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LSUs Lazy River and the Student-Fee Sham

LSU’s ‘Lazy River’ and the Student-Fee Sham Like Congress, ...
lascivious lemon brunch
  12/17/17
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  12/17/17
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lascivious lemon brunch
  12/18/17
When asked about the increase in attendance costs, "THE...
dark charismatic doctorate partner
  12/18/17


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Date: December 17th, 2017 4:29 PM
Author: lascivious lemon brunch

LSU’s ‘Lazy River’ and the Student-Fee Sham

Like Congress, universities hand future generations the bill for boondoggles.

LSU’s ‘Lazy River’ and the Student-Fee Sham

PHOTO: PHOTO TWEETED BY LSU

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

Dec. 15, 2017 6:51 p.m. ET

164 COMMENTS

There may be no better symbol of American higher education’s wasteful indulgence than Louisiana State University’s lazy river. Part of a recently opened $85 million recreation center, the lazy river is where students ride inflatable tubes on a water current in the shape of the school’s initials. As F. King Alexander, LSU’s president, said before the ribbon-cutting: “We’re here to give you everything you need. . . . I don’t want you to leave the campus ever.” And why would they?

When asked to defend the water ride, the administration was quick to respond that the students voted for it. As the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in October, “a student government resolution, passed in 2011, authorized a $135 fee increase over three years to finance the project.” Kurt J. Keppler, vice president for student affairs, explained, “I didn’t have a dog in the hunt. We could have built half as large an expansion. But when we talked to the students, we’re seeing they want a climbing wall, they want an outdoor aquatic center.”

College student fees have been rising for some time now. In a 2016 paper for the Review of Higher Education, Robert Kelchen of Seton Hall University, found that between the 1999–2000 and 2012–13 academic years, inflation-adjusted fees grew faster than tuition—95% at four-year public colleges.

The rise, he tells me, was driven largely by state legislative caps on tuition increases. So, for instance, when Georgia started offering merit-based HOPE scholarships to state residents, the University of Georgia lost tuition dollars. But since the scholarships did not cover fees, the school increased those by as much as $500 a year, according to Mr. Kelchen. Similarly, in 2007 the Missouri Legislature required that state schools could not raise tuition by more than the rate of inflation. In response, the schools raised fees by 138% between 2009 and 2015, according to a state audit.

But those fees were levied by the administration. It’s even easier to see the appeal of getting students to raise the fees themselves. The university wants nicer facilities to recruit better and wealthier students. And they can use a “third-party payer” system to do it, says Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University.

Mr. Vedder recalls how his own school took a vote of the student body before building a $26 million recreation center in the late 1990s. In reality, though, the fee increases were mostly covered by either parents or student loans. Moreover, because the universities are usually taking out 30- or 40-year bonds to pay for the building, students today are actually saddling future students with higher fees. “The university said building the rec center was the ‘will of the students,’ but I don’t think it was a very informed electorate,” notes Mr. Vedder.

Occasionally students push back. At first in 2010 students at the University of Wisconsin rejected a proposal for a new $223 million recreation center funded in part by fees. But in 2014, the plan was approved, adding more than $100 a year to each student’s bill. Only a third of students actually cast a ballot, and those for whom such fees are a burden are a minority.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because universities are acting like Washington. U.S. representatives spend money on unnecessary programs and projects all the time, and taxpayers absorb the cost because each item individually seems small. Much of the cost will be passed down to future generations. But like citizens, college students (and parents) who are paying these bills do “have a dog in this hunt.” There are a lot of higher education costs students can’t control, but this is one they can.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3832239&forum_id=2#34943145)



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Date: December 17th, 2017 10:31 PM
Author: lascivious lemon brunch



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3832239&forum_id=2#34945542)



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Date: December 18th, 2017 11:15 AM
Author: lascivious lemon brunch



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3832239&forum_id=2#34948316)



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Date: December 18th, 2017 11:20 AM
Author: dark charismatic doctorate partner

When asked about the increase in attendance costs, "THE LAZY RIVER" was confirmed as the major culprit by nine of the twelve Assistant Recreation Coordinator IIs we interviewed. The other three were using PTO or FMLA leave and could not be reached.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3832239&forum_id=2#34948344)