MU tuition up 3.5%

[WarriorDad]

Received the notice last week.  Lower annual increase than the 5% the latest few years.  Rate card now going to $44,000.

[jficke13]

Up 100%+ in 10 years. At this rate it will be aprx $166k/yr for my daughter in 18 years. That which can't go on forever, won't.

[Coleman]

44 grand. Jesus Christ.

[Billy Hoyle]

44 grand. Jesus Christ.

lower increases than when I was there.

And don't forget, $44K is just for tuition.  Freshmen and sophomores also have to pay room and board charges, which will be over $13K next year.

[Coleman]

And don't forget, $44K is just for tuition.  Freshmen and sophomores also have to pay room and board charges, which will be over $13K next year.

Right. Hence the Jesus Christ

[mu_hilltopper]

I will say it for the 999th time:  With tuition increases that outstrip inflation every year, over time, the universe of customers who will pay for Marquette (or any private school) drops to near zero.

In 24 short years, at 3.5%, MU's tuition will be $100k/year.  If you add in $13k for room/board, that milestone is only 16 years away.

Yes, yes, student aid lowers these numbers and it's all a big used car lot.

[The Sultan]

High cost, high discount programs exist for a reason. Marquette will be fine.

[jficke13]

High cost, high discount programs exist for a reason. Marquette will be fine.

Call me crazy but selling a product for a massive, conscience-shocking price tag  tuition and cutting everyone a 50% discount to get it down to merely exorbitant, or maybe a 75% or 80% or 90% to get it to "affordable" doesn't seem like it plays.

Pricing at $100k/yr and making the true cost $20k/yr is nuts.

[WellsstreetWanderer]

Got to pay for all those administrators somehow. Don't see how some schools survive when graduates can't make enough to pay back loans.
.

[GB Warrior]

My wife reminds me regularly that I have to ramp down my anti-Badger rhetoric so that our kids don't rule that school out and want to go to Marquette.

That or we need to start terminal degrees and get teaching gigs somewhere. Or become janitors.

[Eldon]

I will say it for the 999th time:  With tuition increases that outstrip inflation every year, over time, the universe of customers who will pay for Marquette (or any private school) drops to near zero.

In 24 short years, at 3.5%, MU's tuition will be $100k/year.  If you add in $13k for room/board, that milestone is only 16 years away.

Yes, yes, student aid lowers these numbers and it's all a big used car lot.

Student aid lowers these numbers.  Very few students pay the full price.

[reinko]

Student aid lowers these numbers.  Very few students pay the full price.

True, but the number of students who do pay full price (that helps subsidize aid programs) is dropping and even they are becoming more cost conscious.  You don't get enough full paying students, you gotta big while in operating budget.

[Jay Bee]

Well worth it! (Well, except for MU82, @1nuh).

[Galway Eagle]

Ludicrous. In 2009 I was given a 6k scholarship is the argument that that scholarship would now be 12k or that most people don't pay the 44k because MU generously gives out 44k scholarships?

Either way it seems to be quite unaffordable.

[forgetful]

Kind of curious as to what people think the solution should be.

[mu_hilltopper]

Start with a decade-long tuition freeze.   Minimum.   

[forgetful]

Start with a decade-long tuition freeze.   Minimum.

Didn't mean that aspect. Meant, what do you cut? How do you maintain the same level of education and amenities, and have a decade-long tuition freeze.

[jficke13]

Got to pay for all those administrators somehow. Don't see how some schools survive when graduates can't make enough to pay back loans.
.

Very, very easily. The school isn't issuing the loan. The school collects the money on the front end and (aside from a general desire for its students not to default) is not impacted by future failures to repay. The feds guarantee the loans, so when kids default, the school isn't holding the bag. They aren't financiers.

In fact, this is ABSOLUTELY THE NUMBER ONE reason why tuition inflates at such a disgusting rate. Schools have no incentive to control prices. Kids will just take a loan because school decisions are pathos-driven, not economic-analysis driven, and the school has its money regardless of what debt the kid is ultimately burdened with (or who the loan issuer is that gets screwed... probably the federal government, so all of us). Why charge $1.00 if people will happily fork over $10.00? And the year after that, why not $20.00, and so on and so on.

It's the perfect storm of price elasticity x moral hazard.

[dgies9156]

Call me crazy but selling a product for a massive, conscience-shocking price tag  tuition and cutting everyone a 50% discount to get it down to merely exorbitant, or maybe a 75% or 80% or 90% to get it to "affordable" doesn't seem like it plays.

Pricing at $100k/yr and making the true cost $20k/yr is nuts.

Brother (or Sister) Ficke:

But they don't discount consistently. I'm guessing there's quite a few of us who would never see the light of day with any money. I'm a big supporter of Marquette financially and otherwise but this is the one issue that threatens the university's existence. And, I do think they know it.

3.5 percent is better than it has been in a long time. But assuming a consistent 3.5 percent increase, or CAGR (as in compound annual growth rate), the Marquette tuition that is $44,000 annually today will be $82,000 by the time a child born today reaches age 18. Will there be enough financial aid to make up the delta between middle class family affordability and Marquette's tuition? Candidly, it's doubtful given the sociological and personal financial factors affecting too many of today's college grads.

Maybe they are hoping a political candidate who promises free college tuition becomes president!

[MU82]

44 grand. Jesus Christ.

Even he has to pay 44 grand?

[Jay Bee]

Even he has to pay 44 grand?

^^^ ban dis gf thing

[The Sultan]

Call me crazy but selling a product for a massive, conscience-shocking price tag  tuition and cutting everyone a 50% discount to get it down to merely exorbitant, or maybe a 75% or 80% or 90% to get it to "affordable" doesn't seem like it plays.

Pricing at $100k/yr and making the true cost $20k/yr is nuts.

It plays much better than the opposite. Schools do this for a reason.

[The Sultan]

Very, very easily. The school isn't issuing the loan. The school collects the money on the front end and (aside from a general desire for its students not to default) is not impacted by future failures to repay. The feds guarantee the loans, so when kids default, the school isn't holding the bag. They aren't financiers.

In fact, this is ABSOLUTELY THE NUMBER ONE reason why tuition inflates at such a disgusting rate. Schools have no incentive to control prices. Kids will just take a loan because school decisions are pathos-driven, not economic-analysis driven, and the school has its money regardless of what debt the kid is ultimately burdened with (or who the loan issuer is that gets screwed... probably the federal government, so all of us). Why charge $1.00 if people will happily fork over $10.00? And the year after that, why not $20.00, and so on and so on.

It's the perfect storm of price elasticity x moral hazard.

Not 100% accurate on a number of levels. First schools very much work on cost containment.

Second the marketplace doesn't support unlimited borrowing. Very few borrow more than Stafford maximums.  So the idea that students will borrow whatever they need regardless doesn't really hold true. They are smarter consumers than that.

Third students compare discounted offers. Competition still works to keep costs contained. That includes competition from public universities.

I'm not saying student indebtedness isn't a problem. It is. But it isn't just about cheap loans. Because those loans are a huge reason people can access higher education in the first place.

There are other discussions to be had about how financial aid programs have changed over the past 30 years, how state governments support higher education, an industry obsessed with poor measures of quality, and how our society views the personal versus communal benefits of education.  But those are large, complex problems that our society really isn't ready for.

[Heisenberg]

What percentage of current students are paying full sticker price? 

I thought I read somewhere that it was less than half and the "average" tuition bill is in the high $20k?

[buckchuckler]

I recently went into a restaurant wearing a Marquette shirt, and the hostess asked if I went there.  She told me she and some friends had recently applied and gotten in and received scholarships, but the cost was still out of reach with a sticker price over 50k.  Honestly, I couldn't believe it and had to look it up.  I was stunned. 

Even with programs and aid, they are pricing themselves out for people.  The young lady I was speaking with told me she was going to IU, but seemed much more like she wanted to talk about Marquette.  It's a shame really.