Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma

[Brownwood]

First and foremost, let me state I'm an alumni of the University of Oklahoma, a donor and football season ticket holder for 20 plus years. I am however getting very tired of the University's dishonest communications.

OU often indicates their tuition is one of the lowest and most affordable in the Big 12, below the regional average, etc. Like most claims by the university, this is technically true. The tuition at OU is $137.60 per credit hour ($2,064 flat rate), which sounds like a bargain and fits well with their claims. However, this does not include: Student Facility Fee, Student Activity Fee, Library Excellence Fee, College Technology Services Fee, Academic Facility & Life Service Fee, Security Services Fee, Transit Fee, Special Event Fee, Student Assessment Fee, and Connectivity Fee at $110.45 per hour ($1,656.75 flat rate) There are also mandatory semester fees: Health Fee $74.00; Cultural & Recreational Services Fee $12.50; Academic Records Fee $15.00 and the Academic Advising Fee $25.00. Then there's my favorite, the Academic Excellence Fee of $60.00 per hour. But wait, there's more in the form of individual college specific fees. For engineering: Program Fee $18.00 per hour and a Technology Fee of $28.50 per hour. Tuition & Fees

When you add all of this up, you get a total bill from the bursar (based upon 16 hours) of $5,551.25, with $2,064.00 earmarked for tuition. Comparing tuition to other universities, OU really is a bargain! Their published flat rate tuition is only $2,064 per semester for in-state students ... plus fees. When flat-rate was initially announced, David Boren said other schools, like Texas, also use the same methodology. Really? The University of Texas' flat-rate tuition for one semester of in-state engineering is $5,107, or about 10% LESS than OU. Tuition Costs : Tuition Dollars & Sense

What about fees? Q: What is not covered by my Longhorn Fixed Tuition Rate? A: University fees, housing expenses, optional fees, and fees related to participating in academic programs such as UT in DC, Study Abroad, other similar one-semester programs, or field trips are not covered by nor included in the Longhorn Fixed Tuition agreement. Tuition Costs : Tuition Dollars & Sense In other words, there are no additional mandatory fees.

Put another way, tuition plus fees at the University of Texas is about 10% less to a resident of Texas than tuition and fees at the University of Oklahoma for an Oklahoma resident. In addition, Texas has one of the top ranked engineering schools in the nation, top 10, Oklahoma, top 100.

One additional FYI, about OU's dishonest marketing: Once again, comparing football ticket costs, OU is one of the more affordable. Check your season ticket renewal, there is an additional $60.00 per seat Academic Excellence Fee (sound familiar) added to each season ticket. This is outside of the calculation of comparability.

*** Warning: Editorial Comment ***

How long will we as citizens of this state continue to support policies that reduce revenues? The reduction in revenues contributes to the higher cost of educating our youth through reduced appropriations. Furthermore, why do continue to believe OU is a bargain when compared to other states when this is clearly not accurate? What has resulted from our following the lead of those determined to reduce state revenue and believing our higher education leaders? We as Oklahoman's are paying a higher price for an inferior product. (Put aside the Sooner & Cowboy blindness, the University of Texas is a much higher ranked educational institution than Oklahoma or Oklahoma State)

[Just the facts]

Don't worry, in about 3 or 4 more years the education bubble is going to burst and you can go to college for pennies on the dollar compared to now.

[kelroy55]

Don't worry, in about 3 or 4 more years the education bubble is going to burst and you can go to college for pennies on the dollar compared to now.

Why will it do that?

[venture]

Don't worry, in about 3 or 4 more years the education bubble is going to burst and you can go to college for pennies on the dollar compared to now.

It does seem like this whole federal student loan thing is about to implode. There is no way students can pay these loans off without decades of repayments - if ever. I want to say the last reported number was $864 billion in federal student loan debt. So pretty much for less than the cost of the Iraq War, we could have provided free college education to 37 million people. I guess it comes down to priorities and what people feel is more important.

[Pete]

Oklahoma provides a very low level of funding for higher education and is looking to cut it even further.

Therefore, tuition and fees have to pay for a much higher percentage of total university costs than elsewhere.

Boren is trying to improve the quality of education and the billion + endowment helps defray lots of extra salaries and scholarships.

Also, enrollment is at an all-time high.


We need at least one great university in the state, and that costs money.

There are plenty of cheaper options in state if cost is the primary concern.

[Just the facts]

Why will it do that?

Because the cost now exceeds the earning potential for the vast majority of majors.

[Anonymous.]

There needs to be better education to high school students about debt and career/degree choice.

The amount of students going from high school to college and piling up insane amounts of student loan debt is staggering. I don't have enough toes and fingers to count how many people I know who went to OSU/OU or any private colleges in the state for degrees that have an extremely narrow job field available (especially locally).

A lot of people poke fun about UCO and other "discount" colleges in the state - but I assure you the amount of money you save for the same peice of paper is almost always worth it in hindsight. Especially to the student who now has an arts degree with debt to their eyeballs. Yes I know UCO doesn't have some of the same majors as the other two universities, but the kids going to take basics and paying tens of thousands of dollars are wasting their time. You are much better off going to UCO for around $2k a semester - pretty much all credits will transfer bewteen the major universities.

[KenRagsdale]

Oklahoma provides a very low level of funding for higher education and is looking to cut it even further.

Therefore, tuition and fees have to pay for a much higher percentage of total university costs than elsewhere.

Boren is trying to improve the quality of education and the billion + endowment helps defray lots of extra salaries and scholarships.

Also, enrollment is at an all-time high.


We need at least one great university in the state, and that costs money.

There are plenty of cheaper options in state if cost is the primary concern.

The State of Oklahoma contributes about fifteen (15) percent toward University of Oklahoma operating expenses.

[Pete]

UCO or any of the many other colleges in state offer excellent alternatives to those who can't afford OU.

But OU shouldn't discount and dilute their education just to compete on price.

Tuition and admission standards continue to go up, but so does the enrollment and the value of the degree.


Boren knows what he's doing.

[Just the facts]

One thing colleges are going to have to do is reduce the number of credits it takes to earn a degree - and dare I say that the Associates Degree needs to make a huge comeback. I have a degree in Geography from OU and it should be a 3 year program.

[Just the facts]

Tuition and admission standards continue to go up, but so does the enrollment and the value of the degree.

Enrollment goes up because there little to no entry level jobs for a high school senior and student loan debt is sooooo easy to acquire, but guess what, there aren't any entry level positions for college grads either. So now they are unemployed and in debt. Furthermore, the cost of obtaining a degree in many fields far exceeds the earning potential of those fields. I could never afford my degree today because being a professional geographer doesn't pay enough to retire the debt. It barely paid enough 20 years ago and college costs way more now than it did then - and wages have been flat for a long time.

[warreng88]

There needs to be better education to high school students about debt and career/degree choice.

One of my good friends teaches math classes (Algebra, Geometry, College Algebra, Pre-Calc, etc) at Yukon High School. Next year, he is going to teach a year long class about personal finances. This will be the first class at this school taught like this so the majority of the first semester is going to be figuring out what they want to learn. This is a high level elective, so he won't have many people uninterested in the class. I work in banking and I told him teaching the time value of money, investments, basic banking things like how a bank works, loans, deposit accounts, etc, not to mention savings for children's college, retirement, etc. I told him I was not sure if that would take a year, but good luck with it. If it goes over well, other schools are already looking at it for their students.

[SoonerDave]

There needs to be better education to high school students about debt and career/degree choice.

The amount of students going from high school to college and piling up insane amounts of student loan debt is staggering. I don't have enough toes and fingers to count how many people I know who went to OSU/OU or any private colleges in the state for degrees that have an extremely narrow job field available (especially locally).

A lot of people poke fun about UCO and other "discount" colleges in the state - but I assure you the amount of money you save for the same peice of paper is almost always worth it in hindsight. Especially to the student who now has an arts degree with debt to their eyeballs. Yes I know UCO doesn't have some of the same majors as the other two universities, but the kids going to take basics and paying tens of thousands of dollars are wasting their time. You are much better off going to UCO for around $2k a semester - pretty much all credits will transfer bewteen the major universities.

There's SO MUCH wisdom in this post!!

Still another option I wish I had undertaken and are in the midst of undertaking for my kids is to go two years to a school like OCCC, then transfer to a "bigger" state school, likely OU. Total fees and tuition for in-state students at O-trip? Right at $100 per hour, $75 tutition/$25 fees (roughly). If I'd had my head screwed on straight thirty years ago, I'd have done OCCC that way in a heartbeat and saved a *ton* of money not only in tuition, but in gas/travel expense as well. I commuted (out of financial necessity) to OU and was there two years before I realized the OCCC option was there. At least I can teach my kids what to do

The key is remembering that when they graduate from that OU or OSU or UCO or whatever conventional "four year" school might be, no one will know or care that half your hours transferred in from a different venue. My kiddo scooped up about 12 hours in college credit on AP tests, and won a full-tuition two-year ride to OCCC, so his first two years to his degree are already all-but paid for. As a percentage of all expenses, his OCCC scholarship offer was miles better than what OU or anyone else offered.

My objective is that neither of my kids will have *one penny* of student debt by the time they each finish their respective degrees.

[warreng88]

Because the cost now exceeds the earning potential for the vast majority of majors.

Exactly. I attended OCU where I knew girls who would come in, go to the dance school, finance everything and end up with $100,000 in debt at the end of four years. Then, they only have six months before they need to start paying on their student loans. If you were to finance $100,000 and have to pay it out over ten years, it would be just over $1,000/month. Well, most of these girls end up moving to LA, Vegas or NYC (where the cost of living is so much higher) because that is where the jobs in that industry are. I know several medical students who had 20 year student loans at 6%. That's a house... A big house. Now, they will obviously be making a lot more money than dancers, but the nation-wide healthcare situation makes their career choice questionable.

[Just the facts]

My senior year of high school we had to take a class on Independent Living. We learned how to read telephone bills, electric bills, apartment leases, understand car loans, benefits of renters insurance, cook, clean (what household chemicals NOT to mix), and a whole host of other items - including having to carry around a sack of flour like a baby for 2 weeks. Of course, that was back before high school seniors had real babies.

[Pete]

I can tell you in Los Angeles Public Schools all high school students are required to take a Life Skills class that teaches them budgeting and money matters, among other things.

[SoonerDave]

There needs to be better education to high school students about debt and career/degree choice.

Sorry for the extra post, but I had to yell AMEN to this in particular. I've got a friend I've known since elementary school, very very bright guy, and he went into a degree field studying art. And he went all the way with it - got a PhD. Only problem? There aren't any jobs for it. Or the jobs that might be able to take advantage of it are so scarce that they're nearly impossible to find - struggling to put together piecemeal teaching jobs just to keep the rent paid. He said had he any idea it would have been so tough making a living at it, he'd have picked another field.

I think just a simple education in career paths vs job opportunity vs earnings potential would be a great thing. I'm not telling people to just go for the money, not at all - but to give them at least some information about what they're choosing. Forewarned is forearmed, as they (someone?) said.

[Pete]

BTW, OU is very generous with their various scholarship and grant programs.

Good students can usually get a pretty good reduction in tuition. Seems like all the kids of my friends are getting assistance of some sort.


When I went to OU in the early 80's I had a scholarship that covered virtually all my tuition and books, and that was before they added many more programs.

[SoonerDave]

BTW, OU is very generous with their various scholarship and grant programs.

Good students can usually get a pretty good reduction in tuition. Seems like all the kids of my friends are getting assistance of some sort.

That was kinda the word I had about OU, and that was also why I was *very* surprised my son did not get more of an offer than he did. He had a 26 ACT,. top 10% of his grad. glass, graduated with honors, but he was offered only a $550/semester tuition credit. Don't get me wrong - that's a $4,400 scholly over four years, but in terms of the grand cost of things....well, not so much. He applied to the general scholarship pool, the department he was interested in, but never heard anything. Very puzzling. Figured we may have filled out an application incorrectly or something bizarre like that, but surely he wouldn't have been accepted to OU had that been the case. We'll never know, I s'pose. Mind you, wasn't expecting a full ride - know those go to the guys who push the near-perfects on the ACT's - but somewhere farther up the spectrum wouldn't have been out of line, I think. No matter.

We have since learned that OU does offer scholarships particularly targeted at incoming community college transfers - in some cases, full rides for well-qualified students. My son has to keep up his grades to keep his scholarship at O-trip, so I think (hope) he may be in line for a chance at least some of that when the time comes in a couple of years

[Pete]

^

Part of this is due to vastly increased standards, where there are tons of kids coming in with more than 26 on their ACT.

If you come in with a 30+, they will basically give you a free ride.


BTW, this is exactly the way private schools operate. I went to Pepperdine for grad school and people ask how I afforded the $40K annual tuition (total budget for one year is now $62K!). But I ended up with scholarships and grants and a teaching assistant job, and I paid very little in tuition.

At the same time, there were a bunch of people paying full boat who either didn't have the test scores or never bothered to negotiate.

[SoonerDave]

^

Part of this is due to vastly increased standards, where there are tons of kids coming in with more than 26 on their ACT.

No question.

If you come in with a 30+, they will basically give you a free ride.

When I was in school down at OU, anything in the 32-33 ish range got you a great shot at a full ride - they called it the "R. Boyd Gunning" scholarship. 30-31 was usually good for a two-year or four-year partial tuition waiver, and a book scholarship. High twenties would get you a one-year tuition waiver and $500 in books (that's what I got). Minority applications with a mid- to high teens were in line for partial four-year rides, and much above 18-20 would get the full-ride consideration.

That difference is why I took my ACT twice (which was pretty unusual back in my day) because I had a 29 the first time around, and knew one point might get me four years of money. Retook it, went up in EVERY category (actually got a 34 on math, which shocked me), but somehow managed to crater the social sciences (I think, forgot the name of that section) down to a 20 and brought my composite down to a 28. Bye-bye four-year ride. Even called ACT personally and asked them to regrade my test because I had scored a 28 on that section the first time. They did, no difference (the guy told me he hand-graded it personally because of what was at stake). That drop cost me a composite of about 32. The only thing I've surmised is that I opted to skip a question, but didn't skip that question on the answer blank, shifting all the subsequent answers up one. Only thing that makes sense. Thirty years ago, I realize, but I'm not bitter LOL

BTW, this is exactly the way private schools operate. I went to Pepperdine for grad school and people ask how I afforded the $40K annual tuition (total budget for one year is now $62K!). But I ended up with scholarships and grants and a teaching assistant job, and I paid very little in tuition.

At the same time, there were a bunch of people paying full boat who either didn't have the test scores or never bothered to negotiate.

Since OU is a state school, I don't think they have the option (or much, at least) to negotiate their fees or tuition. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I agree completely that if you have more students chasing fewer dollars (and there's not much doubt the quality of student at OU is better now than it was back in my day - especially since I'm not there anymore LOL - , the results explain themselves as for as schollies go.

[Anonymous.]

There's SO MUCH wisdom in this post!!

Still another option I wish I had undertaken and are in the midst of undertaking for my kids is to go two years to a school like OCCC, then transfer to a "bigger" state school, likely OU. Total fees and tuition for in-state students at O-trip? Right at $100 per hour, $75 tutition/$25 fees (roughly). If I'd had my head screwed on straight thirty years ago, I'd have done OCCC that way in a heartbeat and saved a *ton* of money not only in tuition, but in gas/travel expense as well. I commuted (out of financial necessity) to OU and was there two years before I realized the OCCC option was there. At least I can teach my kids what to do

The key is remembering that when they graduate from that OU or OSU or UCO or whatever conventional "four year" school might be, no one will know or care that half your hours transferred in from a different venue. My kiddo scooped up about 12 hours in college credit on AP tests, and won a full-tuition two-year ride to OCCC, so his first two years to his degree are already all-but paid for. As a percentage of all expenses, his OCCC scholarship offer was miles better than what OU or anyone else offered.

My objective is that neither of my kids will have *one penny* of student debt by the time they each finish their respective degrees.

I wasn't sure how to word what I was saying, but you did it perfectly.

There is no "efficient reasoning" to go to OU/OSU or a private college for the first two years when you are only taking basic courses that transfer between all univeristies. The only time I can see it making sense is it you are already local to one of those schools and it would be logistically inefficient to try and go to a discount college.

You can view online at all the courses which transfer between universities - all you have to do is take the corresponding courses that will transfer to the college you want your degree to say and suddenly you saved tens of thousands of dollars. The problem is that nobody teaches you this, and certainly the big university charging big bucks isn't going to let you know you can get the same credits down the street for 4 thousand dollars less.

Don't even get me started on textbooks being sold on campus. This whole college thing really looks ugly when you dig into it - sometimes I cannot beleive it is legal.

[onthestrip]

That was kinda the word I had about OU, and that was also why I was *very* surprised my son did not get more of an offer than he did. He had a 26 ACT,. top 10% of his grad. glass, graduated with honors, but he was offered only a $550/semester tuition credit. Don't get me wrong - that's a $4,400 scholly over four years, but in terms of the grand cost of things....well, not so much. He applied to the general scholarship pool, the department he was interested in, but never heard anything. Very puzzling. Figured we may have filled out an application incorrectly or something bizarre like that, but surely he wouldn't have been accepted to OU had that been the case. We'll never know, I s'pose. Mind you, wasn't expecting a full ride - know those go to the guys who push the near-perfects on the ACT's - but somewhere farther up the spectrum wouldn't have been out of line, I think. No matter.

We have since learned that OU does offer scholarships particularly targeted at incoming community college transfers - in some cases, full rides for well-qualified students. My son has to keep up his grades to keep his scholarship at O-trip, so I think (hope) he may be in line for a chance at least some of that when the time comes in a couple of years

If I had to guess, those credentials are probably quite average for the typical OU student. Dont mean to sound rude but those arent numbers that scream tons of scholarship money to me. But if you keep applying for any and all scholarships available, you might be surprised what your son ends up receiving. There are scholarships all over the place, just have to keep your eyes open and keep applying.

[SoonerDave]

If I had to guess, those credentials are probably quite average for the typical OU student. Dont mean to sound rude but those arent numbers that scream tons of scholarship money to me. But if you keep applying for any and all scholarships available, you will might be surprised what your son can get.

Yeah, in re-reading my original post I clearly overstated my point. You are absolutely right. A 26 ACT isn't going to light up the cash register. I was not at all expecting a full ride for him by any means, but maybe just a bit more than $500 a semester. Perhaps I was looking at it through dad-colored glasses Was very proud of him - worked his rear-end off as a football player, got hurt, but still managed three consecutive perfect 4.0 semesters with AP courses and concurrent college enrollment that have given him 15 hours of credit. Just a ridiculous work ethic compared to most kids his age IMHO.

Yeah, I'm dad, I'm biased

[KenRagsdale]

The State of Oklahoma contributes about fifteen (15) percent toward University of Oklahoma operating expenses.

OU President David Boren slams governor's proposed funding cuts for higher education - Tulsa World: Education