Author:
An Observer
[ Edit | View ]
|
Date Posted: 13:32:20 12/12/25 Fri
I've posted on this board here many times that I think Ivy League students pay too little in tuition. That's right, too little.
It's no secret that alumni donation rates are plummeting across all eight Ivy League schools. Even the two outliers to the upside, Princeton and Dartmouth, are not immune.
I've had conversations with administrators who, when pushed, will admit that all of the decline is from the younger classes. In other words, we old folks are still reaching into our wallets every year. But the graduates of the last decade or so do not.
It's not because young people don't make as much money as old people, which of course is true.
The comparison here is young graduates in 2025 comped against young grads in 2015 and 2005. Young folks comped against other folks back when the latter were also young. Young versus young.
I submit human nature is such that, when you get something for absolutely free, you value it less. That's true whether it's the little bottle of booze they give you in first class or your $400,000 Ivy League education.
When you get it for free, it's less valuable to you.
About a third of our current graduates are getting their Ivy educations for free. Another third are paying very very little. Well, it's no surprise to me that young graduates don't feel grateful for their four years on campus.
So I think abolishing tuition is a terrible idea, at Princeton and anywhere else.
Having said that, I would love to see the richest university in America pay zero endowment tax because of how the statute was written. What a great loophole.
|
Feedback: 