High Cost & Unknown Quality - a recipe for success in the Education Industry

It is that time of the year - when schools start posting their tuition increases for the upcoming academic year. A hike of three percent or higher can be expected at most institutions.

What is the quality of the education that is being provided? Are schools doing continuous improvement? While in the corporate world, I had to prove to our customers regularly that we were improving our quality and our economics. In the academic world, the system does not provide incentives for measuring and improving quality. We do not hear of schools being registered to the ISO 9001 standard, or of schools applying for the Malcolm Baldrige Award. A system designed to perpetuate status-quo, teaching students about quality without practicing it.

The pricetag of a Macalester education will reach and all-time high next year, surpassing the $50,000 mark in the 2011-2012 school year. The Board of Trustees approved the 4.7 percent increase in the comprehensive fee, which includes tuition, room, board and the activity fee, bringing the cost of attending Macalester from $49,124 to $51,417 for the next school year. Tuition itself will rise from $39,846 to $41,800.

"No one likes it when we have to raise tuition," President Brian Rosenberg said. "It's a challenging balancing act. We work hard to make Mac financially affordable."

UC undergraduates will be paying an additional 8%, or $822 more, for their education next year as a result of a regents’ vote Thursday.The full board of UC regents approved the hike in a 15-5 vote despite the pleas of student leaders and some board members. Among the most vocal opponents at the San Francisco meeting was Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a regent by virtue of his office, who said he wanted UC administrators to find more efficiencies throughout the 10-campus system before adding to the burdens of students and their families.

Lehigh tuition is set to increase from $39,480 to $40,660 for the 2011-12 academic year after the Board of Trustees approved the addition, according to the University Communications announcement published today on Lehigh's website.

The $1,180 increment will bring total undergraduate cost to nearly $51,800. This includes the average room and board and the undergraduate technology fee.

Because of the ongoing economic conditions, the announcement said the board is confining the increase to three percent, the same percentage increase last year.

This three-percent increase is one of the smallest raises in tuition in "four decades" and is around the lowest tuition increases at colleges and universities in the country, the announcement said.