Most people consider higher education to be an advantage and a benefit that is supposed to increase a person’s chances to get a high-paid job and life full of abundance soon after graduation. The side effect that students and their parents usually agree to is high tuition fees and, thus, most probably six-figure student loans that will take a lot of time and effort to repay (Hacker, and Dreifus). Meanwhile, for their book Higher Education: How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus tracked over 900 former Princeton students and found out that their achievements happened to be average (Hacker, and Dreifus). This fact hints at a conclusion that graduating from an expensive and famous university does not necessarily lead to a very successful career in one’s professional area and a prominent life, in general. At the same time, although tuition fees are getting higher each year, Americans and international students do not hesitate to try and enroll in some of the most expensive and prominent colleges and universities in pursuit of a degree that might make them more reputable and respected in the society and is supposed to become a bright side of their resumes. Indeed, higher education can be a very important and for some people even a defining step in their lives, and its impact should not be underestimated. According to the United States Department of Labor 2013 Employment Projections, the unemployment rate of people of age 25 and over falls from 7% for those, who have no higher education degree to slightly above 5% for those, who have at least an associate degree, and the rate drastically diminishes with each next level of degree; at the same time the median weekly earnings for people, who have only an associate degree is about $777, while graduates with a Bachelor degree earn about $1,108 on average ("Earnings And Unemployment Rates By Educational Attainment"). However, due to high costs that high education incurs, many people from the low-income families are often deprived of the possibility to get a degree, which reduces their chances to get a well-paid job and stop the poverty cycle. According to Graeme Wood, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, “Financial dysfunction is only the most obvious way in which higher education is troubled” (Wood). This is true, as most university money is spent on salaries of the university staff, including absent professors and non-academic employees, the construction of the new facilities and reconstruction of the old ones and on sports, while financial aid to the students from the low-income families is not among the top-priorities. While it is important that university facilities and hardware should be constantly renewed to provide safety, comfort and keep up with the times, when new technological solutions for education appear each year, it is first and foremost crucial that the main aim of the university expenditures is the academic sphere, including implementation of the modern software to boost the learning process, increase of the number of knowledgeable and experienced educators, as well as the number of students from different backgrounds though financial aid, and the increase of investments in the quality researches.
Most people think that their tuition fees are the primary source of the university budget. But those interested to find out where their money is going will discover the detailed explanations on many websites dedicated to higher education, telling that tuition fees are not the main source of income. For example, the Top Universities website that reviews universities and their events worldwide tells that income from students of Yale University amounted only to 8.6% of the institution’s total operating revenue in 2010-2011 ("University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go"). According to the same source, universities get most of their funding from the government, businesses, non-profit organizations, investments, etc. ("University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go"). While earning billions of dollars, universities, however, do not spend the majority of money on improvement of the process of learning by introducing new software, optimizing the education process by reducing, cutting costs on administrative staff, etc. Instead, according to the Top Universities website, most university money go to salaries and benefits for staff, including health insurance, child care and many others ("University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go"). The website states that Yale University spent 63% of its revenue on staff in 2010-2011, and the same tendency is seen abroad, as the City University of Hong Kong spent about 62% ("University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go"). One of the major concerns is the amount of money spent on the presidents of the universities. According to the USA Today, it takes the tuition of 43 students to pay the salary in amount of $1.6 million a year to the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest private technological research university in the USA (Hacker, and Dreifus). At the same time, they report that about one third of professors are on leave throughout a year at the Williams College, while 20 of 48 professors of the history department of Harvard are absent during the year (Hacker, and Dreifus). While the aforesaid expenditures seems to require alteration and optimization to cut the costs during the hard economic times, students are still willing to pay full tuition fees despite the fact that the professors, whose lectures they dreamed of attending, will not be giving lectures at all and despite the fact the universities might not need such a big number of people working as staff members. One of the great examples of how universities can curtail their expenses is given by the Minerva Project, a one-of-a-kind university that does not require students to visit lectures, but instead requests them to visit online seminars that engage students’ full and undivided attention and require great concentration skills (Wood). Still, Minerva Project can afford hiring high-level professionals, including recognized professors from all over the world, as they cut the costs on facilities, such as libraries, lecture halls, gym, dining halls (Wood). While many prominent professors do not usually agree to relocation to work for an unknown university, they can agree to work for it online without leaving their cities of residence. Thus, it is important to spend money on professors as a part of academics, but it is also important to not waste them on absent or unnecessary administrative staff that takes most of the budget, which could be otherwise spent on researches, provision of materials, travelling for education purposes and financial aid to students.
Another bulk of money is spent on facilities and not always wisely. The increase in number of the higher education students requires new facilities such as new dorms and lecture halls. But at the same time, universities keep on investing in the libraries and their hardware, while the content needed for studies becomes increasingly accessible online and does not require special building and devices, but rather the presence of the necessary software on a student’s laptop and sometimes an e-book. But it is not the libraries and other academic facilities that drain the budget, but rather various leisure buildings and facilities that are supposed to provide the most comfortable and interesting higher education experience to the students, who agreed to enroll and pay tuition and many other fees. According to Cara Newlon, a staff writer at Forbes, who calls luxurious college facilities “the best four-year getaway you’ve ever had”, in 2013 American colleges spent $10.9 billion on construction projects during the ongoing economic recess, and a lot of this money goes to the recreational and accommodation facilities (Newlon). In fact, spending budget on swimming pools, wellness centers, spa centers, parks, expensive restaurants, movie theaters and expensive devices in the dorm rooms, such as plasma TVs is a good investment, and in such case universities are smart businesses. The researchers of the University of Michigan found out that “lower ability students and higher income students have a greater willingness to pay for these amenities The more academic, high achieving students cared about intellectual achievement” (Newlon). Indeed, selective schools with great reputation do not need additional advertisement to attract applicants, as their names speak for themselves. Still, such universities have big budgets because of the funding they get from various sources. Meanwhile, smaller universities with the names of a lesser value profit from the construction and maintenance of these facilities. For example, after building a big number of leisure facilities, the percentage of students admitted at High Point University has declined from 86.1% to 64.2% from 2002 to 2012. (Newlon). Meanwhile, Harvard suggests that students be ready to pay extra $21,774 a year over their tuition fees on the non-academic activities, such as travel, night-out, expensive dinners, gyms, etc. (Hacker, and Dreifus). Taking into consideration the aforesaid spending of many universities, one can drive to a conclusion that getting higher education is about recreation activities and relaxation as much as it is about studying. It may indeed seem the Newlon is right, as choosing to spend 4 years and more in a country club seems like an interesting perspective, although such amount of comfort might compromise the quality of education, as students may feel reluctant to study when surrounded by such a great amount of pleasant distractions, which make the student’s experience similar to a four-year vacation. Instead of spending such big amounts of money on completely unnecessary facilities, such as sophisticated restaurants and spa centers, universities should direct the money on concerns that are directly connected with education and getting high-level knowledge that might turn out to be of more use in future than many connections a student makes during his or her leisure time. In this case, Minerva Project happens to be also a winner, as it does not spend much money on facilities, keeping them modest but modern, and focuses on providing students with software and not providing them with leisure facilities, thus, making their education more cost- and time-efficient, as students’ tuition fees are kept much lower than in traditional universities.
Another big amount of money from the university budgets is directed at development of sport facilities and on prominent athletes. These expenditures also include the salaries for coaches, costs for travels, apparel, etc. For example, according to the USA Today, each golf player costs nearly $34,000 a year for the University of Southern California (Hacker, and Dreifus). According to the 2013 Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research created by Donna M. Desrochers, the costs for Division I sports programs were about $6 billion a year in 2010 and have risen since then (Desrochers). According to the research, “Athletic departments spend far more per athlete than institutions spend to educate the average student—typically three to six times as much” (Desrochers). However, the reduction of athletic costs is not likely to happen any time soon, as participation in sports shows how competitive the university is, and if one university becomes very successful, then others need to follow suit ("Universities Should Focus More Finances On Academics Rather Than Athletics"). But such competitiveness and desire to get visibility for more income makes a negative impact on spending on academics and services for students. While costs on an athlete are six much higher than the costs on an average student, there is no doubt that the quality of education will be a casualty in these intricate university business schemes, where higher income comes prior to the higher level of education.
Undeniably, modern traditional colleges and universities need renovation of buildings and facilities for the purposes of safety, especially that the number of college students increased by 3.1 million from 2001 to 2011 (Newlon). Advocates on solid facility investments argue that such investments are “likely to benefit students, meaning access to a wide range of learning resources, and in general a pleasant and stimulating environment in which to study” ("University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go"). But only 20% of costs on facilities go to renovation of old buildings (Newlon). Spending money on facilities is necessary, but they primary facilities that to be built or renewed should be the ones that are for teaching, studying and research, not recreation, as universities are not the vacation spots. Instead, the local community could take part in building facilities for leisure time outside the university campuses, so that universities could focus on improving education than making money on students’ non-curriculum activities. The necessity to invest in sports is usually explained by the fact colleges and universities earn visibility in return for spending a huge lot of money of athletics. They argue that success in sports get the university more students and donors and, thus, more money (Desrochers). Having great athletic teams means increase in revenues through fundraising, governmental financial help and increase in tourist spending during the game days (Desrochers). One of the main arguments why sports are important is that they create the sense of identity and community in students and other observers. Sports become an element of students and community pride. However, researchers have found that not only most athletic programs are money losers, as only those, who succeed, get the aforesaid benefits, but also that visibility lasts for only a year or two, and it is mostly only football that brings positive results; moreover, while tourists are attracted to the community during the game days, local people tend to refrain from shopping during such days (Desrochers). Thus, benefits, which universities get from active participation in sport competitions, are outbalanced by the losses for average students, part of whose tuition fees goes to support athletic students instead of education. Many applicants, who cannot afford to pay full tuition fees, are often denied financial aid, as it is limited in each university budget. According to the Top Universities, scholarships can amount to approximately 4% of all costs, which is a small part of the budget that is spent on sports and facilities. Instead, higher education can become more accessible financially in case universities start reforming their spending practices in order to reduce education costs and, consequently, fees. If they do not take matters in their hands, the number of their applicants might drastically fall in the upcoming decade, as universities like the one of the Minerva Project will keep being established and offering low education fees with high level of knowledge provided by great professors, as well as always much anticipated international experience (Wood).
The issues of rising tuition fees and costs of living in the American universities have been hotly debated over the last couple of years, as universities kept on making large investments in sports and facilities instead of academics. Even money directed at academics was not always spent wisely, resulting in wasted tuition fees and money from funding. Universities prefer to spend money on recreational and sports facilities, as well as on athletics in general, as they bring desirable visibility, recognition and profit. Such practices have been recognized as detrimental to the higher education on the official level, as President Obama told in his speech in 2011, “We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair” (Salzberg). In the era of new technology, online courses and partially online universities, such as Minerva Project, the traditional universities will not be able to compete with more affordable and time-effective education, if their money keeps being spent on improvement of the students’ living conditions. In such case, the new type of universities will be offering better education at a lower price. For this reason, in order to stay in the competition, the universities need to focus on their primary purpose, which is providing education, whose improvement combined with lowered tuition fees at the expense of sports and leisure, will help them keep attracting students, who might otherwise prefer other, much cheaper, options.
Works Cited
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Newlon, Cara. "The College Amenities Arms Race." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 31 July 2014. Web. 4 Dec. 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/caranewlon/2014/07/31/the-college-amenities-arms-race/>.
Salzberg, Steven. "Get Football Out Of Our Universities." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 15 Feb. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2011/02/15/get-football-out-of-our-universities/>.
"Universities Should Focus More Finances On Academics Rather Than Athletics." DeseretNews.com. 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2014. <http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765623248/Universities-should-focus-more-finances-on-academics-rather-than-athletics.html?pg=all>.
"University Budgets: Where Your Fees Go." Top Universities. 25 July 2012. Web. 4 Dec. 2014. <http://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance/university-budgets-where-your-fees-go>.
Wood, Graeme. "The Future of College?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 1 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 Dec. 2014. <http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/08/the-future-of-college/375071/>.
