I have been doing some research over the Internet to see if I can find out what different degrees cost at different universities. You may want to try your hand at this too. I am finding it very difficult and that concerns me. If we can't find out the cost, how can we determine if it is a good deal or not? I checked out the University of Wisconsin and found the following for the fall of 2009.
BA/BS degrees-------1,452
Masters------------- 331
Ph.D---------------- 200
Professional-------- 26
Total---------------2,009
Annual Budget----$2,448,400
Now assuming that for a full year they would award twice this number of degrees, that would be +/- 4,000. The average cost per degree would be $612,000 per degree. I could get fancy and rate more advanced degrees higher, but the answer would be the same.
There is another point of concern and that is the senior class is 10,000 while the freshman class is only 5,000. This means there is a lot more money invested in the students before they enter the UW. This means that a degree cost a lot more than the $612,000 that I have calculated above.
I have the feeling that there is some kind of closed club who run the universities here in the USA and they do it for their own entertainment rather than for the benefit of the taxpayers. I have just looked at one university, but I know it is the same all over the place. My concern is how we can do anything about it. We all want good education, but we want to get our monies worth and I don't think that is happening at any level in this country.
