an even less approachable major.
In this era that engineers are really difficult to find, an idea like this would create more problems. On the other hand a new idea is born: creation of educational institutions that create engineers with less tuition fees. These institutions will create a new dynamic in modern era.
Totally wrong approach. We should incentivize greater study of STEM. Not discourage it. He's a thought, if you're working class to middle class, unless you go to a Top 50 school, you don't get to get financial aid if your major is a liberal art. If it's a STEM government picks up a portion depending on financial need. That will increase be win win. First it encourages more poor kids to enter fields that will advance their social class, it will stop the shortage of STEM qualified for STEM jobs in 5-10 years. You would need to be qualified to be STEM major, not just everyone will be qualified. This is such a bad let's protect my social standing all under the very dubious guise of aligning with market costs. Bull, it's all about keeping the rich rich and the poor not
This could easily be the single most misguided commentary on the higher education system I have ever read in total frustration. The writer seems to premise his argument on the fact that ultimately these graduates will likely 'earn' more using their technical degrees – in effect, getting a head-start on the income redistribution. A very liberal but very flawed concept in that it may create a tendency for some of our brighter youth to pursue 'cheaper' degree programs in the liberal arts. While it may be an inconvenient one, it is still a well documented fact that this country severely lacks graduates with technical degrees (probably the reason we still must issue a large number of HB-1 work visas to foreigners – not a criticism at all, I for one, a, overjoyed that they chose to be here). That being said, anyone with any economic sense would know that the exact opposite approach should be taken – subsidies should be directed to those willing to pursue more challenging technical degrees as their skills are desperately needed right now. Our ever-increasing progressive tax system will all but guarantee that a greater portion of their future earnings will be redistributed to support those that were less willing to work quite as hard in college in the end. THE NEW AMERICAN WAY – wait for someone else to do the work hard then take some of what they rightfully earned!
I can understand the idea, but I think that we should be looking at it through more than one perspective. While it is true that engineers make more, we, as a nation, need more engineers, so to encourage more individuals to be engineers the tuition should not go up. What we don't need more of are business majors; lets push up the rate on their tuition instead. I think that it also makes sense to lower tuition for art majors; they are paid less than most jobs, yet it benefits our culture to have a strong creative presence.
I like the ideas proposed by many of the posters that STEM tracks of study should be incentive supported. Unfortunately, we would have to change it to STEAM so we could include African Studies, or it wouldn't fly. The only reason there was not a drop in Nursing studies is that many of those students are sponsored by the healthcare companies they work for.
As a history graduate and former higher education consultant, I completely agree with The Pedo and others stating differential tuition should work the OTHER way: incentivize STEM graduates and disincentivize liberal arts. Unless you graduate from a top 50 school with a GPA above 3.5, your prospects in the job market with a liberal arts major are bleak.
I think the best approach is to offer STEM at a lower rate but also require liberal arts minors/coursework for those students, allowing some flexibility with those degrees. In contrast, students from wealthier families with little concern about student debt after graduation can major in liberal arts at a higher price. There is too much focus on perpetuating obscure areas of academia among some faculty by recruiting students into those areas, leaving those students with few options at graduation.
Yep – colleges should charge whatever they can get away with for whatever diploma is being sought. How should this be any different than any other economic activity or transaction?
My personal feel here is that potential earning power should have nothing to do with tuition. It is unfair to monetize potential earnings through tuition that may never materialize post graduation. Let's face it, individual success in monetary terms has little to do with your degree. I have known a good many folks with formal liberal arts education do quite well in technology positions. Similarly I found that relatively few graduating from an engineering program actually work in that capacity due to the attached liability. The inherent liability of the engineering profession would also be ingored buy such tuition loading.
To those who talk about "cost" basis for pricing, I suppose then that you would be willing to sell your house for the assessed value? or for the same price as a the house down the street that "cost" the same as yours? Of course, not, cost has nothing to do with price. Price is set by what the market will bear.
Now, let's look at an education as an investment. If I invest some amount in an education I expect a return in the future. Today with a flat pricing structure some majors (engineers?) are getting a bargain and some majors (liberal arts?) are getting ripped off based on the expected returns. As an example, when I graduated from engineering school my first year salary was about 120% of what I paid to get the education. A teacher, who paid the same as me, earned about half of what I did. So why would the school not think about extracting some of the value from the education that they provided?
Next, this is done across the country on a daily basis. The difference is it's not done based on major but based on where you go to school. Do you not think that an engineering degree from MIT or Stanford will bring a higher average wage than one from Podunk State? Do you not believe that the reason that MIT or Stanford charge what they do is because (1) they know this and (2) their prospective students know it as well. Again, why not on a major basis?
And finally, here in California there was a proposal by the UC Regents recently to charge a higher tuition to go to the high-end schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA) and lower tutition for going to the other schools like maybe UC Merced. This was met with outrage from students at the higher end schools, even though they know full well that they are going to benefit from that name when they graduate.
So why would we not charge for a degree based on the value that the degree creates for the student? I have no issue with people paying for the value that they get and schooling is no different.
This is the backward kind of thinking that is plaguing our country! Oh here's an idea, lets get more liberal art (LA) majors so that we may increase our numbers while protesting the job shortages… We should be encouraging majors in engineering an hard sciences in order to keep moving forward as a nation. I agree that LA majors play an important and creative role in the development of societies (from a social perspective) , however, history has taught us (we all still have to take history BTW…) that technological advancements have always been the key to resourceful gains.
Class of '13 (Engineering major)
Oh, and one more comment to those who think that somehow the "nation" can figure out what it needs and does not need and will use the price to give incentives to people to bring along those majors. Many of us would object to this kind of policy asour governmetn is not a good predictor of needs, while the market has done quite fine over a couple of hundred years.
The flip side of your argumetn is that with a similar ROI on differnet degrees, some who would have chosen Engineering instead of History because they would be able to generate the returns to pay for the education with the higher salary have the opportunity to do what they love while not being priced out of the market.
In the end the market for jobs is going to determine these ROI's and the university is going to have to figure out how to deliver the educations for costs that can be market competitive. In the end, a good deal for everyone
Up here in Canada Engineering students pay on average 20-30% more than any other degree. I myself pay over $1000 per term more than my friends in other degrees such as business and arts. So implement this shouldnt be to hard if it works for us here.
What this fails to take into account is that the student is already going to pay for his/her higher potential earnings by way of their contribution to the economy: higher taxes, more services and goods purchases, increased opportunities for entrepreneurship that translates into creating jobs for others. And that doesn't even take into account their inventions, which they will create and the rest of society for will depend upon and take for granted.
This is the exact opposite of what we need in this country. We need for people in the fields of math, science and engineering. If this were to happen you will see more and more liberal arts degree students in an over saturated work environment of them. Most studies show that the jobs in the future that will have the biggest need for hire are in the science and medical fields. So why not cater to these people who will get a science degree and have a better chance of making it in the rel world.
Can't think of a better way to discourage financially struggling students from majoring in engineering at a time when our country needs home grown engineers. Very very very bad idea!
Why would you want to charge students more for majoring in fields that are actually critical to society. Not that art history isn't important to society, but an art history degree will not keep an airplane up in the air or the internet running. Raising the cost feels like punishment for choosing your major wisely. I say raise the cost of art history, philosophy, etc. to discourage people from pursing those degrees.
No one wants to hire liberal arts majors these days because they have ZERO skills. I worked with a girl who studied psychology and she was COMPLETELY useless and lazy. We had to do all her work for her and later after graduation, go figure we found out she can't hold a job. These people should save their money and just work in childcare or be a stay at home mom/dad. Why would you take on debt to get a worthless piece of paper that won't get you any decent jobs anyway. For this reason I don't feel sorry for the people who study liberal arts, can't find a job and are saddled with debt.
One of the worst ideas I've ever heard. There aren't enough engineers and scientists as it is. If anything, more incentive funding should be provided to students in these fields.
Institutions of higher learning attempting to profit off of the 'potential' earning power of the student, whether or not they graduate, is unconscionable. On the one hand there is the presumption that 'potential' earnings will translate into 'guaranteed' earnings. On the other hand there is the historical burden of debt incurred by many students, which in itself needs to be parred back, not added to. As a nation we should be doing everything in our power to encourage students to further their education. We will not be able to compete well in this global economy by creating roadblocks for our children.
Like they are not charging enough and not giving them big enough dept when they graduate, now they are gonna screw people more…Don`t bother we`ll bend over without asking…
When I did my undergrad at Michigan as an engineer (02 graduate), we did pay a higher tuition than the liberal arts students.
Why not charge different rates based on Grades, surely a higher scoring engineering student will have a bigger potential to earn then someone who just manages to pass??
I graduated in 1998 and did pay more for an engineering degree. I had to purchase a $3k computer plus $1k in software. That doesn't count the number of late nights studying for tests and doing homework. While all of the business majors were out drinking and partying I was studying.
Now I still don't have a life of luxury, but am doing ok. I paid extra in terms of time, commitment, lab fees, and extra equipment, isn't that enough.
In short, there were many extra charges that went along with certain classes with my ME degree.
Charging more for classes that cost more to produce is one thing, and it is already being done. Charging more for majors that are likely to produce a higher income will drive more people toward majors that require subsidizing. Not rocket surgery.
What appears to be rocket surgery to some people is that we need more people going into STEM, not fewer.
I can't help but wonder (1) Was this written by an English major trying desperately to become published and (2) What in the world does the picture that accompanied this absurd write up have to do with anything? Is this an effort to make it yet another racial issue?
How silly! The engineers and nurses should be charged less, not more. They are a much better credit risk and are far more likely to be able to use their degree to provide valuable services to the public. If someone want to study Women's Studies or Philosophy or Music Appreciation they should be able to. This is America and it's a free country. But, they shouldn't receive reduced tuition or taxpayer grants to fulfill their fantasies.
Well there's a monumentally stupid idea; let's have even more unemployable liberal arts graduates and have even fewer engineering courses. Most universities in the western world can't attract enough students to engineering as it is, without adding a price disincentive. If you want to mess around with pricing to modify the employment market, increase the costs of law school by a few thousand percent; we could do with a drop in their numbers.
What an absolutely absurd concept! So what we want is the people who have the potential to give back most to society (through their tax money and the work they carry out) to be disuased from doing so? Persuade them to study courses which are of benefit only to themselves or a small group of peers? That'll do the nation no end of good… And here's me thinking the WSJ was a serious publication!
So you would get even less engineering graduates? There is a shortage already.
Rather than increasing the fee , improve the education structure. And keep the English as major language throughout courses. Already there are piles of engineering grads hunting for jobs in corporate jungle. This will not control the students passing out as engineering graduates
In fact for technology to go ahead,and proper human health ,Engineering studies and medical should be paid by the Government ,then after the completion of the studies that"s when the Government have to follow up the money or even leave the the follow up, then get them on Taxation.This applies to all medical and engineering graduates.
No, they should pay us to do the course so long as were passing. Considering this is such a difficult. I regret doing this degree in a university and perhaps a polytech (institute of technology) would have been a better option. Simply because students in polytech do more hands on work which is actually quite useful in a working environment, rather than the theory based learning in which I've barely used 20% of the what I learn't so far in uni EXCLUDING the hard stuff..
Going to uni literally reduced my passion towards becoming an engineering mainly because of their major emphasis on theory based learning.
This is ridiculous. They should decrease the cost of engineering degrees and increase the cost of English degrees.
Colleges do already require so much more of Engineering students. The curricula is so much tougher. The program is tougher. If a student just wants a diploma, they are missing it. If they want a challenging and rewarding career in a great field that has vast application and needs… Become an Engineer. Engineering makes you think. It helps you breakdown issues in life and solve them.
Engineering tuition should NOT be higher, it should be lower. It actually adds value to our society far more than so many degrees.
Why would anyone study a major that did not pay a living wage at the end? If someone want to spend their own money on an investment that cannot produce a return in terms of salaries it is their own fault. There are no guarantees engineering students will find suitable employment. The entire tuition system needs a drastic overhaul. Tuition increases at double and triple the rate of inflation are a joke.
A good portion of any degree is humanities (English, history, etc). Are you suggesting engineering students pay more for those classes as well? If so, why? Most tuition rates are a package deal for a semester/year. So how is that going to filter out? And are the engineering instructors going to be paid proportionality higher as well?
They claim you get paid more after graduation. So? You are also going to contribute more taxes over a lifetime, both from direct payroll taxes, and from your economic contribution to your employer.
Only a liberal arts major could come up with such an insipid idea.
I like Josh's, Varun's and Engineering Gator's suggestions that STEM degrees should cost LESS than degrees such as English, Sports Management, or Marketing, since graduates with STEM degrees contribute significantly more to society, both with the results of their work and with their income taxes.
Also consider that the higher-earning-potential majors will ulitmately pay more in taxes on down the road, to help supplement the education of the lower-earning-potential majors. It all washes out in the end. Keep the tuition rate the same across the board.
To me, education is an infrastructure for the country and society. As well, there is one good way to encourage elitism, that being to raise the cost of something, anything to just above the reach of most. Sometimes these costs are just out of reach for those who fall in the middle of societies income level. Don't forget that the cost society spends on educating our youth pays off hundreds, if not thousands of times in tax revenue over the life of that person. If we have come to the point where post secondary education is a must, then we should think about incorporating this level into our society (at little cost to the student) as they do in some EU countries.
As an engineering student (In Canada), we accept that we are the whipping boys of all post secondary educations. We have the highest tuition fees, our books are the most expensive, our work loads are the heaviest, and our exam schedules always seem like an afterthought once every other program gets theirs figured out.
Having said that, how many other programs excluding trades are likely to get you a job within 6 months of graduation? Not many, we may draw the short straw in pretty much every aspect while in school, but we are also more hire-able than a vast majority of other programs. With this in mind however, engineering work tends to be cyclical. The recession couldn't have hit at a better time for students in engineering because we are graduating as the economy bounces back and engineers are in demand.
Job opportunity, earning potential, and always getting the short straw through our educational careers aren't means to justify paying the highest tuition of any post-secondary program though.
Engineering degrees are/should be more expensive since the curriculum has to be ABET accredited. Liberal arts programs are usually just a combination of whatever bs courses the college feels like offering. This is also why liberal arts students have options such as online college and community college, because their degrees are worthless pieces of paper.
Are you kidding?? Why should engineers have to pay the same tuition as interesting, but do-nothing majors? Engineering and hard sciences are what we need to provide incentive for if America is ever to recover from the scientific doldrums we're under. You want *more* graduates without jobs?? Really??
Get engineering going again as a desired course of study. That way when engineers are hired, they can pay the taxes needed to support the English and Humanities graduates when they need food stamps or welfare because they chose a course of study that does not yield employment.
Interesting economic analysis, but misses the point altogether.
I am an engineering student and my university recently implemented differential tuition. I am offended by the idea that students in potentially high earning fields should pay higher tuition because they can afford it. By that logic, all merit based scholarships should be ended as more intelligent, harder working students will likely be more financially successful than their peers.
Also, differential tuition ignores the fact that these students already pay more for their education. Base tuition does not include fees. I pay, on average, $600 a semester as an "engineering fee" to cover my college's expenses (software, library, etc.), even though I also pay the same general fees as all other students. And, classes with labs have special lab fees to fund these more costly classes. Maybe it's time we decrease tuition for these programs to encourage students to enter fields which will actually pay them a decent salary.
I'd turn it upside down. Make Liberal Arts and Law the most expensive and Sciences, Medical, Teaching the least expensive. Don't we need more of the last three and fewer of the first two????
I agree with the majority on the value to society. We should also address the cost and return directly to the university industrial complex.
What is driving the cost of higher education, is not education but marketing by way of the "university experience". What are the costs of social activities and experience versus education at universities? What is the utilization of these amenities by major? What is the breakdown of alumni contribution by degree? What are the inflows from research grants and patent royalties by department?
I think the question we should be asking, is , what was the cost structure for a university education 50 years ago, and why is it different today? The government/university connect has driven up the cost of higher education beyond the normal rate of inflation, resulting in a large percentage of the college graduates who would have been better off career/earnings wise by going a different route. A University education should be available to top performers, who have the work ethic, the natural skill set, and interest, in the areas of study chosen. It should not be available to anyone who can get a 2.5 GPA in high school, and apply for a student loan.
This is absolutely the most absurd dribbled I have read for all of 2013. First of all, how does an increase in tuition impact women and minorities more than white males? This alone shows the author's clear bias. White men have the LEAST amount of grant and scholarship programs available to them than any other group. When I applied to college 5 years ago and began filling out paperwork to apply for grants and scholarships, I was qualified for nothing but loans. Just for kicks, I refilled all of the applications with the SAME EXACT information — except changed my race to African American. Twelve……twelve grants and scholarships magically became available for me.
Secondly, what is it with you people and your propensity to drool for higher taxation and costs for those who achieve more? This ridiculous mindset is what is slowly killing America with mediocrity. Why work hard to be successful anymore, when you are penalized for your success while others are rewarded for achieving less? Now that there are officially more Americans on food stamps than there those who are private sector workers, we are killing our economy with unsustainable subsidies for many who are more than capable of working to support themselves.
I cannot believe Khadeeja Safdar would seriously suggest that we should raise tuition on students whose degrees offer higher earning potential. Absolutely ridiculous. Here's a novel idea, how about we get rid of all of the cafes, fast food chains, rock walls, lounges of all types, movie theatres, game centers, and all of the other unnecessary hangouts on campuses across the nation that are hiking up costs. Colleges are supposed to be learning institutions, not social clubs. Studies have shown that only 30% of tuition costs are actually being utilized for the learning aspect of college. The rest goes towards wasteful clubs and centers that 1% of the student body actually uses.
LOLOL Increase tuition on students whose degrees offer them higher earning potential. Straight up Leftist herp and derp, right there.
Just what this country needs more of, people with burger flipping degrees and less technical degrees.
Actually, the premise is backwards. Liberal Arts majors should be charged MORE than STEM majors per hour. That way we'd have more STEM students and less Philosophy, Literature, Psychology, Business, etc. students and that would surely be a good thing…
So let me make sure I understand:
Fewer people get the technical degrees, which plays a role in them being highly valued with high earning potential. The proposal is to raise the price to get a technical degree, thus creating more scarcity, thus increasing the earning potential of the people that are willing to pay even more? Which will then trigger even higher prices, making it even more scarce, increasing their earning potential yet further?
Supply and demand still works here right?
Education should be equal. How can you consider charging a person more for a certain education? It should be free outright
So should English majors get a free education, since they aren't gonna make anything after graduation?
Or…we could just let the free-market prevail. If the course of study is worth more to the customer then the university should be able to charge more for it. If the major is socially useless (e.g. affinity group studies, etc.) then its hard to imagine how the university could extract any money at all for it. The fact that you can currently get people to pay for a degree in Black Studies or Gay Studies proves that education has become more of a consumption good than an investment good.
Or you could step up the funding toward education just a thought
With such a shortage of Engineers in the US maybe would should charge less for these majors
Bill Gates and others that say we do not have enough STEM workers should offer to pay the full cost of an engineering education to any US citizen.
Why should engineers be charged more for an education than english majors? The engineer will, on average, have much higher lifelong earnings and therefore pay more in taxes. By contrast, the english student is more likely to be a draw on social resources. Charge them more for their education to offset the draw on society.
no wonder our economy is a failure…we have bureaus like these in existance
How about the following: We put a system in place that allows people to study a subject they are good at and that they enjoy doing. Admission would be based on academic merit and talent. Those who make more money out of their degree later in life would pay higher taxes (which would fund the system). This way people's individual peferences are better satisfied, their talents are better developed and society gains through increased productivity etc. Let's compare this system with what we have in place at the moment.
Few issues matter more to America's vitality than continuing this nation's tradition of leading advances in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the host of applications that can dramatically improve the quality of life. Students entering these fields continue to decline and we are facing shortages in these areas. We should be making it easier – not more difficult to enter these fields. Raising tuition in these fields is one of the most short sighted policies I can think of. While it might be nice to have more playwrights, and artists, and people who can intelligently comment on Shakespeare – the rest of us can no longer afford it. Our continued quality of Physical life depends on it.
Additionally – higher earners pay substantially more in taxes and their children are unlikely to receive any financial aid in going to college. By increasing STEM college costs you will be decreasing the number of people who already pay for most everything.
The real elephant in the room is why does college cost so much? Since 1998 the inflation rate averaged 2.4% yet college cost increased an average of 5.6 to 7.6%/year (depending on institution type). Maybe all the federal dollars being thrown at these schools (in the form of easy loans) is creating a college tuition bubble similar to the housing bubble. College loan debt now exceeds credit card debt and is unlikely to paid back in full.
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Facilities Reservations reserves all campus lecture rooms as well as some specialty-use rooms. Event planners can use this page as a tool through which cost, location, and service needs can be explored in the planning of any event to take place on the Chico State campus. Please browse around this website to explore the numerous space/room options, services, and service centers available on campus.
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January 28, 2014 1:00 PM
accidents agriculture airline industry air pollution air traffic Arunachal Pradesh Beijing bicycles bird flu bullet train CCTV censorship central asia Changsha children child safety Chinese Academy of Science chinese new year extreme weather fees fire flight delays food prices fuel shortage golden week Great Wall H7N9 Henan high-speed rail high-speed rail crash highways holiday Hong Kong Hunan India migrant workers national holiday photos railroad railway railways safety slideshow Spring Festival traffic trains transportation travel urban planning Year of the Horse
China Braces for New Year Travel RushThe Chinese New Year sees hundreds of millions return to their hometowns, placing an enormous strain on transport networks that are frequently already stretched. Many will take home partners to meet the parents, but the others' significance is not always what it seems; and the trip poses particular challenges to poor economic migrants, even as more and more families are separated by work. MSNBC's Behind The Wall blog describes the scale of the migration: It's
January 21, 2012 5:24 AM
Map Visualizes Chinese New Year Migration
As the Chinese New Year (January 31) quickly approaches, an expected 3.6 billion trips will be made as millions of people from across the country
China Expects 3.6 Bln Trips Over Lunar New Year
With the Year of the Snake reaching its tail end, China has now officially entered Chunyun (春运)—the 40 day period of heavy travel that
January 16, 2014 1:24 PM
Highway Reaches Last County, Near Indian Border
Thursday marked the opening of a new highway linking China's last remaining county to the national network. From Wu Yanping at China Radio
November 1, 2013 4:53 PM
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Countdown to More Counter Space
Don't have the room to install more kitchen countertops? Then create some virtual counter space with these organization gadgets.
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Cut over the sink. Cutting boards that fit over the sink have been around a long time, but Catskill Craftsman in Stamford, N.Y., have gone one better with their Cut 'N Catch model. It, too, fits over the sink, but it has a plastic insert that's level with the board, so you can chop and then slide the stuff into the tray and carry it to its destination. If you leave the tray out, you can shove debris from the cutting board down into the sink for an eventual date with the garbage disposal.
Cart your counters around.If you have occasional need for more counter space, like for summer vacation when all the cooks are home, a rolling kitchen cart will do the trick. It may be your one chance to get the counter surface you've always longed for, too, with models such as the Boos Butcher Block Kitchen Cart from Williams-Sonoma. But you have to be careful, here, says professional organizer Lynda Foxman of the Organizing Group in New York City. "If you're just using it for special occasions, you have to have a designated place for it to live or you're just asking for trouble." The dining room, deck or even laundry room all make sense for the rolling cart's semi-permanent home.
Roll and fold the kitchen cart. A more practical option for those who are truly strapped for space, says Foxman, are island carts that fold up and can be put away, such as those by Oasis. "I used one for a client recently and it's really cool--just folds up like a ladder," she says.
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Blancocosmo 5 S Circular Sink
Custom cut hardwood pull-out cutting boards
Mission Door Bells
Corian pull-out cutting board
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Cut 'N Catch Over-The-Sink Model 1337
Catskill Craftsman
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Oasis Folding Island Carts
Lynda Foxman
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Debbie Lillard
Professional Organizer
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More Wall Space Needed
Demolishing two unused closets helps increase this home's wall space.(video 02:37)
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Find out the simple way to laminate a countertop in just one day's time.(video 02:09)
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From our Sister Sites:
- Countdown to More Counter Space (from DIY Network)
- Tips to Maximize Cabinet Space (from HGTVRemodels)
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The peplum trend is everywhere at the moment and we love how flattering and gorgeous it looks. From dresses & tops to skirts, the peplum really has taken centre stage. For a glam night out, give your waist some flare by teaming a peplum top with dark skinny jeans and heels!
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This crust made my apple pie outstanding...I couldn't believe how delicious it was. I would like to try this crust on chicken pot pie and other pies.
Cornmeal Crust Dough
moxieme Posted: 03/31/09
AprilSukup Posted: 10/27/11
I am so happy to have found this recipe online. I am currently living in Africa and had to leave all my recipe books in The States. This was my FAVORITE apple pie recipe and the crust I have used for many other pies and main dishes. Absolutely wonderful! Will see if it tastes as good in Africa!
Tiff35 Posted: 09/05/13
This was perfect for apple pie and I loved the addition of apple cider. I will use this recipe for now on! I did have one problem though that is more a technical difficulty than any fault of the recipe. The bottom crust seemed uncooked or perhaps over saturated with juices. Is it possible to blind cook this type of crust to prevent this ( just the bottom of course!), and if so does anyone know at what temp and time would be appropriate?
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