There are lots of economic woes at the university level, not all of which are the result of the national economy. So what are people doing about it?
Some people are charging more for specific degrees.
By and large however, the common theme we see at both UWO and ASU is one of “milking the cash cow.” At these institutions, the senior administrators would rather squeeze as much money as they can out of their most highly-regarded disciplines, as measured by the demand for their graduates outside of the university, to support all their other operations rather than focus on expanding the parts of their operations that are truly doing well and cutting back on their more poorly performing departments.
says Political Calculations on Milking the Cash Cow
Nationally, the trend of charging extra for certain majors is on the rise at public universities, said Barmack Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Iowa State, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Utah and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale are just a few that charge extra fees for some majors. No data are available, though, on the percentage of schools that have gone this route.
writes the Tucson Citizen about ASU’s plans.
Note: University of Texas is another college that has done this. My son is paying higher tuition for his mathematics degree than other people for liberal arts’ degrees, but less than the business folks have to pay for theirs.
It isn’t going to push us out of the degree and I can’t imagine other people being pushed out often (maybe 1%?) by it either. Plus, if these are the groups that get more money, putting out a bit more at the beginning to recoup later sounds reasonable.