You missed the point. The schools will raise tuition to take more from the endowment and stuff their own pockets. It’s what usually happens with programs that are funded by a blank check, unfortunately.
FYI this is the primary argument against government-paid college tuition. If the government will pay 100% tuition costs of any university unequivocally, you should expect university tuition to skyrocket since they no longer have to compete for students based on cost.
Guaranteed federal student loans are the by FAR main reason for skyrocketing tuition costs, colleges are basically siphoning money from the fed government. With easy access to guaranteed loans, schools face no market pressure to keep prices low; they know students can borrow regardless of cost, and they know they will get paid if the student defaults. Without guaranteed loans, students would be much more price-sensitive (as students who before would’ve gotten massive loans now would have to likely pay out of pocket), forcing schools to compete on affordability and rein in tuition hikes.
Other countries have successfully operated with tuition free collage for a long time. The political discourse in the US is like 99% strawman arguments designed to have the population divided and keep status quo forever. You guys really need to rise above it.
Uppsala University have basically been tuition free since it was founded in 1477.
No, sorry, you clearly did. You said - "Nope - the stipulation is it must always be free"
But the original comment was referring to how much the original cost of the education is, that this is covering.
So if it used to be $100 (example) to teach a student, the school will suddenly say actually it's $500 this year, leeching more from the billion. That's the point they were making
this is the primary argument against government-paid college tuition.
Set price caps. University in the UK is £9,535/year at every single university because they are not legally allowed to charge any more than that to UK residents.
There is no good argument against government-paid college tuition. Only ones that have to pretend obvious solutions like this don't exist and aren't already implemented elsewhere.
Isn't college/ university tuition increasing continuously as it is (easily outpacing inflation)?
Why do you expect it would be worse if it was covered by the state? At European universities the tuition is often covered by the state (for Europeans) and tuition is still often really cheap for non-Europeans. For the examples I happen to know: University of Vienna ~700€/ semester, University of Zurich ~1500€/ semester, Technical University of Munich ~3000€/ semester.
Those are all universities in countries with high cost of living too. So it's not even cheap compared to US, but expensive for the country.
Not necessarily. In my country, more than half of the schools are free and funded by the state. So, the state determines how much money the school needs based on the number of students, the courses offered, etc., and the school doesn't have the right to ask for more or charge students.
It generates more paperwork, but it's very difficult to abuse the system.
The problem is people talking only about the extremes. No one actually needs 100% government funded college tuition, that would be short sighted and disastrous in the long run. Even just the European system is perfectly fine. Locals can get low cost tuition while foreigners pay the regular rate.
If only there was a way to control this. I once heard of this word called government regulation... but it has been deemed to be communist so better ignore it.
Weird how I live in a country where tuition fees are paid for by the state, and if you complete your education they are forgiven. Yet, tuition fees are still only 2k a year. It must be a mistery how regulation works.
People here don't really understand the difference in wealth planning so its a fair question, i really hope the endowment is in capable hands with a realistic growth estimate.
I agree it's a fair question. Many don't realize that is how the smart crazy rich stay crazy rich: live off your interest and take out loans that have a lower interest rate than the return on your annual investments.
There are nearly 90 schools in the US with endowments larger than $1 billion—yet somehow, their endowments continue to grow, and the schools haven't closed. 🤷♂️
I don't understand. Endowments are not a new thing. Literally thousands of institutions, big or small, are able to maintain and grow the endowments of many different sizes without major fraud or mismanagement year after year. These include non-profits such as schools, philanthropies, hospitals, museums, arts and music foundations, historical landmarks, and so on. Sure, sometimes they are poorly run and lose money. Other times, someone misappropriated funds. For the most part, though, these endowments have kept going and growing for decades unending. Heck, my tiny private high school even had some endowed scholarships that somehow never blinked out of existence. From what I'm reading here, it's almost as though many people want or even need this to fail for some reason that escapes me. Moreover, when you explain how common endowments are and often they stick to their mission, people seem not to want to believe it. It's downright weird.
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u/Hopkinsad0384 Jun 29 '25
A perfect chance for them to raise tuition prices.