If you've ever wondered where your tuition fees are actually going, here's what you'll want to know:
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Whether you're a college student, have a college student at home, or just know people who are currently in college, chances are you've at least talked to them about tuition fees. The cost of college continues to weigh on people, especially as the cost of college has skyrocketed in recent years. However, you may not know where the money is going. If you've ever wondered where your tuition fees are actually going, here's what you'll want to know:
The breakdown per $ 100
Often times, the main problem is that you don't actually get a detailed receipt, so no one explicitly tells you what the organization is spending your money on. However, these organizations typically report their numbers to the government so that the government can collect aggregated information about universities. OneClass used this US Department of Education information to learn more about where your tuition is going. Here's how the numbers are usually broken down from top to bottom.
- $ 15.81 Salaries
- $ 15.58 – Hospitals and Healthcare
- $ 11.66 – research
- $ 11.47 – General Tuition Fee
- $ 9.61 – Auxiliary Student Company
- $ 8.26 – Academic Support
- $ 8.15 Institutional Support
- $ 6.25 – Other, including taxes and liabilities
- $ 4.75 – Student Services
- $ 4.52 – Public Services
- $ 3.41 grants and financial assistance
- $ 0.53 – Independent operation
When you add it all up, about $ 61.46 out of $ 100 typically goes into direct education costs like salaries and student companies. The rest is for everything else, including health spending, research centers, and public services.
Public Vs. Private school
What about the public or private school question? Private schools are usually much more expensive than public schools. According to the College Board, full-time students attending a state school pay $ 21,950 per year for tuition, room and board, including fees. A private college costs an average of $ 49,870 for the same experience. These numbers are both pretty big so you can break them down even further if you think about them "per class". According to these numbers, a public four-year school costs around $ 36 per class, while a private college costs around $ 125 per class.
Tuition fees as a percentage of public university income
It's also interesting to take a look at the percentage of tuition that makes up a college's total revenue. The colleges don't just live from teaching. Public universities typically receive both public and private grants, while private universities often have foundations. In 2018, public universities allocated an average of 46.6% of their total income to tuition fees. Compare this to 18 years ago, in 2000, when public universities only booked 29.2% of their total revenue from tuition fees. The cost of college has increased by over 25% in the past decade, and that could be one of the reasons.
Conclusion
All in all, this can be an interesting insight into how universities work. As both colleges and students begin to understand the intricacies of college teaching, it may be easier to work together to move into a future where students no longer feel trapped by college tuition and colleges no longer feel trapped in college as high as it is now. Especially when you look at the rapid growth of the past few decades, it seems like a change is emerging.
