Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Widely Varying and Inflated Costs of State Colleges and Universities in Virginia

—

by

sherlockj
in

Source: College Board, Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid, 2021.

by James C. Sherlock

A College Board report, “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid” estimated the total costs of attending college in 2021. The figures above represent total annual budget costs.

This is a drill that many parents have been through. But I offer for the broader audience the differences in costs for one year of on-campus undergraduate tuition, fees, room, board, books and supplies and “other living expenses” at two Virginia schools in 2022.

I have chosen the University of Virginia and Radford in an attempt to show a range of state school costs in the Commonwealth. I have calculated total costs for both in-state and out of state students from the financial web pages of each school. They estimate “other living expenses” and I have included them.

That is as close as I can get to a total budget.

Radford has flat tuition and fees rates for all of its programs. At UVa, the costs vary significantly depending upon the program and year.

University of Virginia. The most potentially lucrative degree programs are the most expensive. Third and fourth years in all programs except education are more expensive than the first two.

The undergraduate ed school is the least expensive program and was the same in 2022 regardless of the year in school. The McIntire School of Commerce (third & fourth year only) was the most expensive program.

  • In-state tuition and fees varied between $14,878 and $25,956.  
  • Out-of-state tuition and fees ran between $50,348 and $61,870.

Annual on-grounds housing, meal plan, other living expenses, books and supplies have been estimated by the University at $17,514.

The least expensive total costs are thus:

  • in-state: between $32,392 and $43,470 annually;
  • out-of-state: between $67,862 and $79,384 annually

Radford.

Radford undergraduate tuition and fees are fixed at $11,916 per year for in-state and $24,453 per year for out-of-state regardless of program.

 

The least expensive accommodations are $5,160 annually. The least expensive meal plan is $4,526 per year.

So the least expensive room and meal plan at Radford is $9,686 per year.

Doing the addition: tuition, fees, room and meal plan at Radford can be had by in-state students for $21,602. To that we add a nominal $4,000 for books and supplies and other living expenses to make the costs comparable to those of UVa and the College Board.

So, all in:

  • Radford: in-state $25,602 and out of state at $38,139.
  • UVa: in-state $32,392 to $43,470 and out-of-state $67,862 to $79,384.

And Radford is the one losing students hand over fist.

As a side note, tuition, room and board at UVa for first-year Jim Sherlock sixty years ago was $500 per semester.

I just checked. Inflation since 1962 has made a 1962 dollar worth $9.29 today.

If higher education had inflated at that rate, UVa would cost $9,290 for tuition, room and board for an in-state undergraduate today.

The actual comparable costs are over $30,ooo.

Updated Oct. 7 at 20:20.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

23 responses to “The Widely Varying and Inflated Costs of State Colleges and Universities in Virginia”

  1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    And in 1962, a bottle of Coke cost five cents.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Inflation since 1962 has made a 1962 dollar worth $9.29 cents today.

      If higher education had inflated at that rate, UVa would cost $9,290 tuition room and board for an in-state undergraduate today.

      The actual comparable costs are over $30,ooo

      1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        Supply and demand… the Conservative golden rule…

        1. Lefty665 Avatar
          Lefty665

          So how much has the decreased college enrollment reduced prices?

          1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            According to US News and World report, tuitions are up by 4% in 2022-23. Given that inflation rates are circa 8%, that represents about a 4% reduction in tuition. Supply and demand…

      2. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        A dime in ’62 was worth more than a dollar today, and it was silver. The quarter gas and cigs, like UVA have well exceeded inflation today. Beer on the other hand is a bargain. It has gone up well under 1/2 of inflation.

      3. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Just shows how much our parents undervalued a college education.

    2. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Gas and cigarettes were a quarter or less. We would take a quick trip to Dixie Liquor in D.C. at the end of Key bridge where Black Label beer was $3.50 a case.

  2. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Like water in the bilge, money comes, money goes.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Sorta like beer comes and goes, you don’t buy it you just rent it. Beer has the advantage of being self bailing.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I’ve known a number of folks who did not go to college right after high school. Many did time in the military and then came back and enrolled. One friend did that with UVA and graduated with a business degree. Another came out of the Marine Corp and went to night school, passed the bar and became a lawyer. Another got a job at a Navy base as a civilian and took courses from instructors from Va Tech and then went to Community then a 4yr and graduated.

    Much of the discussion and angst here in BR seems to focus on the 4yr on-campus thing but quite a few folks could never afford that even way back when and had to go a different way.

    There’s something to be said for folks who did it the “harder” way AND ended up with NO student loans!

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Good point, but it is necessary to compare apples to apples. I worked hard to get comparables.

      I just checked the inflation data.

      Inflation since 1962 has made a 1962 dollar worth $9.29 cents today.

      If higher education had inflated at that rate, UVa would cost $9,290 tuition room and board for an in-state undergraduate today.

      The actual comparable costs are over $30,ooo.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Yep. And if there was no such thing as student loans, that 30K would also be not attainable by a large number today.

        so apples to apples might need to factor in those loans.

        What that Marine that became a lawyer had was GI benefits and had he not had that – he may not have made it.

      2. Carmen Villani Jr Avatar
        Carmen Villani Jr

        Nice work James. Had the same challenge with enrollment numbers.

  4. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    My recollection is that at VCU ca 1970 the tuition one year was $214 and the next semester $225. The next year it went up to 24x and 25x.

    Not surprising that UVA tuition, room and board was a little more than twice that.

  5. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has requested that you turn on your cellphones and plug them into the USB ports on the seat arms… and hurry!”

    https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/first-u-s-all-electric-airplane-takes-flight-at-moses-lake/

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Interesting. Looks like hybrids may be the sweet spot, just like with cars. Having turbine generators could be reassuring to passengers too. Scary that their biggest challenge is integrating the batteries with the avionics of the airplane.

      What radical battery improvements that they are predicting in about 5 years? Battery energy density has already hit catastrophic levels when something goes awry. Teslas burning in Florida as their connections corrode after being flooded is a sobering event.

      That they’re monitoring and switching each of more than 2k cells on “Alice” is unnerving. That’s a lot of control circuitry overhead and multiplies the number of potential failure modes.

  6. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    A few years ago, I devoted much of my time at Bacon’s Rebellion to analyzing why higher-ed costs had escalated so rapidly and so consistently over the decades, so it’s a subject I know fairly well.

    Jim S. is correct to emphasize the fact that higher-ed costs have increased at roughly twice the CPI for decades, and that increase is at the root of the higher-ed affordability crisis. On a macro basis, colleges and universities have engaged in mission creep, expanding the scope of what they do beyond the education of students. They have added a vast administrative apparatus, and they have engaged in an expensive amenities “arms race” in the competition for students. They are quick to add new departments and programs in hot fields and slow to scale back in declining fields. They have clung to the ossified tenure system of employment. And they have neglected investments in productivity. Their strategy has consistently been one of raising revenue — through tuition & fees, alumni, and the government — not cutting costs. Thanks to the massive federal student loans, there has been little consumer resistance to higher prices… until recently.

    That said, one must be careful comparing a small liberal arts college like Radford with a large research university like UVa. Research is expensive, and it adds immensely to a university’s cost structure. On the other hand, research does generate revenue in the form of grants that is supposed to cover overhead. Whether the research subsidizes the university or the university subsidizes research is an open question.

    Finally, as I frequently observed in the past, higher-ed is a nonprofit prestige-maximizing business, not a profit-maximizing business. It operates to a different set of rules, university administrators are largely unaccountable to anyone, and boards of visitors often are easily manipulated.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Most everything JAB asserts is more true than not but the real question is why haven’t market forces worked as they would with most other companies that can’t or won’t keep their costs down and more affordable?

      Health care costs have also escalated but between Medicare, Medicaid and the private sector they have established reimbursement structures that actually reward those providers that can provide services at lower costs than reimbursements,

      Cable TV and cell phones are an example of how market forces do work but more slowly over time and even then they tend to get full dollar for their services, Some folks actually pay MORE for cable/internet than their electric bill!

      So bottom line – JAB focuses more on blame for what Higher Ed does rather than the how or why or what reforms (like insurance reimbursement caps) might work to bring more market forces to bear no matter what they’re inclinations are especially when there are few market restrictions to encourage higher ed like other markets are.

      THe easy availability of loans has to be a factor IMO.

      1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        As demonstrated in the example I offered, market forces are not driving down costs.

        Even state schools are driving away students and/or causing them to borrow astonishing amounts of money rather than cut costs.

        That is because of the weakness of the Boards of Visitors.

        Shredding the administrative overhead would take leadership at the president level at these schools that is not in place.

        A new hire president with the charter from the BOV to reduce overhead unnecessary to school functioning would right out of the box zero out many of the “programs” dear to progressives.

        Eliminating the very high costs to the availability of tenured classroom teachers by modifying the research requirements of the tenure system would cause even a bigger outcry.

        Yet “publish or perish” off-time is one of the reasons undergrads get TA’s in the classrooms when they are paying professor prices.

        The BOV’s at the “research universities” don’t want to stir the pot and get “cancelled” because of the threat they would be seen pose to the broader academic community.

        The BOVs at schools like Radford may have allowed a collapse to start that they cannot stop.

        See my reply to Jim Bacon.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          If some of the schools offer more of what the kids want than other schools – it’s a competitive environment and a real market no different than selling some popular model cars for thousands more that less popular ones.

          With schools , one of the big draws is major team sports.

          Another is super easy, almost unlimited loans.

          Fancy dining halls, etc..

          no different than “cool” cars that cost the Dickins but an easy loan.

          The problem is not the Colleges per se (any more than any entity selling a product in demand.)

          They’re doing what any company would do if there was super strong demand for their product – they’ll charge what the market will bear and it has almost no relationship to how the company is actually run inefficiently if they’re making big profits.

          It’s only when there are strong competitors on price that markets work to reduce price.

          Ask the cable companies or cell phone or streaming services… Starbucks, etc.. they all charge what the market will bear and there is little price competition.

          Conservatives want to assert that because colleges get some funding from govt/taxes that govt has the duty to force lower prices and more efficient operations, etc.

          It’s a nice theory and that’s about it except for some outliers like Purdue.

          I say, take those easy loans away and a market will emerge.

          Those easy loans are not unlike the govt telling senior that they’ll pay for whatever fancy Lasik surgery they want – the same thing would happen.

          Instead Medicare says they’ll pay for basic and if you want premium, it’s your dime.

          we need something like that for college and loans IMO. Govt dictates on price won’t work.

      2. kls Avatar
        kls

        Student loans in any amount with no thought of pay-back potential…….and no way to declare bankruptcy on those loans [thanks to FJB].

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      In the case I studied, costs had accelerated at 3x CPI. As for UVa vs. Radford, I used undergraduate costs.

      The research meant to produce value, such as it is, should be self-sustaining. Much of the “publish or perish” research is a useless artifact of the tenure system. Some of it, even from a place like our alma mater, is embarrassing nonsense.

      The biggest problem in cost increases by far is the exponential expansion of the administrative bureaucracies. They love when people blame costs on indoor pools. It takes not money, but will, to slash them back.

      The BOVs could make that happen. Hire presidents who have the skill, the will and the board charter to do it. They have not. That is where the problem lies.

      What are the administrators going to do? Go on strike? No. In state schools they are government employees.

Leave a Reply

Read More