• The KillerFrogs

AGCS East Side Expansion Update - new website and revised renderings

rifram09

Active Member
For now sure. I doubt they have the same demand when tuition reaches 100k per year and it will soon but even enough then will pay. Either way I would rather my kid go to a better school that is cheaper. TCU used to care about making their university affordable, but that is no longer a priority.

Biggest issue for TCU is their deans scholarship continues to shrink as a percentage of overall tuition and cost and cost for middle class families is terrible with need based aid being so low.

You’re assuming TCU will blindly increase tuition rates at the current rate even if doing so prices them out of all of their applicatants. That’s a weird assumption for a school that has operated quite soundly since 1873. More likely, they are increasing tuition costs to the maximum amount without pricing themselves out of their customers (students).

TCU relies on tuition dollars to keep growing the university. We don’t get tax dollars and our endowment isn’t large enough to cover all operating expenses. Accordingly, charging more in tuition NOW (while the market can bear if) can help grow the endowment for a future goal of being able to offer more financial assistance for students in the future. They aren’t just pocketing cash and blowing it on hookers. I don’t know what some people want? Just operate TCU at a loss so we can subsidize low income education? That model will work for about two years, then we will run out of money, and then our school will suck.
 

SuperTFrog

Active Member
You’re assuming TCU will blindly increase tuition rates at the current rate even if doing so prices them out of all of their applicatants. That’s a weird assumption for a school that has operated quite soundly since 1873. More likely, they are increasing tuition costs to the maximum amount without pricing themselves out of their customers (students).
The thing I worry about is that they won’t have a choice. If the market pulls back in a few years, parents may not have the discretionary dollars to send their kids to TCU. The problem is that we still have to pay for the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure we’ve put in over the last 10 years. I am assuming We have accumulated substantial debt with all of this building. My guess is that we can’t drop tuition because then we couldn’t pay the debt.

Anybody know about the debt TCU has picked up over the last ten years completely redoing virtually every building on campus?
 

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
Not arguing that. I wish TCU was in my price range. TCU was affordable, but not cheap when I was in school(late 80’s). Today, it is on a different tuition cost plane. It also a lot different university today than it was then. I enjoy and I am happy to what TCU has become, but it is also a little sad that it most likely won’t be an option for my kids.

Oldest one is very smart. If she could qualify for a scholarship that would cut her tuition in half at TCU, then it becomes a doable option.
sounds like your daughter is the type of kid that is the focus of the effort to increase the endowment to $3 billion - so we can reduce the average cost for every kid attending TCU to make it more affordable in the future.

I think the schools goal is to emulate what Notre Dame did about 10 years ago.
 

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
Back to the seats... The idea of the Loge boxes is great, but i agree with some others that the seats are not the best.
I think - as someone said earlier - it is a way to support the University at a considerably lower level than a suite, have more privacy than the general club seats and actually is cheaper than the club seats if you need 6
 

RollToad

Baylor is Trash.
They aren’t just pocketing cash and blowing it on hookers.
ccNLraU.gif
 

rifram09

Active Member
The thing I worry about is that they won’t have a choice. If the market pulls back in a few years, parents may not have the discretionary dollars to send their kids to TCU. The problem is that we still have to pay for the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure we’ve put in over the last 10 years. I am assuming We have accumulated substantial debt with all of this building. My guess is that we can’t drop tuition because then we couldn’t pay the debt.

Anybody know about the debt TCU has picked up over the last ten years completely redoing virtually every building on campus?

I hear you. Perhaps there is some remote chance that TCU has put themselves in a position to HAVE to increase tuition to service the debt from their massive construction projects over the last 10 years. Maybe.

But probably not. By all accounts, TCU has been very responsible borrowing to fund its construction projects. All athletic construction has been paid up front; we know that. So we’re only talking about the academic construction (which is admittedly extensive all on its own).

I think it’s more likely that TCU realized it has been leaving money on the table for decades.

If there are students that will pay more for TCU, then TCU should take the extra income and use it to spur long-term improvements (like capital projects and growing the endowment). Let’s use simple numbers to make the point: assume total operating expenses divided by total enrollment arrived at the conclusion that TCU must charge $10 per student in tuition to break even. Historically, they’ve charged $11 per student, and used the extra dollar per student to invest in projects that make TCU better. If the market can bear $20 per student, then I think TCU should charge $20 per student so they have more available money to make TCU better. Some people seem to be arguing they should charge $10 per student so more people have access.

The problem with that logic is that “$10” in the above example is actually much larger, and in real life that break even point is still way out of reach for low income families. So attempting to be the most moderately priced private school doesn’t help anyone; it doesn’t attract the top students without regard to their parents income, nor does it effectively position TCU for future success. It’s just a blah acceptance of the status quo.
By charging more today while we can, we can invest in a future for TCU where we have an endowment large enough to actually offer need-blind admissions. We aren’t there now.
 

cdsfrog

Active Member
Tcu isn't charging more now, it has for the past 4 decades. If they decrease the inflation rate by 40% for the next 15 years, it's still gonna be 500k for 4 years that's just math.

What I cant know is what they will do with the dean's scholarship or need based aid. I hope in that case it negates a ton of the high cost.

Rifram I appreciate what your saying but the endowment will need to more than double on top of inflation for that to happen.

For instance Vanderbilt enrollment for undergrad is 6800 with an endowment of 4.1 billion. Tcu is at 1.5 billion with an enrollment of 8500.
 

cdsfrog

Active Member
You’re assuming TCU will blindly increase tuition rates at the current rate even if doing so prices them out of all of their applicatants. That’s a weird assumption for a school that has operated quite soundly since 1873. More likely, they are increasing tuition costs to the maximum amount without pricing themselves out of their customers (students).

TCU relies on tuition dollars to keep growing the university. We don’t get tax dollars and our endowment isn’t large enough to cover all operating expenses. Accordingly, charging more in tuition NOW (while the market can bear if) can help grow the endowment for a future goal of being able to offer more financial assistance for students in the future. They aren’t just pocketing cash and blowing it on hookers. I don’t know what some people want? Just operate TCU at a loss so we can subsidize low income education? That model will work for about two years, then we will run out of money, and then our school will suck.

What I'm assuming is there is not a chance in hell of TCU of getting the endowment to the level it needs to be in 15 years to stop increasing prices. I'm very confident in sticker price, no idea of net price defined from need or scholarship aid.

Fact is they don't need to care about it right now. Record applicants with 60k a year cost I don't blame them for doing it.
 

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
What I'm assuming is there is not a chance in hell of TCU of getting the endowment to the level it needs to be in 15 years to stop increasing prices. I'm very confident in sticker price, no idea of net price defined from need or scholarship aid.

Fact is they don't need to care about it right now. Record applicants with 60k a year cost I don't blame them for doing it.
you never know really - we haven’t focused on endowment to the level we are now

Notre Dame went from under a billion to over 10 billion in a 15 year period

Obviously we don’t have their fan base but we also don’t need 10 - if we can get to 3 first under the current drive and then push to 4.5 in a second drive later in the decade - that would make things a lot different

Debt service, while a cost - is not the driving factor in tuition. Dorms pay for themselves and only a portion of the academic construction is debt.

Our requirement of a 13:1 student teacher ratio and the drive for a higher quality of academic staff are major factors but are also part of what makes TCU the place it is today and a major reason why we have one of the highest student retention rates in the country. Even with that the goal is to get to 94%.

Getting the endowment to over $3 billion is the key to all of this
 
Last edited:

Horned Toad

Active Member
My concern with tuition rates is that TCU may be seeing the last of middle class students and will end up being a school of only the very rich with parents paying the full tuition or very poor on scholarships. I’m middle class and my daughter is a sophomore there and I fear she’s the last of a dwindling economic group that can afford to send their kids to TCU without any aid. It’s a struggle but we do it because she works hard and this was her dream. But in a few years from now there is no way a middle class family could do this on their own with the way tuition is rising. That’s the real loss I think TCU will face and I wish they would keep in mind with their drive for diversity.

Back to the seat issue, thank you donors for making our stadium the class of college football. Now get out of the Westside so I can get my old seats back!
 

cdsfrog

Active Member
you never know really - we haven’t focused on endowment to the level we are now

Notre Dame went from under a billion to over 10 billion in a 15 year period

Obviously we don’t have their fan base but we also don’t need 10 - if we can get to 3 first under the current drive and then push to 4.5 in a second drive later in the decade - that would make things a lot different

Debt service, while a cost - is not the driving factor in tuition. Dorms pay for themselves and only a portion of the academic construction is debt.

Our requirement of a 13:1 student teacher ratio and the drive for a higher quality of academic staff are major factors but are also part of what makes TCU the place it is today and a major reason why we have one of the highest student retention rates in the country. Even with that the goal is to get to 94%.

Getting the endowment to over $3 billion is the key to all of this


TCUs endowment at end of 2012 was 1.47 billion. Well aware of the ratio requirements, my father taught there for 25 years, stepmom for 20+. Its a wonderful school, better than when I graduated in 07 and unrecognizable from when my father started teaching in 1991. That said cost at this point from a net price perspective prices me out.

Never applied anywhere else and Im so fortunate I could go there (never could have afforded it but free tuition). Taking classes with my dad was a surreal experience as well.
 

cdsfrog

Active Member
My concern with tuition rates is that TCU may be seeing the last of middle class students and will end up being a school of only the very rich with parents paying the full tuition or very poor on scholarships. I’m middle class and my daughter is a sophomore there and I fear she’s the last of a dwindling economic group that can afford to send their kids to TCU without any aid. It’s a struggle but we do it because she works hard and this was her dream. But in a few years from now there is no way a middle class family could do this on their own with the way tuition is rising. That’s the real loss I think TCU will face and I wish they would keep in mind with their drive for diversity.

Back to the seat issue, thank you donors for making our stadium the class of college football. Now get out of the Westside so I can get my old seats back!

Agreed we make decent money and I hope to pay for 200k worth of college but that will be a drop in the bucket. My income is at the high end of middle class yet I seriously doubt I can afford it.
 

LeagueCityFrog

Active Member
I think TCU should do community scholarships for middle class families based on the communities that supported TCU before it blew up. Without those people from Omaha, Kansas City, Tulsa, OKC, etc picking and paying for TCU in the 80s and 90s and then continuing to support the school as alums, these ultra rich people from the west coast wouldn't be looking at the TCU they are today.
 

cdsfrog

Active Member
I think TCU should do community scholarships for middle class families based on the communities that supported TCU before it blew up. Without those people from Omaha, Kansas City, Tulsa, OKC, etc picking and paying for TCU in the 80s and 90s and then continuing to support the school as alums, these ultra rich people from the west coast wouldn't be looking at the TCU they are today.

Id rather them stop the constant massive changes but they want to keep compete with Vanderbilt and others and still have a ways to go so I get it. If they could improve need based aid enough I dont think price will even matter.
 

cheese83

Full Member
Y’all act like kids only pay full tuition or get schollies. I bet there’s a good amount of kids with student loans going through TCU. That’s what is really leading to tuition increasing across the US, student loans are easily accessible and the departments at some schools should be renamed “Sales.” When an industry is essentially subsidized by the govt look at what happens, prices increase.
 

rifram09

Active Member
Tcu isn't charging more now, it has for the past 4 decades. If they decrease the inflation rate by 40% for the next 15 years, it's still gonna be 500k for 4 years that's just math.

I agree that TCU’s endowment is going to have to more then triple to get to the point where we can have need blind admissions. That’s why I’m cool with them increasing tuition prices to the maximum amount the market can bear without hurting our academics.

TCU’s infrastructure has been transformed by over a billion dollars of construction over the last 10-15 years. The results have been fantastic. Now we have to use this momentum to grow the endowment so TCU can sustain its upward trajectory. We use the momentum by charging more in tuition than merely covering costs, and we take the extra money and put it into growing the endowment. The only other way to grow the endowment is through donations, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t do both.

I think we agree on the basic problem with TCU (not enough endowment to cover all cost, which means we have to rely on tuition dollars to keep the doors open). So I don’t understand why you suggest tuition rates rising is a bad thing. It’s part of a long-term solution to the problem.
 
Top