• The KillerFrogs

Really OT: TCU Tuition

Endless Purple

Full Member
It's stupid to spend $60k/year + to pursue an elementary education degree, or a psychology degree, or a criminal justice degree, or a sociology degree, or, or, or.......

They aren't worthless majors, but you don't need a $250,000 TCU degree to go be a 4th grade teacher. You just need A degree, from just about any 4-year school that offers that program.

So are you saying TCU should close out all programs that are not premed, engineering, or finance?


My point was more about the video above seeming to push students into specific high wage jobs only while not balancing low paying jobs. A better system is one that allows students to fit into majors they can succeed in and that are needed in society. One of the main reasons we have schools is to provide the variety of skill sets needed in the economy as a whole, not to provide students a way to get rich. Thus a method of balanced costs to meet potential income - again kinda like health insurance is supposed to do.

edit - as far as TCU. The school needs to have a way to balance out the different degrees with financial support for students. The school is getting away from its roots in the middle economy students.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
My point, as well. Funneling a person into a field of study because that's what pays well can have little to nothing to do with that person's talents or life's calling. Also, what about religious studies? Preachers are often poorly paid, as well.

I guess I find it sad that many people want to see the lower paying jobs be forced to lower quality (in some cases) schools for jobs that are so essential such as teachers. Personally, I would hope to have the best educated teachers possible for young children as that leads to far more success down the road for their own children and so on.

The push just for high paying jobs with high priced schools is an issue that needs some reflection. It does not make the economy better, just more elitist in the current system.
 

tcudoc

Full Member
I am a firm believer that, if you manage to attend a 2 year community college, and do well, you can get in basically anywhere you want and have much reduced student debt. I've seen it first hand. It's the social life that drives the 4 year aspiration IMO. Who really wants to pay $3,000 for a history, english or sociology class when you can get the same for $150? Why, it's the students that want SAE or KKG more than an economical education....
That’s exactly what I did. And I attended when TCU was affordable.
When I hit the TCU premed scene, I was definitely an outsider with no support or connection that the other students had. I was the JC transfer who lived 30 minutes away with my wife and commuted from my mobile home, for which I worked 30 hours a week to afford to pay for. My parents helped us with tuition money though, which was nice. Because I had straight A’s in junior college, I got a scholarship that covered half the cost and made it as affordable as a state school. I definitely did not have the typical college student experience.
 

Virginia Frog

Active Member
My family could barely afford TCU in 1977 at $72 per hour.

But TCU was and still is our school.

My dad and older sister went there. Mom went to Phillips (TCU sister school in OK - closed now).

So I worked saved and got Scholarships, grants, and a $500. Loan.

Doable, but tough.

I loved TCU and my 4 years there.

The answer for the modern family is scholarship,money.

We who have gone before must keep TCU affordable for those who want TCU.

I don't want us to be a rich kid only school.

The flavor of student life should be varied by race, economic level, gender, geography, and country.

That is the difference between a small college and a University..

Fall 1975 - $72 per semester hour
Fall 1976 - $74 per semester hour (Baylor $45, SMU $96)
Fall 1977 - $80 per semester hour
 

OICU812

Active Member
Did they also mention the looming birth dearth/enrollment cliff? The pandemic is merely exacerbating/accelerating imminent enrollment decreases that higher ed was already barreling toward.

FWIW, TCU is pretty well positioned for what is coming.

I didn't hear that mentioned directly, but they did talk about a concurrent coming drop in numbers of HS grads, so maybe that was factored in to that math.
 

Virginia Frog

Active Member
We made that decision in what...like 15 years ago? Kinda late now.
A lot of this huge increase in TCU costs are rooted a "keep up with the joneses" philosophy that was articulated back in the late '90s by a new, outside hire Vice Chancellor that TCU was "leaving money on the table" vs. the Eastern Privates. "TCU is too cheap." she said

The money was there for the taking (from monied Parents), TCU just needed to "ask for more" (raising tuition/fees.) The concept was that the gross $ to go to TCU was an "opening ask" to the parents/matriculates and the university would "discount" to those that did not have sufficient income by offering reductions in the form of loans, jobs and "free money" which used to be called scholarships.

Then TCU would be free to offer the most attractive applicants (better students, those with a talent, those impoverished, good citizen-types, or those who add to geographic or ethnic diversity) to fill up their classes. In essence the monied parents would subsidize these most attractive students.

In fact this model of "high tuition, high subsidy" failed the middle-income types that used to be the rank-and-file of TCU attendees from the '50s to the '90s. TCU today is closer to the income makeup of the SMU rich kid during that earlier era. Today, SMU has shifted to a even more monied student body.
 
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Froggish

Active Member
Tuitions shouldn’t be fixed cost. We should adjust tuition based on the field of interested. The job market will always inform the value of your degree far more than the school you got it from. Why not let the job market inform the cost of your degree as well.
 

HToady

Full Member
That’s exactly what I did. And I attended when TCU was affordable.
When I hit the TCU premed scene, I was definitely an outsider with no support or connection that the other students had. I was the JC transfer who lived 30 minutes away with my wife and commuted from my mobile home, for which I worked 30 hours a week to afford to pay for. My parents helped us with tuition money though, which was nice. Because I had straight A’s in junior college, I got a scholarship that covered half the cost and made it as affordable as a state school. I definitely did not have the typical college student experience.
And yet you still have an affinity for TCU, support the teams, post on here, have a connection...
The problem is, with universities everywhere, that it's not about buckling down and getting to work, it's about having a two year party before buckling down....and that's the waste.
 

BleedNPurple

Active Member
Agree completely but that is also on employers. Stop making the requirements for an entry level job of filing papers require a college degree. I see so many ridiculous requirements on basic job openings.

There are many issues. We need to push trades more instead of making college this thing everyone needs to do.
Most entry level jobs in reality don’t need a college degree. I remember starting out wondering why I bothered to get a degree. Opened my own business and starting using every bit of it.
 

ECoastFrog

Active Member
My question was actually serious. Does TCU have a major that is considered irrelevant to society or work. A useless major is not the same as one that is not paid as well. I am curious as to the opinions of the board.

I had a HS friend from a middle class family that got into Yale and then earned a degree in Philosophy. He ended up being a major newscaster for ABC, then NBC. His name is Stone Philips (Dateline, etc.) Did his philosophy degree help inform his adult work? You bet it did. Would you have projected that when he entered Yale's philosophy program?

A college degree has a major impact on the individual. It teaches upper level thinking skills/critical thinking. It can often broaden one's perspective on humanity by including a diverse student body, where students think, work and play together. Some degrees have a 'trade' attached to them, eg STEM, and it is less obvious where some other degrees will lead.

TCU, as an educational institution, should understand and articulate this even better than I just did. A good education is the best "thing" that one can have in life. Students should follow their talents, desires and life's calling when they chose a major. No matter what they end up doing for a living, that degree will help.

But choosing a major is not the same as choosing a career. See the Stone Philips example. I graduated from TCU with a degree in music, and now I'm a physician. And yes, that music degree has broadly informed me as a physician. If I could rewind my life, I would not change my TCU degree choice.

I don't know any underwater basket weavers, teachers, ministers, dancers, musicians or social workers who are financially able to pay back a TCU-sized student loan. Does that make their work less valuable? Should TCU be excluding these people from their student body? Personally, I think that would be egregious and unethical. I think it would go against the soul (no, I don't mean 'sole') purpose of a university. A university is there to create thinkers, who then can figure out what they do with that education.
 

ticketfrog123

Active Member
I had a HS friend from a middle class family that got into Yale and then earned a degree in Philosophy. He ended up being a major newscaster for ABC, then NBC. His name is Stone Philips (Dateline, etc.) Did his philosophy degree help inform his adult work? You bet it did. Would you have projected that when he entered Yale's philosophy program?

A college degree has a major impact on the individual. It teaches upper level thinking skills/critical thinking. It can often broaden one's perspective on humanity by including a diverse student body, where students think, work and play together. Some degrees have a 'trade' attached to them, eg STEM, and it is less obvious where some other degrees will lead.

TCU, as an educational institution, should understand and articulate this even better than I just did. A good education is the best "thing" that one can have in life. Students should follow their talents, desires and life's calling when they chose a major. No matter what they end up doing for a living, that degree will help.

But choosing a major is not the same as choosing a career. See the Stone Philips example. I graduated from TCU with a degree in music, and now I'm a physician. And yes, that music degree has broadly informed me as a physician. If I could rewind my life, I would not change my TCU degree choice.

I don't know any underwater basket weavers, teachers, ministers, dancers, musicians or social workers who are financially able to pay back a TCU-sized student loan. Does that make their work less valuable? Should TCU be excluding these people from their student body? Personally, I think that would be egregious and unethical. I think it would go against the soul (no, I don't mean 'sole') purpose of a university. A university is there to create thinkers, who then can figure out what they do with that education.

what happens if you create a bunch of debt-laden thinkers who end up loathing the university for taking advantage of them via the prestige and educational quality only to end up paying back that loan for the rest of their lives?

most teachers, musicians, social workers, etc. can’t naturally pay off a six figure college loan without parental help. This snowballs into other effects on the economy like mortgage demand and child birth rates (you are batshit if you have 4 kids with the current college costs)

what is more unethical? Minimizing the class size (enrollment) for lower wage social majors or maximizing revenue by enticing them to enroll at an exorbitant cost
 
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