Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Opposing view: Tuition reflects market realities - Christophe Pierre, USA Today

The cost of higher education isn't one size fits all. Instructional requirements are more costly for some disciplines than for others. Course work in engineering and business, for example, comes with a much higher overhead than does a general studies curriculum. Many of these programs are in high demand, and not just because at the University of Illinois they are ranked among the best in the nation. Graduates in the sciences, engineering, business and other high-demand curricula also tend to be in greater demand by employers and have significantly more career earning power. A truly world-class education is driven by quality and demand. For public universities, tuition differentials have also been driven, in part, by declining state financial support. At the three-campus University of Illinois, state support covered half of instructional costs three decades ago, but now accounts for just 15%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/story/2012-06-05/tuition-University-of-Illinois/55385476/1