The value of an education equals quality minus cost

December 19, 2022. While progressives talk about the "value" of an education and try to defend the cost of an education today, they can't seem to figure out that the value is the result of the quality of the educational outcomes less the cost to achieve that quality. Too often today, the cost of a degree exceeds its value.

I found all of the efforts Loyola made to determine the ‘cost’ of ‘production’ to be composed primarily of politics and some algebraic assumptions rather than any effort to use accounting, economics or finance. Abstractions and assumptions rather than accounting. NOTE: And some colleges are thinking of dropping algebra as a requirement for their students. And these will be the people "doing the math" of the costs and value of an education in the future?

The fact that the operating budget and the revenue budget seemed to be determined quite independently of one another, along with complete inattention to things such as price elasticity, ROI, and 'product quality' made any rational explanation of what was going on problematic.

Separate from all of this was the clear reduction of the percent of expenditures going to the classroom to continuously inflate both administrative bloat and financial aid, which struck me to be as far from pursuing an educational mission as one can get. Why make college more ‘affordable’ if it puts students deep in debt, strips down the quality of instruction and rigorous programs, and leaves them unemployed or at least underemployed?

Look at the seven potential priorities (attached) under discussion in the current Loyola strategic plan. Where do you think "strong career and student learning outcomes" are going to fall? And doesn't the leadership realize that without this being THE priority, what's the point of charging students $75k a year to do the other things? Some of the other potential priorities -- "attractive campus," "impressive colleagues," "increased DEI efforts," and "small class sizes" -- seem better at fueling egos and self-serving priorities than at delivering solid, productive, discerning graduates. And there is nothing at all about faith, sacraments, Catholicism, and -- God forbid -- Jesus in a Jesuit institution.

Isn't it a cynic who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing? In truth, the real value of a college education is the net difference between the quality of life the education produces MINUS the cost to achieve that quality.