Those Pampered Students, Part IV
The Battle Creek Inquirer attempts to stir up a little anti-higher-education sentiment with an editorial bemoaning plans for the “deluxe” North Quad. The new residence hall is “targeted to cost $175 million — about $38 million more than originally estimated. That works out to more than $380,000 for each of the 460 students who will be housed there.” Now that’s a statistic that makes sense — if the U is planning to demolish the building a year after it starts housing students. The new building will, of course, also be home to two academic departments and the School of Information, which the editorial somehow sees as further evidence of its decadent luxury.
When the House debated lowering student loan interest rates last week, one of the main arguments against the bill was colleges’ supposedly out-of-control spending on fancy amenities. This particular editorial isn’t the most egregious example, but many of these “lavish student lifestyle” stories have a very specific political motivation, and one that isn’t good for higher education.
It’s hard to see what the editorial is complaining about. Nothing described in the editorial sounds very fancy - no twenty-person jacuzzi, no retractable roof to let in sunlight, etc. One would think that cost per square foot would be a more reasonable measure than cost per bed, especially for a building that seems to have a high proportion of academic space to residential space.
The “fund students and they will spend” mentality is actually accurate, but the reason behind the spending is more complex than just frivolous universities.
I have heard administrators from several small universities describe how their research shows that that parents (!) want the “best” for their students, and so these universities feel compelled to make new dorms significantly better than the “barracks” style that used to be common. I have helped on move-in day at a small school and heard parents talk about how they they want their child’s dorm to be better than what they had in college. We had plenty of time to talk while we carried refrigerators and furniture up the stairs.
In short, universities don’t build postwar-style dorms with one bathroom per floor because students don’t want to live in them and their parents don’t want to encourage them to live in them - not just because the universities are frivolous spenders. There is already fierce competition for good students, and the number of college-aged youth is expected to fall in the next decade, so colleges are thinking ahead to their need in the future to attract students to stay solvent. At the undergraduate level, students are attracted by nice dorms and fitness centers as much as (more than?) they are attracted by strong academics.
posted by UM Postdoc on January 24th, 2007 at 1:05 pm_That works out to more than $380,000 for each of the 460 students who will be housed there.” Now that’s a statistic that makes sense — if the U is planning to demolish the building a year after it starts housing students._
Well, now, it seems to me that it makes a fair amount of sense anyway. I mean, after all, the U *could* have bought a nice condo downtown for *every* individual student to live in for that price (without any sharing of whole apartments, let alone rooms). Or, hell, they could have bought a damn house in town for every student to live in all by himself. In either case, they’d have had millions left over.
Now there’s a tough choice for a college student — would you like a dorm room? Or would you rather have a downtown loft all to yourself?
No, the dorm won’t depreciate after a single year. It will maintain its value and be used for decades — but then so would 460 houses or condos.
posted by mw on January 24th, 2007 at 6:02 pmBut would the School of Information and the other departments being housed there get some condos too?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 24th, 2007 at 6:05 pmIndeed.
I do not object to money being spent on higher education. But is this serving any constructive purpose? No pun intended.
Do we have any U of M students in the hard sciences reading this?
Can someone with firsthand knowledge answer a simple question?
While the university spends a sum of money that’s bigger than the GNP of some countries to remodel one (1) dormitory, are the chemistry majors still struggling with broken forty-year-old glassware that’s duct-taped together, chipped sixty-year-old thermometers that leak mercury, and a general preponderance of chipped, cracked, broken, rusted-out, worn-out, used-up equipment that’s older than most of the professors?
The cynic in me suspects that we all already know the answer.
posted by anonymous on January 24th, 2007 at 6:40 pmHard sciences student right here. I have no complaints, and I’ve heard only good things about the lab facilities in other departments.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 24th, 2007 at 6:43 pmanonymous, can you name the countries whose GNP is less than $175M (without using the google)? also, since when is tearing a building down and erecting a new one “remodeling”?
aaio, imho the “hard” sciences do not include any discipline whose name contains the word “science.” ahem.
posted by peter honeyman on January 24th, 2007 at 7:19 pm“But would the School of Information and the other departments being housed there get some condos too?”
Well, sure, why not? After all, we’d have tens of millions left over after buying all those houses and condos. In fact, maybe there’d even be enough left over to pick up 100-200 soon-to-be-available acres along Huron Parkway.
posted by mw on January 24th, 2007 at 7:21 pmHeh. All right, engineering, then.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 24th, 2007 at 7:36 pmI have helped on move-in day at a small school and heard parents talk about how they they want their child’s dorm to be better than what they had in college.
What’s gotten into parents these days? They’re supposed to complain about their kids’ pampered lifestyles say stuff like, “What with all these luxuries you get? You have it easy! In my day we lived 8 to a room and had to use a communal shower!”
posted by Constantine on January 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pmRight - but they don’t complain about pampering their children, they encourage it. This is why the term “helicopter parents” has become well known in academic circles. Walk past a dorm on move-in day and look at the things they bring…
posted by UM Postdoc on January 24th, 2007 at 11:37 pmAnother hard science person here. From my impression within the physics department, the level of funding is not really tied to University money, but rather to federal research grant money. The University does use its money to sponsor named professorships to lure and keep top faculty members, who then are able to raise a lot of grant money and maintain well funded labs. Although they do use University money for startup funding for a lab (can be up to ~1 million), so I guess some of that money does buy beakers.
posted by jimmyChitwood on January 25th, 2007 at 12:50 amREST IN PEACE DISCO D
posted by Anonymous on January 25th, 2007 at 1:24 amWhen I went to school, I had to sleep in a shallow ditch in the arb, covered with leaves.
posted by Nitro on January 25th, 2007 at 9:05 amyou had leaves? when i went to school, i had to press mud into tortilla sized patties and cover myself that way.
posted by peter honeyman on January 25th, 2007 at 9:49 amThis sort of makes me AA residents could see the alternative universe in which the UM buys 460 condos and houses close to campus, takes them off the tax rolls, and lets the students move in. We could drive the price for an OWS house up into the millions in no time. Sweet!!
posted by Anna on January 25th, 2007 at 9:57 amIf they’re complaining about this, wait until they hear about the 100 million being used to renovate Mark Jefferson on EMU’s campus or the 54 million for Pray Harrold.
About a year ago, there was an article in the Washington Post about parents complaining to professors. I don’t get it. When I went to college, I couldn’t wait to get away from parents. What’s up with the youts of today?
posted by Kozzie_13 on January 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pmI can’t help but wonder if the reason parents didn’t complain to professors in the 60’s as much was that it was mostly the rich who went to college then, the children of parents who probably themselves went to college and felt it unseemly to bother a professor about a bad grade. That is, I think there’s an unconscious classist element in a lot of criticism of college students today (not in a wealth sense as much as a “breeding” sense.)
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 25th, 2007 at 2:33 pm“This sort of makes me AA residents could see the alternative universe in which the UM buys 460 condos and houses close to campus, takes them off the tax rolls, and lets the students move in. We could drive the price for an OWS house up into the millions in no time. Sweet!!”
Of course, if the U were really going on the private market for units, developers would happy to build them knowing they had a guaranteed sale. The point is, private developers build downtown condos for a lot less than $380K (or $190K) per bed, and that’s the case even though the developer has to buy the land, provide affordable housing units, and jump through all the planning hoops that the U gets to skip.
“Walk past a dorm on move-in day and look at the things they bring…”
But why wouldn’t students bring all kinds of fancy stuff? After all, compared to tuition, the cost of laptops, ipods, HDTVs, etc, etc is downright trivial. Back when I was an undergrad here (and this is not pythonesque hyperbole), tution really was $500/semester and a computer cost several thousand (even a 19″ color TV was about as much as a semester’s tuition).
posted by mw on January 25th, 2007 at 4:15 pmYes, thank you for pointing out the faulty economics inherent in “those spoiled students with their fancy gadgets.”
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 25th, 2007 at 4:23 pmin my (omg) 25 years as a college professor, i have never spoken to a student’s parent (except for a rare “thank you”), and in seven or eight years as a college student’s parent, it has never occurred to me to contact my kids’ faculty. (more than once, though, i have suggested to my kids that they should contact their teachers … and even suggested what they should say … just yesterday, in fact. of course, this advice invariably falls on deaf ears.)
mw, please email me (or post) a link to the WP article.
posted by peter honeyman on January 25th, 2007 at 4:54 pmOf course the building contains more than housing, so if you’re really going to get technical about it, you should plan to stick a bunch of commercial office space in the condos and assume that that commercial tenants won’t pay anything.
posted by Anna on January 25th, 2007 at 6:29 pmBy the way, did anyone hear about Ford’s annual report? They’re down $13B for the year, and $6B for the last quarter.
posted by Anna on January 25th, 2007 at 6:31 pmLast time I checked, the Residence Halls were run financially independent of the university which means that only dorm residents pay the higher cost as a result of the dorms being built, not the taxpayer.
Besides, its a heck of a lot better way to use taxpayer money than bribing companies into not moving to Mexico or satisfying the NFL’s retractable roof fetish.
posted by Franco on January 25th, 2007 at 6:56 pmYep, helicoptering. Parents hover right into college these days, only an e-mail away. The thing is — the kids let them! You get HELP and STUFF by letting them hover. What started out as irritation (elem school) now is more than tolerable (college) because you don’t live at home.
With my elem. and mid-school kids, it’s something I swore up and down not to do. But, these ‘copter parents keep lifting me up into their rotors and I all of a sudden I’m doing inverted flight maneuvers–until I find my kids. Then I hover.
posted by AAparent on January 25th, 2007 at 7:12 pm“mw, please email me (or post) a link to the WP article.”
Did I mention a WP article?
posted by mw on January 25th, 2007 at 7:31 pmThe cost of North Quad is a little less than $500/square-foot which is more than twice the approximate cost of $200/square-foot for Ann Arbor’s new Skyline High School. Even if the building lasts for 200 years, it is still an outrageous price to pay for a new building. There is no way the University could ever recover the full cost of the housing by charging the people who will live there enough rent since a one-bedroom apartment has about 700 square-feet which works out to $350,000. A $350,000 house has about a $2500-3000/month mortgage.
He is another factoid people on this list might find interesting: the 18 ICC houses have a market value of around $15 Million and those 18 houses house around 600 students. With the same $175 Million the University is blowing on North Quad, the ICC could build/purchase 210 buildings housing 7000 students.
posted by Chuck L. on January 25th, 2007 at 7:38 pmCan you point toward the source of your per-square-foot estimate for N. quad & Skyline? And is the cost of a building used solely for teaching typically the same as one that his multi-use, including residential, office, lab, classroom?
posted by Anna on January 25th, 2007 at 8:10 pm(oops, sorry, mw. it was Kozzle_13, and the WP article was a year ago … so … never mind.)
posted by peter honeyman on January 25th, 2007 at 8:20 pmAnna,
Published news reports have stated the approx. cost and sq-ft of the buildings in question. If you need more proof, why don’t you do the hard work of looking it up and saying why my numbers are wrong? North Quad is sucking up a lot of resources that could be put to far better purposes than what the University has identified. The timing and extravagance of this project is particularly galling. Here is one alternative for $175 Million: establish a scholarship fund to provide free tuition, books plus room and board (~$20,000/year/student) for about 500 Michiganders in perpetuity; that would be the type of thing I could support.
posted by Chuck L. on January 25th, 2007 at 9:24 pmi’m sure Chuck L. has already done the “hard work” of discovering that over half of the space (190,000 out of 360,000 sq ft) is devoted to classrooms, labs, collaborative spaces, rehearsal rooms, and performance venues; this note is for all you slackers.
posted by peter honeyman on January 25th, 2007 at 11:45 pmI wish I remembered when the article was written.
As for the price of the building, it’s probably pretty reasonable. Especially if it is going to last as long as most college buildings last.
posted by Anonymous on January 26th, 2007 at 12:23 amWe need to mobilize more retirement-ready Battle Creek voters to siphon away funds from our decadent “soft science” children in Ann Arbor, don’t we? (And a “hard scientist” should be able to adjust on a dime [even a mercury dime, pun intended] to duct tape a “test tube,” no? Otherwise, why study “hard science”? Hard science makes money, not spends it, yes? )
When I went to school, there were no tortillas. We made mud into “corn husk” shapes and got “soft science” credit in our anthro classes– unless we dared to voice an opinion. If we voiced an opinion, our professors described our opinions in anthropological essays that ensured their tenure. Then they sent us into the fields to toil.
posted by toasty on January 26th, 2007 at 2:02 amThese fields of toil yielded credit if we admitted we were “less educated” than the laborers we found ourselves among.
posted by toasty on January 26th, 2007 at 2:23 amChuck L., I did google those numbers and didn’t turn up anything like that, so rather than accuse you of making them up, I thought I’d give you the benefit of the doubt and ask where you got them. But you’re right, like most professors, I am a total slacker.
posted by Anna on January 26th, 2007 at 7:50 amIf the extravagance of North Quad bothers you, you must be really outraged at the idea of the library’s construction costs: $450/square foot, for a trivial thing like a place to house books.
posted by Anna on January 26th, 2007 at 8:02 amI never thought that I’d see the day when liberals were bitching about spending money on education. Classrooms. You know: the places where people learn. These are good things. Beds for the students. Good, too. Quit complaining.
There aren’t any articles that give specifics about this MIXED USE building, so why don’t we can the half-assed ‘per bed’ cost of this structure until there are more details.
posted by todd on January 26th, 2007 at 8:30 amThe article below has square footages for the residential and academic parts of the old plan, and cost estimates for each one. It does look to be a quite expensive dorm; I can’t find any cost breakdown online.
http://www.si.umich.edu/about-SI/news-detail.htm?NewsItemID=473
posted by UM postdoc on January 26th, 2007 at 11:04 amTaken from UM postdoc’s link:
“A preliminary proposal for the academic area to be shared by LS&A and the School of Information includes classrooms, labs, group study spaces, rehearsal rooms, and performance venues. It also will feature film editing labs and viewing rooms, which not only will support the undergraduate program in film and video but also can serve undergraduates outside of the program.”
Sounds like a pretty unique and understandably pricey building to me. Film labs? Performance venues? These things come with a hefty price tag.
Maybe we ought to focus our attention on other examples of the State of Michigan wasting money, eh?
posted by todd on January 26th, 2007 at 11:41 amWho said anything about the State of Michigan? A press release says “Funding for the North Quad project will come from University Housing, the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, LS&A and investment proceeds.” Funding from the state is less than 10% of the total budget for UM.
posted by UM Postdoc on January 26th, 2007 at 12:01 pmI was speaking in generalities…..that said, 10% still counts.
posted by todd on January 26th, 2007 at 12:26 pm“I never thought that I’d see the day when liberals were bitching about spending money on education. Classrooms. You know: the places where people learn. These are good things. Beds for the students. Good, too. Quit complaining.”
Well, yes, obviously, classrooms and dorm rooms are good things, but that certainly doesn’t mean therefore, that money is of no concern at all and the price per square foot of those good things shouldn’t be scrutinized. Nobody has criticized the U for building dorms or classrooms — only building them at a cost that means it will be able to afford less of other educational ‘good things’ that proper liberals like.
“Sounds like a pretty unique and understandably pricey building to me. Film labs? Performance venues? These things come with a hefty price tag.”
Do they? Enough to push the cost per square foot of the whole project up to nearly $500/sq foot *not* including the cost of the land or the inevitable cost overruns ($486 a square foot is what I get when I divide $175 million by 360,000 square feet):
http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0607/Jan08_07/07.shtml
Judging by the renderings and the new Ford public policy school, it’s going to be a beautiful building. I’ve been rooting for the Frieze to go since I was an undergrad here (now I can start rooting for the demise of the MLB), so I’m not *really* complaining. I’m going to walk, ride or drive by the new quad often, so the extra money to convert it from the originally envisioned eyesore to the new design is worth it to me (especially since the original eyesore wasn’t going to be all that cheap anyway) — but I can certainly understand why somebody in Battle Creek might see things differently.
posted by mw on January 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm$500/sf for an academic building is not a lot; and this building should not be compared to a house. Academic buildings have to be very durable because they get a lot of hard use by people who typically do not care about them. The materials must be very durable. Take one small example, the floor finish (not the structure, just the finish) in your house could be carpet ($2 to 3/sf) or maybe wood ($8 to 10/sf). In this building it will probably be terrazzo or stone because they will take the abuse for the next 50+ years. These materials cost probably $30 to 40/sf but lasts so long that they will be way cheaper over the life of the building. Someone earlier mentioned $200/sf as if it would be a reasonable amount for this sort of building; it is not. In my example durable floors would then account for almost 1/6th of the project cost, clearly then you cannot have these kinds of choices for $200/sf.
If this building is being built with 2×4’s, carpet, and vinyl siding, then $500/sf is a problem. However if this building is going to have very durable finishes throughout, as I am expecting, then $500/sf is a non-issue.
posted by next... on January 26th, 2007 at 2:08 pmWell, like I said, it helps to know about the details of the project. “Lab” can mean a whole lot of different things. So can “performance space”. That lot could have a whole mess of foundational issues and the utility connections could be a mess, etc. etc. Does the cost include demolition? We don’t have the whole picture.
I think that you guys are a little out of touch with how much it costs to build stuff…..our place, which is about as minimalistic as you can get and has next to nothing in the way of build out inside (two bathrooms plus electrical), sold at $185 per square foot. So yeah, from my perspective, it comes as ZERO surprise that this brand new multi-use building with every amenity imaginable in the heart of Ann Arbor will cost a shade over 2.6 times the value of my box of a building.
posted by todd on January 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pmMeanwhile, up in East Lansing, MSU has torn down University Village (the oldest family housing complex) and is building new dorms on the site.
Apparently there were complaints that University Village was built TOO solidly, so much concrete and brick that it was a pain to demolish. So for the new dorms, the university is going the “2×4s and vinyl siding” route.
The new complex looks just shockingly cheap-shit. It will be a slum in no time: a 21st century equivalent of those 1970s apartment complexes with the stairs sagging and the trim falling off.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 26th, 2007 at 3:07 pmtodd, the budget includes $8.5M for demolition of the frieze building and other site preparation.
source: http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0607/Sept25_06/09.shtml
posted by peter honeyman on January 26th, 2007 at 7:13 pmFor a good overview on the construction costs of recent high schools in the area:
http://www.salineschools.com/newhighschoolfacts.html
From the above link:
Approximate cost per square foot compared to other new High Schools
in the area (adjusted for inflation):
* Chelsea: $31.9 million $165 per/sf
* Dexter: $53.4 million $170 per/sf
* Milan $43.4 million $182 per/sf
* Pinckney $61.6 million $176 per/sf
* Saline $89.0 million $178 per/sf
* Tecumseh $38.8 million $200 per/sf
The $175 Million/360,000sf are the numbers I used and I rounded to the nearest $100.
I thought it would be interesting to run a financial simulation using next’s numbers for the cost of flooring ($10/sf for wood, $30/sf for terrazzo/stone). I’ll also add in the following assumptions: 3% inflation, 9% return on sinking fund, wood lasts 20 years, terrazzo/stone lasts 50 years, the cost of labor is included in the stated prices, the analysis covers the present worth for the first 100 years. The present worth of the terrazzo/stone is the initial $30.00/sf plus $1.80/sf needs to be put into the sinking fund to cover replacement in 50 years. The present worth of the wood is $10.00/sf plus $4.60/sf needs to be put into the sinking fund to cover replacements at 20, 40, 60 and 80 years. The cost of replacements at 100 years is a few nickels per sf. Remember, the $175 million UofM spends on North Quad is money that can’t be put into a sinking/endowment fund; so in the simulation, the opportunity cost of paying for terrazzo/stone is $17.20/sf in today’s dollars which balloons into $4948.27/sf cost after 100 years.
Given the numbers and analysis I have presented here, it should be obvious why I think North Quad is a bad idea. Paying a premium in todays dollars to make something last 100 years is a poor return on investment and a waste of resources. Believe it or not, it’s cheaper to tear down a building after 50 years and build a new one rather than pay a 2X premium today (the cost of replacing something 50 years from now is ~6% of today’s cost.)
posted by Chuck L. on January 26th, 2007 at 8:42 pmChuck, come on.
You don’t really, honestly think that a facility that houses the University of Michigan’s School of Information (god only knows what kind of computer doo-dads that’ll house), has secure, livable living facilities and world-class classrooms, labs (whatever that means), performance spaces (whatever that means), etc. etc. should cost the same to build as some dink high school in Tecumseh, Michigan???
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Thank GOD UMich doesn’t have to answer to anyone in this town. It’s the one State run entity in Michigan that actually works. Many (most?) departments are at a World-class level, and you guys are talking about money spent on infrastructure.
Look at the other side of the coin. What if UMich was some 3rd rate State school (pick your favorite State school that you hate)? What then? You’d be complaining about how we’re spending billions of tax dollars on some piece of shit school that can’t get it’s act together. Right?
They’re getting it right. Let them be. Oh wait, you don’t have a choice. I guess I should say shut up and like it.
posted by todd on January 26th, 2007 at 9:42 pmi am thinking Chuck L. would be happy with quonset huts on the corner of state and huron.
Chuck L., the (publicly elected) regents of the university of michigan chose to dedicate the financial resources of the university to making north quad a state of the art facility and a visual landmark. they made the latter intention quite clear when they sent the initial design back to the drawing boards and hired a new architect. their perception of north quad’s value goes a bit further than your simplistic reliance on the technology of arithmetic division.
furthermore, the president of the university announced last year a commitment to improving undergraduate residential life. her calculus of quality is also quite a bit more robust than you will get out of your four-function calculator.
whine all you like, these are the stated priorities of the university’s leadership, your monday morning quarterbacking notwithstanding.
posted by peter honeyman on January 26th, 2007 at 10:02 pmTodd,
What do you think the UofM community in 100 years would prefer, North Quad or a $50 Billion endowment fund ($175 Million invested at 9%/year and discounting inflation at 3%/year)? I’m not making these numbers up. These are realistic choices and the choices made today affect people tomorrow. I have yet to see any reason why North Quad should cost 2-2.5X what a high school costs. High schools have swimming pools, football fields and stands, libraries, cafeterias, computer labs and auditoriums and if that is not “mixed use” than what is?
posted by Chuck L. on January 26th, 2007 at 10:19 pmChuck L.
You simpleton, the $10/sf is only the initial cost, duh. If wood was installed in an environment with students it would need to be re-finished at least 4 times a year ($1 to 2/ sf) but, because you are simple, I will say only once a year. Without factoring in the displacement costs, (a big cost) don’t forget to add in 2 dollars a year to your calculation. That’s every year.
posted by next... on January 26th, 2007 at 10:34 pmStone or terrazzo on the other hand is not ‘guaranteed’ to need replacement in 50 years. I have seen it much older under heavy use. In many instances it can last hundreds of years (look at the cathedrals and palaces of Europe - maybe just sections need to be replaced). Anyway it was an example. The next time you fly out of Metro Airport think about the floor you are dragging everything you own across. Think, what if this were wood, how long would it last? What about that kid who just spilled his drink, what if this was wood? What about those guys drinking too much who will probably puck down the hall (I am thinking dorm)? Then think about your calcs… 20 years… my ass. Try 20 minutes. Glad you are not on the building committee.
Next,
Your pulling numbers out of your ass. Four times a year, get real. You’ve also missed the point of the analysis. Spending a shit-load of money now to avoid an expenditure 50-100 years out is foolish due to the compounding of money.
Peter Honeyman,
So, after 40 years of restricting the supply of student housing and raising tuition at twice the rate of overall inflation for the last 30 years we are to believe that the Regents and the University President suddenly give a shit about undergrads? My ass. I’m sure undergrads will just get those warm fuzzies every time they write a check for the student loans they’ll have to pay that our generation never had to. I’ve never voted for the current Regents and never will and yes, I pay attention to what they do. Pfizer is in the process of leaving and the auto industry can’t move production to China fast enough; so what’s the U’s answer? A big fat monument to elitist extravagance at State & Huron to let everyone in Michigan know that the UofM community feels their pain.
posted by Chuck L. on January 26th, 2007 at 11:24 pmChuck L., in a word: yes.
posted by peter honeyman on January 27th, 2007 at 12:01 amoh, and one more thing, Chuck L.
don’t preach to me about “our generation” not having to take out student loans to get through the university of michigan. i earned as much as i could every summer working at jobs like large press operator in a stamping plant and worked part time throughout every school year, but still had to borrow the absolute limit in federal loans every year in order to make ends meet. it took me more than ten years to pay off those loans.
you don’t seem to know anything about anything, Chuck L.
posted by peter honeyman on January 27th, 2007 at 12:14 amChuck L.,
If the building were butt-ugly and cheaply constructed, you would be first in line to complain about the eyesore on State Street constructed by a university that doesn’t care about the community.
You could make the time-value-of-money argument about anything. We could all live in tents and dump 90% of our money into S&P index funds, but the problem is that you don’t get to use the money and that’s a pretty shitty way to live.
If you still built the dorm, even at your (way off) estimate of $200/square foot, and using a more reasonable growth rate of 7.5%, with 4.5% of the resulting $105M endowment spent on undergraduates each year would be $123 per student per year and the endowment would stay the same size. If you would prefer, we could keep the endowment growing at 2% per year (adjusting for inflation), which would result in $102/student/year and an endowment of $760M. Either one is quite different from $56B.
posted by Anna on January 27th, 2007 at 12:41 amI grew up in Battle Creek. I don’t live there now. And now, I think, you know why.
posted by Tim on January 27th, 2007 at 1:53 am“If the building were butt-ugly and cheaply constructed, you would be first in line to complain about the eyesore on State Street constructed by a university that doesn’t care about the community.” I would? Actually, I liked the idea of tearing down the Frieze and building a dorm. When I heard it would be a mult-use property with on-site instructional facilities, I thought that was really cool. But then, I noticed the U was paying ~500/sf and my impression was forever altered. Today, I’m left wondering what could have been had for around half the cost. Anna, remember that only 460 out of around 16,000 undergraduates will get to use the facility, so I think charging the remaining 15,500 undergrads $123/year/student is a bad tradeoff (BTW, it was $50 Billion not $56 Billion and it’s what you get compounding $175 Million at the long term historic return per year of the S&P for 100 years and then discounting inflation at 3%/year.)
I think Peter Honeyman’s hysterical response above actually supports my concern. Yes, paying for college in our generation was a big deal and that’s what bothers me. It’s much harder now to do what Peter did 20-30 years ago. He said he had summer jobs working in a stamping plant and stamping plants use to be good paying union jobs that are disappearing at the rate of a melting ice cube in hell today (BTW Peter, I used a scientific calculator since I need an x^y function to do the time-value analysis.)
posted by Chuck L. on January 27th, 2007 at 8:20 am“What do you think the UofM community in 100 years would prefer, North Quad or a $50 Billion endowment fund ($175 Million invested at 9%/year and discounting inflation at 3%/year)?”
North Quad, obviously. Chuck, I really appreciate your penny pinching and holding UMich accountable, but this is a very simple scoreboard situation. UMich works. Period. It is a shining star in a sea of…….not so nice stuff. And their endowment isn’t at issue.
No, I didn’t go to school here. I’m not some idiot rah-rah Go Blue twit. But I don’t understand how you can’t be impressed by what they’ve accomplished at UMich over the last 20 years. It really is amazing.
And yes, I understand that UMich is expensive. I’m not some rich kid who just doesn’t get that. I paid my way through college. Paid for brewing school. Paid for distilling school. I was much, much more critical of my schooling than most……I wanted to make sure that I was getting my money’s worth.
IMHO, you’re getting that at UMich. Perhaps more so at the Grad level than Undergrad, but UMich is top ten (or #1) in many, many disciplines. That ain’t free. It comes with a price tag. It’s worth it to me, particularly as a guy who has a line item (a very large line item, I might add) fee on the taxes I pay on the spirits I produce called “State Education fund”.
New buildings should amazing. The equipment and facilities should be world-class. Second to none. As a taxpayer, I have no problem mucking in for this. In fact, I can’t think of too many things that I’d rather see my money go towards…..
We’re just on completely opposite ends of the spectrum on this. UMich shouldn’t scrimp on facilities.
posted by todd on January 27th, 2007 at 1:56 pmI don’t see that paying top prices for construction is any evidence that UM will retain world-class status. Will beautiful panelling and floors change the creativity of researchers? I don’t think so after seeing Cornell.
As for the dormitory, will the expensive suite-style rooms help to attract the best students? Or is their purpose to comfort the rich parents of so-so students, providing a security blanket while Michigan goes downhill economically?
posted by Greg on January 27th, 2007 at 11:12 pmgreg, what did you see at cornell?
and what gives with the “so so students” snark?
posted by peter honeyman on January 27th, 2007 at 11:29 pmAt Cornell I saw that the research lounges hadn’t been painted in 20 years or so, and it didn’t seem to affect the good quality of the research. Here at UM it seems like most buildings have been renovated in the last 10 years. I don’t want to be a zealot about it, but it seems like building budgets here are relatively rich.
I didn’t mean to suggest that the average students here aren’t bright and top of their class. But having gone to a private liberal arts school (Carleton) I think there’s always a danger of talking about educational excellence, while at the same time driving tuition beyond the reach of average families. If the long-term result of expensive building projects is accelerated tuition hikes, talented students will do the cost-benefit check and take their skills elsewhere. The rich, so-so students will remain, trying to trade on the UM brand.
posted by Greg on January 28th, 2007 at 12:28 amRe: “High schools have swimming pools, football fields and stands, libraries, cafeterias, computer labs and auditoriums and if that is not “mixed use” than what is?”
At the $200 per/sf level, Tecumseh still has no swimming pools, football fields, stands… thoes facilities are over at the old HighSchool location and not a part of new construction. There is a push underway in Tecumseh now to add facilities left out of the original building and that will cost many millions more (exact costs are not yet available). My point is that even $200 per/sf does not buy as much as one might think.
UofM is doing the right thing and hopefully the building will stand as long as the Pontiac Silver Dome which cost in todays dollars, $208.8 million. Calculated using the Consumer Price Index Calculator found here
posted by Louis on January 28th, 2007 at 12:59 amhttp://www.minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/
greg, interesting comments … the other day i read that grinnell is raising its tuition by 15% (!) to catch up to carleton, macalester, etc.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/24/grinnell
quoting that article: “The theory is that prospective students associate quality with price.”
posted by peter honeyman on January 28th, 2007 at 8:20 amThe quality of the facilities affects faculty decisions. It might not be the only determinant, but I know that the grossness of our building (at one of the ivies) became such an issue that the provost was persuaded we needed to renovate it — especially since each new hire was having a little piece of the building renovated for lab space and it was more expensive to do it bit-by-bit than do the whole building. And it was a lot easier to attract graduate students to my new shiny lab with big windows and hard wood floors than my disgusting, dark one with gray worn carpet and a window partly blocked by vent ducts.
When I was an undergrad, I had a lot of choices and the quality of the housing was definitely part of my decision — again, not the whole decision, but part of it.
posted by Anna on January 28th, 2007 at 2:42 pmI’ve never heard a good explanation as to why the School of Information — a grduate school with no undergraduate program — will be housed in an undcergraduate residence hall.
Bizarre!
posted by Confused on February 20th, 2007 at 5:42 pmClassrooms. You know: the places where people learn. These are good things. Beds for the students. Good, too. Quit complaining.
Groucho: Do we have a stadium?
Flunkies: Yes.
Groucho: Do we have a college?
Flunkies: Yes.
Groucho: Well, we can’t support both! Tomorrow we start tearing down the college!
Flunkies: But, Professor…where will the students sleep?
Groucho: Where they always sleep…in the classroom!
–Horse Feathers (1932)
posted by RMc on February 21st, 2007 at 10:43 am