Link Love

#1424: “My sister shouts at her boyfriend and I hate it!”

Ask the grumpies: Tuition inflation redux: Private schools

First Gen American asks:

Is the tuition inflation really about too many administrators at these privates?

You know, I don’t really know.  There’s a lot of work on tuition inflation at public schools (mostly caused by declining state funding from the government), but a lot less on private schools probably because the government doesn’t have a say in how much private schools charge.

So… first off, let’s see what tuition inflation has been … total cost at Carleton went up by about 5%… but that’s a little more than average inflation in 2023, though likely making up for some of the 7.8% inflation in 2022.

This website traces tuition by different kinds of colleges over time from 2000-2021.  It doesn’t look like the inflation for private college tuition is that insane? In fact, less than inflation.  So… I would argue that there has actually been tuition deflation at the average private.  It doesn’t break out room and board by type of school, but given that total cost has a much steeper gradient, my guess would be that either private colleges are hiding costs within room and board or the cost of room and board has actually gone up.  I think that’s reasonable for a lot of schools– my undergrad has really fancy new dorms with a/c and a lot of things that we didn’t have 25 years ago.  The idea of squishing 3 people into a room meant for 2 at most is likely not a thing.  Cafeteria food has gotten better and many of these private schools have unionized workers now (something that was a big point of agitation for students when I was in college).  So people are paying for a better experience now.

That may not be true at actual ivies.  But they can charge more because of the cache– there’s always more demand than supply, so they don’t need a/c in their dorms even though climate change has made things hotter.  (Though as places like Duke and Vanderbilt continue to move up the rankings and have invested in those benefits, maybe some of these ivies will have to put some more money in infrastructure.)

So… bottom line.  I don’t know.  But my guess is that there’s a combination of the following factors:

1. There isn’t actually tuition inflation at private universities, but there is total-cost inflation, and since many privates require you to use their room and board, that money may be fungible.
2. Tuition is not the same as price paid.  People who pay more subsidize people with lower incomes.  As a former beneficiary of this practice, I am in full favor of it and am happy to be subsidizing kids like college-me at Carleton.  (Though even the full cost I pay isn’t the full price of educating DC1– donors/investments make up the rest.)
3. Students are demanding nicer accommodations and colleges are providing them.  We’re more used to climate control (and need it more) and kids are more used to not having to share a bedroom.

There may be unnecessary administrators, but I doubt that’s a driving force or that it has changed much over time.

But I could be wrong.

Helpful weekly research brown-bags: Format

First we go around the room and briefly update people on what we’ve been up to in the past week.  Getting things in gets cheered.  Revise and resubmits and acceptances are all cheered.  Rejections are commiserated with.  This takes 10-15 minutes total.

Then whoever is in charge that day takes over.  Sometimes they have something they’re stuck on and want feedback on.  Or they might need help answering a referee comment.  Or they might need to practice a very polished talk that they’re giving at Harvard.  It’s a full range.

Academic or writing peeps:  Do you have a regular meeting that you go to?  How is it set up?  What do you find helpful?

If we were even richer I would want…

Before I started having to use my immense wealth to save the world, here are a few “me” things I’d want.

Shower heads that automatically change to some pre-setting.  I dislike having to change the showerhead angle after DH has used it.  I know one could have two showerheads, but I like the idea of pressing a button or even better it sensing that I’m short as I walk in and changing on its own.  Also I want it to start hot (we could actually afford a tankless water heater but for whatever reason ended up getting regular tank ones last time).

Access to all the airport lounges and first class.  We could get the airport lounge thing now but I cannot justify the price given my limited travel.  I’ve never flown first class, but being able to board whenever sounds nice.

A personal stylist/tailor so I don’t have to think about clothing.  Though I dunno, maybe I don’t actually need one since I’m pretty ok with being basic and don’t need a stylist to make that happen.  And it sounds like dealing with a stylist takes time which is kind of not the point?  Still, not having to pick out clothing to buy etc.   I mean, I guess there’s a reason stitch fix is popular even though it sounds like more effort to me than my standard buy a ton of stuff all at once from Ann Taylor/Loft/Target every few years.

A personal assistant to do random stuff.

What selfish things would you want before you started your non-profits?

Ask the Grumpies: Living in DC and affording twins going to college

Anon26 asks:

I am trying to figure out my plan and wonder if you have thoughts. We have twins and we live in DC, so I will have to pay two college tuitions simultaneously, and we don’t really have any public options. (The DC Tag program is a pittance.) We have only been in a position to actually save for the past year or so, and while we plan to contribute to 529s aggressively for the next several years, I don’t see how we will be able to cover anything close to 700 K without substantial loans (private tuition X 2 kids X 4 years), which is disheartening. I am pretty sure we won’t qualify for any aid with what I project our income to be at that point.

Huh, the DC Tag program is interesting.

DCTAG awards may be up to $10,000 per academic year toward the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition (awards will be reduced for less than full-time enrollment). The $10,000 maximum in this case may be distributed to your institution based on the academic calendar (semester, or quarters).

I’d never really thought about what people in DC do.  I guess everyone I know who works in DC lives in Virginia or Maryland or has young kids or was just planning on sending their kids to an Ivy league.  It looks like some really good state schools are represented, so they could go to, say, UCLA for ~33K.  That’s not so bad (though I assume that’s just tuition and doesn’t include room and board).  Michigan and UVA are way more.  UT would be ~31K.  So I dunno, that seems pretty reasonable for a family who is making 300K+ (aka, not eligible for financial aid at most privates).  If you’re concerned about money and haven’t been saving, then there are reasonably good public options if your kids can get into them.  That’s like, $280K plus room and board?  (Of course those numbers will go up every year, but it won’t be $700K.)

It has only been fairly recently that the FAFSA stopped giving a big benefit for financial aid if you have two kids in college at the same time.  From what I’m seeing on this DC Urban Mom post, there’s still some benefit at many private schools that use CSS in addition to the FAFSA, but that benefit varies across schools.  If you haven’t already, run some different scenarios across Net Private Cost calculators at schools of interest (google the name of your college and financial aid calculator).  That will give you a more realistic idea of how each school treats having a sibling in college.

Some lesser-known schools offer substantive twins scholarships.

Most of the private schools DC1 got into would have cost closer to $50K after merit aid than the $86K Carleton is costing — both of those sets of numbers include room and board in addition to tuition.  We were able to afford Carleton because we’d been saving $500/month since zie was born and the stock market had literally more than doubled what we put in (seriously, the cost basis for our withdrawals is less than 50% what we took out).  In retrospect we should have been completely maxing out our retirement instead, but we were following general retirement advice.  (And we did sacrifice a lot to get that 529 savings– every time I see bloggers who make/made a lot more than us complain about how we have an almost full 529 account, I have to bite my tongue about how much they could have saved if they didn’t go on multiple fancy vacations/year, didn’t buy cars so frequently, didn’t have a nanny, didn’t pay for private schools/fancy summer camps, etc.)  But that’s a sunk cost.  All you can do now is start funneling money in to target date 529 plans.  Loans are not the end of the world.

In terms of how to get college costs down otherwise– merit scholarships are still a thing.  If your kids are great scholars with great extra curriculars, if your kids are athletes, if they play needed musical instruments etc. etc. then they should get some merit aid at some of the schools they apply to, assuming they don’t just apply to ivies.  Some schools are more generous than others with merit aid– that’s something to look into.  And of course there’s the two years in community college option, but that’s not a great one if they’re aiming for a prestigious private after finishing (it’s fine if they plan to transfer to a prestigious public, though there may be some hiccups with transferring the full amount of credits, and most community colleges aren’t as good at retention).

So… to summarize.  There’s no magic bullet.  Go onto NPC (net private cost) calculators and put in a lot of different hypothetical scenarios and see what changes.  Save aggressively for college (while still not neglecting your retirement– you can get loans for college)– compound interest is magical.  Encourage your kids to do all the things that make them attractive college applicants.  Make sure they apply multiple places so you can compare aid packages.  Become ok with college loans.  Don’t give up on public schools.

Grumpy Nation:  Do you have advice for Anon26?

RBOC

• DH has been making more YouTube foods.  One good one was been a pickle fried in a cheese crust.
• One of my juniors is going up for full this year and she’s learning the truth of what I texted her when I was going up for full– do not put this off because the longer you put it off the more stuff you will have to enter into these horrific forms.  Also the longer you put it off, the more information they will want from pre-tenure that they didn’t want when you went up for tenure.  Just go up when your cv is ready and do not put it off for anyone.
• Surprisingly, for the first time I got a student who cheated for whom it wasn’t their first offense reported to the honor council.  They’d copied directly off Chegg and hadn’t even deleted the name of the professor or the number of the class from what they copied.  I didn’t realize they would tell me it wasn’t a first offense!  Also there’s real consequences at the university level after the first reported offense.  (And after a certain number of reports, the student gets expelled(!))
• Another donors choose project with diverse books got cancelled, this one in Texas.  I gave money to schools in Connecticut instead with that money.  :/
• TIL that Ariana Grande got married.  And then cheated on her husband with a married man who was in Spongebob on Broadway.  He had married his high school sweetheart and had a baby.  He does not sound worth it.
• Also I learned that people are going crazy that Kate Middleton has gone MIA after an abdominal surgery recovery took longer than expected.  I guess now I’m mildly curious about that?  More though I’m curious about what the palace feels the need to hide vs. announce.  Like I don’t understand why this is important, but also I wonder what is going on that the palace can’t make some kind of announcement after all this bizarre outcry.  I hope everything is ok and she’s not dying of cancer.  Divorce seems like a healthier alternative.
• One theory that makes a lot of sense and isn’t actually worrying is just that she looks bad because part of her recovery process includes steroids which are making her puffy.  What is worrying is that her handlers would rather have people believe her husband has having an affair/she’s a corpse/etc. than to suggest she looks anything other than beautiful.  Figurehead is a really dumb job.  I mean, I guess it’s better than forcing the prime minister to do all that stuff, but still.
• Apparently King Charles has cancer.  Who knew?!  That seems like a lot.
• DC1 has been deciding what task to work on next over spring break via a random number generator.  I should do that…
• I wonder if we’ve made the wrong trade offs between traveling and college savings.  I’m glad we were able to send DC1 to the college of hir choice but I wonder if there would have been value to the fancy vacations other bloggers take while the kids were younger.  We’re only now at an income where something like that makes sense, but schedules are hard and we’re still not full up on the 529s given that DC1 chose the expensive option.
• Public school makes them tagging along during conferences untenable.  So we only have time when flights are expensive and then we usually visit family in the Midwest.
• We had been thinking about Spain for this coming winter break because my friend went last winter break and loved it but the prices are high now (they were low when I checked before but they’ve gone up).

Foot Update #2

MRI results:

Multilevel mild to moderate degenerative changes are present within the lumbar spine, with level by level analysis outlined above.

MRI Lumbar Spine Noncontrast:

HISTORY:
Radiculopathy

COMPARISON:
Radiographs are referenced

FINDINGS:
Conus medullaris is normal in morphology and terminates at the T12-L1 level.
Lumbar spine vertebral body heights are preserved. No acute marrow edema.
There are small, chronic Schmorl’s nodes at the inferior L1 and L4 endplates.
Mild accentuation of lower lumbar lordosis, without evidence of significant subluxation.

L1-2:Right paracentral disc protrusion slightly effaces the ventral aspect of the traversing right L2 nerve root. Otherwise, no significant stenosis.

L2-3:No significant stenosis

L3-4:Disc bulge without significant stenosis.

L4-5:Disc bulge and small superimposed central protrusion. Mild ventral thecal sac effacement, as well as mild bilateral subarticular stenosis, with crowding of bilateral traversing L5 nerve roots. There is bilateral facet hypertrophy and moderate right,
mild/moderate left foraminal stenosis.

L5-S1:Broad-based disc bulge. There is a right paracentral annular fissure. Bilateral facet hypertrophy and mild bilateral foraminal stenosis.

DH found this Cleveland Clinic webpage about that last thing:

So… that is exactly my symptom.  From what I understand (but I could be wrong), the foraminal stenosis affects a nerve in my back which affects a nerve in my foot which makes the left side of my left foot itch/tingle.

I’ve been referred to a pain specialist, but the earliest available was late May.  So far the inserts don’t seem to be doing anything, but it’s supposed to take 6-8 weeks for them to work.

Link love

https://directfile.irs.gov/

Florida health officials provide scant details on measles cases, worrying health experts

https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-fundie-baby-voice

https://jessk.org/blog/psychology-todays-massive-conversion-therapist-problem

https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2024/03/pa-vouchers-feed-discrimination.html

https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die/

Ask the grumpies: College affordability policy

First Gen American asks:

How would you solve the college affordability crisis for lower/middle class Americans? Those are the folks who just barely make too much for financial aid.

High performing lower/middle class Americans are probably doing fine with financial aid.  They will get into well-endowed schools that want them and are willing to pay to get them.

If you define lower middle class as 20th to 40th percentile of income, that’s $28K to $55K.  Many of those folks are going to college with complete financial aid, particularly if they get into well-endowed schools.  That said, if you’re not a top performer or you didn’t even know to apply to well-endowed prestigious schools, you may be in a situation where you end up at a school that doesn’t have that much money and even if you’re low income you’re still going to have to pay a few thousand for college even with generous financial aid.  But if you’re low income, that few thousand dollars is a LOT.  Worse, lower income kids at not well endowed schools also get less support academically and emotionally and are more likely to drop out without a degree, which means paying those loans off is difficult.

Middle class defined as 40th-60th percentile means 55K to 90K.  Those folks still need to save some for college or have their kids take-out loans depending on where their children end up going.  Financial aid will still be very generous at well endowed schools.  Upper middle class, if defined as 60th-80th percentile, is 90k-150k and will still be getting financial aid most places, though not as much and they will likely need to have saved or to take out loans.

Upper class as the top 20th percentile… so 150K+— there’s going to be financial aid at pricey schools for many of these folks, but they may not see much from state schools or private schools with smaller endowments.  But… that’s foreseeable and saving some or taking out loans isn’t impossible for most of these folks even at the lower end.  They may have to make some sacrifices.

People who just barely make too much for any financial aid aren’t really any kind of middle class.  People making 350K/year can take out loans or cash-flow a state school or… should have been saving up for a private school if that was something they wanted to do.  I don’t really have a ton of sympathy for high income people who should have been saving but weren’t and spend so much each year that they can’t cash flow 85K/year (or, more likely 50k for a less prestigious private school, or 20-30k for a state school).  People making $350K/year even if you live in Palo Alto should still be able to afford sending their kids to a state school without too much loss of anything most of us think is reasonable.

I’m most worried about the lower middle class and lower income people who genuinely cannot afford to save for college and for whom any misstep or money worry is going to have domino effects on their ability to graduate college and pay off degrees.  I’m less worried about people who are actually well off but feel entitled to fancy cars and vacations rather than saving for college– their kids can still go to state schools and do fine with a reasonable debt burden.

How to solve college affordability– state and federal government need to fund state schools more.  College was more affordable when the state was subsidizing it more.  Expanded Pell grants linked to college costs are also a great idea, but not enough.  Zero and low interest loans are still good.  There’s a lot of creative stuff being done with education loans since the current corrupt supreme court ruled debt forgiveness not allowable by them.

Was college affordable for you?  If applicable, is college affordable for your kids?  If applicable, did you save for your kids’ college?

Discarded drafts from 2013: Part 2

• On writing groups and other things.  This was a post #2 started.  #1 has never been part of a writing group.  #2 wrote:  “What have we gotten out of them?  What structures are helpful and unhelpful?  Varies by project, time, etc.”  #1 has been part of research brown-bags and those are very helpful.  Maybe I’ll write a post on that.
• Individual differences.   The Cognitive Demands of Work and the Length of Working Life: The Case of Computerization by Robert J. Willis.  “I find strong evidence that women and many men retired earlier if they are in computer-intensive occupations while, for other men it appears that computerization does not have a significant effect on retirement. Higher cognition and being in a high wage occupation appears to partially offset retirement incentives of computerization.”  I do not remember this paper at all or what I wanted to say about it.  The other thing written on this post is:  “Laura Cristensen? Tenure.”  Which I think is misspelling the name of a Stanford psychologist.  But what that has to do with tenure is beyond me.
• Why people buy lottery tickets.  I mean, this is part of one of my class lectures so I probably could write a post on it, but I don’t feel like it.  If someone really wants my thoughts on this, please ask the grumpies and I’ll put it there.
• Do we attack problems or do we attack people?  Then it says in the post “Don’t link to this piece of sh*t” and there’s a link to a post from 2013 from some mommy blogger I’ve never heard of and don’t remember who is being really hateful to some other IRL mommy in a post.  I will listen to whichever of us said not to link and I will not link.  Wow, drama. My heart rate increases just reading her vitriol about some other parent volunteer who just wants the best for her kids. In any case, I think my last anniversary post I extolled DH’s ability to attack problems instead of people and don’t need to go into more detail on that idea this soon since that post.
• The effect of DH’s new job on my ambition.  This was two jobs ago!  “Less stress… less ambition.  Fewer grants.  Not even remotely thinking about going on the market.  Sabbatical denied…”  I did get that sabbatical a year later.  It is true that when DH is happily employed I don’t feel the need to be the breadwinner.  But I also do less housework.
• Hill climber heuristic.  Man, this was from when I was flirting with doing more behavioral economics.  That project is lonnnnng published.  Here’s what I said:  “when in doubt, step in the direction you should end up.  For example, when choosing a path to the top of a hill, if you are in doubt, take the one that leads upwards.  Usually this works well, except in situations where you temporarily need to go DOWN in order to get UP to the top.” “link to wikipedia” “going to school” “getting a car loan”  I guess that might have been a pretty fun post.  Going to school and getting certain types of loans are examples of doing things to build capital at the expense of short-run earnings/saving.