Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma

[gjl]

I think when I enrolled at OSU in 1973, I'm wanting to say tuition was $14 or $16/ credit hour for in state students. Can that be right or do I just not remember what it really was. If it was that, what has happened to higher education costs. The costs the OP is describing in post #1 is unbelievable.

[soonerliberal]

If you look at the University of Oklahoma in pretty much any college ranking system, particularly in the university's focused programs, you will see dramatic improvement or solid performance.

US News has OU ranked 101 overall among national universities, tied with Tennessee, Nebraska, and Kansas. UT-Austin is 52. Baylor is 79. Oklahoma State is 142. The Law School is ranked 58, up from 71 in 2009.

Anyone can get an Ivy League education at OU if they choose the right classes with the right professors. There has been a significant amount spent on bringing in truly great thought leaders to Norman.

Most importantly, with the strategic selling of OU to top candidates for college (i.e. National Merit Scholars), the amount of successful people who leave the school is increasing and let me tell you, a rising tide lifts all ships. The University of Oklahoma is becoming a place that is well known for things other than football and that is exactly where it needs to be.

[soonerliberal]

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

Unfortunately, it's really hard for universities to quantify work ethic. That is such a valuable trait that is desperately needed in the work force.

[venture]

I think when I enrolled at OSU in 1973, I'm wanting to say tuition was $14 or $16/ credit hour for in state students. Can that be right or do I just not remember what it really was. If it was that, what has happened to higher education costs. The costs the OP is describing in post #1 is unbelievable.

What happened? Nearly anyone can get something like a guaranteed $65,000 in federal student loans plus an additional $20,000 in Pell Grants. Schools are obviously going to increase their tuition when they can get up to $85,000 in cash right away, even though the student is stuck with the loan debt.

[LandRunOkie]

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

Not true. The regents scholarship requires a 33 and a 3.25 GPA EVERY semester. Now you know why there are so few engineers and scientists in Oklahoma. Average GPA in these legitimate degree programs is around 2.8, a fact well known on campus. In other words if you don't perform well above average every single semester, you lose the scholarship.

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

This is a value judgement. Would rather have stats.

[Just the facts]

I think when I enrolled at OSU in 1973, I'm wanting to say tuition was $14 or $16/ credit hour for in state students. Can that be right or do I just not remember what it really was. If it was that, what has happened to higher education costs. The costs the OP is describing in post #1 is unbelievable.

That sounds about right. When I went to Jr. College in California from '87 to '90 it was $6/hr up to 6 hours. Everything after that was free. It cost me $72 per year plus books. Even when I went to OU it was under $100/hr.

[RadicalModerate]

I thought there was already a patent, leading to a Master's Degree, given to Dishonest Marketing by Harvard and Yale.
(not to mention The Online School to Rule Wall Street College of Phoenix University and I.T. Improvements)
No wonder common folk, like in Oklahoma, are up in metaphorical arms and whatnots. =)

[SoonerDave]

Not true. The regents scholarship requires a 33 and a 3.25 GPA EVERY semester. Now you know why there are so few engineers and scientists in Oklahoma. Average GPA in these legitimate degree programs is around 2.8, a fact well known on campus. In other words if you don't perform well above average every single semester, you lose the scholarship.

The notion of maintaining grades was true thirty years ago for the R. Boyd Gunning and similar long-term scholarships I mentioned earlier from the University Scholars program at OU. I kinda thought that was implied.

I was pleased to actually work for the dean who started the University Scholars/National Merit enrollment push at OU back in the mid 80's - a super nice guy who worked his tail off back then to start the ball rolling for NMSQT monies. At the time, it was back when OU was considered more of a party school and the idea you'd get really high-end students was looked at with, at best, a jaundiced eye. Now its one of the most successful such programs in the country.

[bombermwc]

So would you feel better if they just upped the tuition level and removed so many line items for fees? OSU sort of flip-flops OUs method and has higher tuition and lower fees.

I'd prefer to have it one large tuition bill and be done. In the method today, it directly affects how they pay graduate teaching assistants. TAs get a tuition waver if they teach so many hours depending on their department. But they still pay for books/fees. If you up tuition and toss fees (at least the majority of them), you can just adjust the payment so TAs get a percentage (that equates to that amount).

It can get complicated because fees will never go away. Some programs require extra fees to pay for things. It could be argued that if you make everyone pay for it then the cost per-student would be lower. But that's the method they used to use and it changed to this way because of funding gaps. OU sucks at back-office work...especially payroll...OMG! They really need to re-organize some of that to a business-style method to get rid of some the layers of stupidity. The counter to that is as they do that, they start looking at things as a money thing rather than quality of education thing. That became apparent in how they paid their summer TAs. They started paying for the number of students in the class rather than the hours taught. Guess what happened? The crappy teachers classes filled up and the better teachers that actually try got screwed. The university sacrificed quality to save a buck. What's worse is they used to do this, this exact patterned happened, and they went back to the hour model and fired some instructors. But here we go again....

[Zuplar]

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.

There was a semester elective at Mustang that was a finance class. I'm surprised more schools don't offer this. Mustang also offered an Account class that was a semester. I know several people that would take them back to back to get a better understanding on the subjects and see if they wanted to pursue either as a degree.

[Dubya61]

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've a great friend who says her Masters of Fine Arts only makes employers even less inclined to consider her.
She thinks she can be forgiven for her Bachelors of Fine Arts, though.

[Just the facts]

Another problem I see quite frequently is that the business majors seem to have no problem finding a job, but keeping the job after 5 years seems to be hard as hell for them. It has become almost like the teaching profession in that a new giant batch is released into the world every 6 months so employers work them to burnout and then just replacement them with someone from the next batch. The Big 4 Accounting firms are notorious for this.

[zookeeper]

I've a great friend who says her Masters of Fine Arts only makes employers even less inclined to consider her.
She thinks she can be forgiven for her Bachelors of Fine Arts, though.

That's sad. Today, higher education is all about jobs. That wasn't the intent of universities, the intent was to educate. There is very little of the broad liberal arts education going on in most schools today. It's just a fast-track to a better job with bigger paycheck, and that only if you're lucky.

[TheTravellers]

That's sad. Today, higher education is all about jobs. That wasn't the intent of universities, the intent was to educate. There is very little of the broad liberal arts education going on in most schools today. It's just a fast-track to a better job with bigger paycheck, and that only if you're lucky.

Just one of many misguided ways America worships the almighty $$$ almost to the exclusion of everything else...

I got my degree at CSU back in 1989, was in accounting 'cos I had taken some accounting classes in high school and was good at them and got a scholarship if I went into accounting, so took 2 semesters of accounting. Bored me silly, got into computer science, which was more interesting, so at least I didn't go down the "have to aim for a job when I get out, therefore everything I do must be in pursuit of that" path, had lots of jobs over the years, but need to find something new, hate to go back to school for it, but might have to. Probably for something like real estate inspection, though, no desire to get another degree, wouldn't help me much at this point in my life.

Oh, and I think the student loan debt is now over $1 trillion, not just in the hundred-billions.

[KenRagsdale]

State-by-state statistics regarding student loan debt.

Project on Student Debt: State by State Data

[MsProudSooner]

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.

I agree with this statement. I think the primary problem with public schools and higher education in the State of Oklahoma is the education budget cuts. The root of the problem is in the Governor's office and the state legislature.

[dankrutka]

I'm not a huge fan of these rankings and their methodologies, but OU is ranked a top 50 public university in the newest US News & World Report: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandre...-public/page+2 I believe it's the first time they've ranked that high.

[Pete]

I'm not a huge fan of these rankings and their methodologies, but OU is ranked a top 50 public university in the newest US News & World Report: Top Public Schools | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News I believe it's the first time they've ranked that high.

And only three of those 50 top public schools were cheaper and only by about $1K per year.

Most -- and we're talking public, not private -- were way more expensive.


To look at it another way, OU is ranked #101 among all national universities (public and private) and only three schools at that rating or higher were cheaper, and not by much.

[Brownwood]

And only three of those 50 top public schools were cheaper and only by about $1K per year.

Most -- and we're talking public, not private -- were way more expensive.


To look at it another way, OU is ranked #101 among all national universities (public and private) and only three schools at that rating or higher were cheaper, and not by much.

Pete,

With all due respect, I believe my initial contention has been lost as the discussion has focused on the high cost of education and overall debt of students.

I still contend OU is misleading the public with their "tuition" rate. The tuition you cite from the US News Report is $7,341. University of Oklahoma | Best College | US News

This includes what OU describes as their tuition and mandatory fees. The cost cited does not include the semester fees, college specific fees and OU favorite Academic Excellence fees. When included, the amount increases to over $11,100 per year. This is an increase of more than 50% from the amount OU markets their tuition and is depicted on US News. (See original post for detail and links to confirm)

Conversely, most other schools market their tuition rate more closely to the actual amount, e.g. Texas has a 1 page total.

I'm not arguing about the value of an OU degree, my point is they do not accurately reflect the true cost when marketing their tuition rate. When you indicate there are only a few less than OU, its because the true cost is not being used. Once again, Texas is less and a better university as are many others on the list when the actual cost is considered.

[Pete]

^

All schools list total budgets for students that also include things like housing, books, meals, etc.

Those are the numbers people use to compare and budget for and of course, all associated fees are factored in.

I'm sure if you compared OU to other public schools on this basis, it would still be among the very cheapest.

http://www.ou.edu/admissions/tuition..._estimate.html


I get rising prices are frustrating but if anything, I'd like to see OU raise them even higher so they can continue to improve the quality of education and thus make a degree more valuable.

As has been stated, if money is the sole concern there are plenty of in-state options which represent about the cheapest college education you can buy, anywhere.

[Just the facts]

State-by-state statistics regarding student loan debt.

Project on Student Debt: State by State Data

Holy cow - only a few states were below 50% of their college grads having student loan debt.

[Swake]

There was a semester elective at Mustang that was a finance class. I'm surprised more schools don't offer this. Mustang also offered an Account class that was a semester. I know several people that would take them back to back to get a better understanding on the subjects and see if they wanted to pursue either as a degree.

All schools offer this. A semester of Financial Literacy is required for graduation in Oklahoma.

[Swake]

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.

OU scholarships are a joke. My daughter is starting college in the fall and going to a very elite small school back east that admits less than 15% of applicants. Her actual cost of school is going to be about $10k per year which isn’t too bad. The stated cost of tuition and housing at her school is $63k per year. They gave her $52k per year in scholarship money.

My daughter graduated in the top 5% of her class, took 11 AP classes and scored above a 2200 on the SAT (which is equivalent to a 33 or 34 on the ACT) and missed National Merit by one single point on her PSAT. While OU did offer her a scholarship but it was tiny compared to every other school she applied to. They offered her $2,500 per year I think it was. Apparently if you aren’t a National Merit Scholar OU isn’t really interested in you They really don’t care about the quality of the students, they only important factor is that they can brag about how many National Merit students they admit.

She also got a scholarship offer from Kansas of about $12k per year. The University of Tulsa offered her scholarships of about $25k per year and a couple of other small schools she got into offered her around $30k per year. OU isn’t even really trying to get good students. It’s a sham.

[Rover]

Sounds like a lot of bitterness, not objectivity. I know plenty of families whose kids got good scholarships. Sounds like there may be more to the story.

[Pete]

Apparently if you aren’t a National Merit Scholar OU isn’t really interested in you They really don’t care about the quality of the students, they only important factor is that they can brag about how many National Merit students they admit.

OU isn’t even really trying to get good students. It’s a sham.

Yes, it's all a grand scheme to avoid taking good students and specifically your daughter.


They simply have their own criteria for awarding scholarships, as do all schools. If they chose to place a higher value on National Merit Scholars, that's their prerogative and a strategy that has a clear value, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.