Public vs Private Tuition: Mythbusters Edition

[Pitcher in the Rye]

4 of the top 10 schools in D1 baseball are private. (Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Boston College, and Stanford.) Campbell has been lurking at the periphery of the top 10 as of late, too.

The gist of the excerpted article is this: Since a private school is...private, they can make all kinds of concessions regarding their tuition. Simply put, the price they advertise as their tuition- much like a car at a dealership- isn't static.

It still doesn't mean it's a perfectly balanced playing field, but to declare it as an insurmountable handicap is folly.

Year after year, historically and recently, Miami has been recruiting top 5 recruiting classes. Some don't make it to campus and instead take the check from MLB, but that's applicable to ALL top programs that are shooting for the stars. You go after the best, you're going to have competition from professional baseball. It's the cost of doing business.

If you still believe that UM's exclusion from Omaha isn't self-inflicted, if you think Yoyo is actually paying the difference of 70k and his quarter share scholarship, or you think that UM somehow manages to only recruit players who are both highly ranked AND come from well-heeled families, well why bother complaining when they get bounced from the regionals every year? Why bother looking for another coach outside the incestous hiring policies of UM? Why care at all if the game is rigged? A 5'2 center is never going to make it to the NBA, right?

"The cost of tuition and fees is typically higher at private colleges than public ones, leaving many students to believe they can only afford one type of school. But college administrators and other experts say it's not quite that simple: Tuition discounts and institutional dollars at private schools can help tip the scales on affordability, so students should look beyond initial sticker prices.
"There are all kinds of ways to pay for college," says Michael Kitchen, senior managing editor and higher education finance expert at Student Loan Hero. "I would look at it on a school-by-school basis rather than choose based on whether they are private or public. What you end up paying is not necessarily going to be the list price."
Private colleges were estimated to offer historically high average tuition discounts to students in the 2021-2022 school year, continuing an upward trend, according to the latest National Association of College and University Business Officers survey. The average tuition discount was estimated to be nearly 50% for undergraduates for the year.
It's a common misconception that private institutions aren't accessible to certain groups, like low-income and first-generation students, experts say. In fact, some private colleges, like many Ivy League schools, meet students' full demonstrated need. The cost of tuition at Princeton University in New Jersey, for example, is covered for families who make $160,000 or less. Room and board may also be covered or discounted, depending on household income.
Read:
See the Average College Tuition in 2022-2023.

The National Association of College and University Business Officers survey shows that in 2021-2022, the share of first-time, full-time freshmen who received an institutional grant or scholarship from private nonprofit colleges was estimated to be 89.5%."

 

[HurricanePhilly]

We have another class coming in that is top 10 as well. You never know what a kid will decide with the draft but Cuvet the corner guy with big-time pop seems to be our only extremely high draft pick potentially. Obviously, others could go later and still decide to go pro. I just hope we get the 2 big-time SS on campus. Both have some legit tools and the one has elite speed. (names are escaping)

 

[TheOriginalCane]

4 of the top 10 schools in D1 baseball are private. (Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Boston College, and Stanford.) Campbell has been lurking at the periphery of the top 10 as of late, too.

The gist of the excerpted article is this: Since a private school is...private, they can make all kinds of concessions regarding their tuition. Simply put, the price they advertise as their tuition- much like a car at a dealership- isn't static.

It still doesn't mean it's a perfectly balanced playing field, but to declare it as an insurmountable handicap is folly.

Year after year, historically and recently, Miami has been recruiting top 5 recruiting classes. Some don't make it to campus and instead take the check from MLB, but that's applicable to ALL top programs that are shooting for the stars. You go after the best, you're going to have competition from professional baseball. It's the cost of doing business.

If you still believe that UM's exclusion from Omaha isn't self-inflicted, if you think Yoyo is actually paying the difference of 70k and his quarter share scholarship, or you think that UM somehow manages to only recruit players who are both highly ranked AND come from well-heeled families, well why bother complaining when they get bounced from the regionals every year? Why bother looking for another coach outside the incestous hiring policies of UM? Why care at all if the game is rigged? A 5'2 center is never going to make it to the NBA, right?

"The cost of tuition and fees is typically higher at private colleges than public ones, leaving many students to believe they can only afford one type of school. But college administrators and other experts say it's not quite that simple: Tuition discounts and institutional dollars at private schools can help tip the scales on affordability, so students should look beyond initial sticker prices.
"There are all kinds of ways to pay for college," says Michael Kitchen, senior managing editor and higher education finance expert at Student Loan Hero. "I would look at it on a school-by-school basis rather than choose based on whether they are private or public. What you end up paying is not necessarily going to be the list price."
Private colleges were estimated to offer historically high average tuition discounts to students in the 2021-2022 school year, continuing an upward trend, according to the latest National Association of College and University Business Officers survey. The average tuition discount was estimated to be nearly 50% for undergraduates for the year.
It's a common misconception that private institutions aren't accessible to certain groups, like low-income and first-generation students, experts say. In fact, some private colleges, like many Ivy League schools, meet students' full demonstrated need. The cost of tuition at Princeton University in New Jersey, for example, is covered for families who make $160,000 or less. Room and board may also be covered or discounted, depending on household income.
Read:
See the Average College Tuition in 2022-2023.

The National Association of College and University Business Officers survey shows that in 2021-2022, the share of first-time, full-time freshmen who received an institutional grant or scholarship from private nonprofit colleges was estimated to be 89.5%."

It's time for you to cut the crap and shove this **** up your ******.

You cite a big long article that is about private schools GENERALLY. And that has NOTHING to do with actual practice as it relates to recruited student athletes.

Put another way...you cannot...CANNOT...charge general NON-athlete students $70K per year for tuition...and then turn around and tell baseball players that they only need to pay $21K (which is 30% of the going rate, assuming that the kid gets a 30% grant-in-aid, which is a common percentage).

YOU CANNOT DO THAT. IT WOULD BE AN NCAA VIOLATION.

So stop telling this lie about how "private vs. public schools" is not an impediment to Miami's recruiting. IT IS.

And let's break this down further. There are many fine private institutions THAT HAVE FAR BIGGER ENDOWMENTS than what Miami has. So, for instance, let's just take VANDERBILT. Vandy has so much endowed money that they can afford to offer SCHOLARSHIP money to every admitted student BASED ON NEED. They don't just hand out full-rides to everyone, but if you get in, and you have need, the rest of the tuition will be paid for. AND WHILE MIAMI JUST RECENTLY WENT TO FULL-NEED-BASED-AID, it is not yet done via "scholarship money", the rest of your need at UM will be covered BY LOANS.

Now, let's analyze a couple of factors here. One factor is "reputational". A talented student (or even student-athlete) might NEVER GIVE CONSIDERATION to private schools that offer partial-tuition scholarships BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KNOW THE REST OF THE BILL WILL COST THEM A LOT. I have seen this in everyday interactions for over 35 years. When I was at UM and working with President's 100 (the students who host applicants and lead the tours of campus), we had to BEG a lot of prospective students NOT to write us off as expensive, telling these kids that there was all kinds of hidden money available at UM. ****, I assisted one of my best friends in law school with finding a GA position that allowed him to pay for his second and third years of law school, when he otherwise might have been forced to transfer to a cheaper university.

So if kids self-select out of considering UM...whether it is a personal choice or a parental choice...all the jawing about alternative ways of paying for UM doesn't make a **** bit of difference. Miami is expensive...everyone knows that...sports beside football and basketball ONLY offer partial scholarships...everyone knows that...so your ridiculously random (and highly vague) article on how the "sticker price" on private schools might not be the final bill at private schools....doesn't mean jack-****.

Which takes me to the second point...even former UM athletes...want their kids to get full-ride scholarships at UM...even if a parent CAN AFFORD to pay for part or all of the UM bill, THEY DON'T WANT TO IF THEY DON'T HAVE TO. So if even a former UM athlete knows the situation, I'm not sure how you feel so certain that we can convince recruits and/or their parents to take on over $100K in loans to pay for "the rest of the bill" at UM. I mean...I guess you can try...but you might not succeed....

So let's wrap this up by coming full circle. You like to sit here and tell us how our "recruiting ranking" is for baseball. And that's nice and all. But it has no bearing on whether we signed the recruits WE WANTED TO SIGN. If we miss out on 3 or 4 guys every year THAT WE WANT, who might come from less-well-off backgrounds...and we sign 3 or 4 guys every year who might come from wealthy families and were prep school studs....that doesn't mean we have the team that we wanted to have, regardless of how kids are ranked by the recruiting services.

The fact remains...it might be POSSIBLE that all those prep school kids are not as good as their rankings indicate...or that perhaps they got more attention in high school than the kids who went to loser public schools...or that they might not have the same motivation...or that they might not have the same resiliency...or whatever...we can sit here and speculate on a lot of reasons, but maybe, JUST MAYBE, there aren't enough independently-wealthy can't-miss baseball prospects from high school prep schools to fill the rosters of Vanderbilt AND Stanford AND Wake AND Boston College AND Miami...

At the end of the day, just as in football, just as in basketball...you can't simply roll out the recruiting rankings and assume that the W-L output will be the equivalent. Should we have high standards? Yes. But high expectations? That requires a bit more investigation.

The bottom line is that YES, Miami's high tuition AND the NCAA's use of equivalency scholarships HAS IMPACTED MIAMI for the past few decades. If you can't acknowledge that, it's on you. We can argue about HOW MUCH it has impacted Miami, but it absolutely has, and for quite some time.

And for the love of God, please stop making ridiculous posts designed to (falsely) convince people that Miami can charge whatever tuition amount it wants to charge, if only we just did it.

 

[WanderFranco]

The bottom line is that kids and their parents would take on the extra expense if we had a program worth spending money on. But we don't. So both of you are right. (1) Tuition scares some people off BECAUSE (2) we have mediocre coaching and a 2-seed-level program.

If we had a coaching staff that was developing kids and running through the boring ACC, winning regionals and Supers, and making regular CWS appearances, people would line up to play at Miami, cost be damned.

Look at it this way: Virginia Tech didn't have a single guy on their 2022 roster that we wanted. Not one kid on their roster was a Miami blue chipper who picked VT because of "tuition". But they still beat our *** twice.

In other words, there are baseball players all over the freaking place. And a whole lot of them have money. As long as we take the lazy approach of getting south Florida swag, we will have a team full of "talent" that can't really play baseball all that well. Some of us have said it on this very board for several years now. We don't get out there and grind to find baseball players.

 

[Ajcane8]

Using this week's top-25 doesn't really indicate the overall health/wealth of a program. BC just got swept and their record in conference is identical to ours. Everybody here knows about Vandy - good on them for prioritizing baseball the way they have under Corbin - but they are, pretty clearly, the outlier. Stanford who, like Vanderbilt, happens to have an endowment north of the GDP of most countries has also been really good lately with Esquer - coincidence? But neither Wake nor BC has been to Omaha this decade (or century, for that matter). They have 2 regional wins, combined, since 2016. Not exactly baseball powerhouses. Congratulations on a good half-season, but have they done enough to prove that Vandy isn't an outlier?

What about USC though? And Rice? And Tulane? Tradition-rich (private) baseball schools, lived in Omaha throughout the early 2000's, in fertile recruiting grounds, but have all become programs that struggle to make regionals. We are in a little bit better shape than those schools but are not where we were in the heyday. Did everyone just happen to hire dud after dud after dud to replace their legendary skippers? Maybe. But I tend to think there is a little more to the story.

 

[WanderFranco]

Did everyone just happen to hire dud after dud after dud to replace their legendary skippers? Maybe. But I tend to think there is a little more to the story.

The flip side of that question is: did families just realize Miami is expensive right when Morris shut things down and DiMare took over? Because Miami, not Vanderbilt, was the outlier when it came to private schools and baseball. What changed?

 

[Brains]

The tuition issue is a disadvantage, particularly recruiting against FU and Forfeit State, made even worse by Not-so-Bright Futures;
We don't cast a wide enough net in recruiting;
We underachieve with the talent we do have;
We also need to recruit better in the state of Florida as a whole;
We need to get more creative with NIL for baseball;
Coaching is a serious issue, where we never seem to be able to put together complete performances.

All these things can be true at once. There are a lot of "either/or" strawmen going on in this thread.

 

[Zombie-Cane]

The bottom line is that kids and their parents would take on the extra expense if we had a program worth spending money on. But we don't. So both of you are right. (1) Tuition scares some people off BECAUSE (2) we have mediocre coaching and a 2-seed-level program.

If we had a coaching staff that was developing kids and running through the boring ACC, winning regionals and Supers, and making regular CWS appearances, people would line up to play at Miami, cost be damned.

Look at it this way: Virginia Tech didn't have a single guy on their 2022 roster that we wanted. Not one kid on their roster was a Miami blue chipper who picked VT because of "tuition". But they still beat our *** twice.

In other words, there are baseball players all over the freaking place. And a whole lot of them have money. As long as we take the lazy approach of getting south Florida swag, we will have a team full of "talent" that can't really play baseball all that well. Some of us have said it on this very board for several years now. We don't get out there and grind to find baseball players.

I am not sure I understand your VT argument, as we played them again this year and went 3-0 to the tune of 37-18. So perhaps pick a different school to prove your point because that lost all steam you were trying to gain.

 

[Ajcane8]

The flip side of that question is: did families just realize Miami is expensive right when Morris shut things down and DiMare took over? Because Miami, not Vanderbilt, was the outlier when it came to private schools and baseball. What changed?

My quick answer - in general, 20+ years ago Miami was merely expensive, but at over (or close to) 100k/year it's cost prohibitive.

 

[WanderFranco]

I am not sure I understand your VT argument, as we played them again this year and went 3-0 to the tune of 37-18. So perhaps pick a different school to prove your point because that lost all steam you were trying to gain.

Because last year is the last full season of results we have to go on. You want something more recent? A public ACC school and private ACC school - take your pick depending on what you want to defend - made us look like an Atlantic Sun program this season.

Either way, we're a mid-level ACC program.

 

[WanderFranco]

My quick answer - in general, 20+ years ago Miami was merely expensive, but at over (or close to) 100k/year it's cost prohibitive.

Are baseball players poorer than regular students? Because we don't seem to have a shortage of applicants, thus making the University anything but "cost prohibitive".

 

[Zombie-Cane]

Because last year is the last full season of results we have to go on. You want something more recent? A public ACC school and private ACC school - take your pick depending on what you want to defend - made us look like an Atlantic Sun program this season.

Either way, we're a mid-level ACC program.

I agree with your overall premise, like I said, you could've/should've picked a different example as we just outscored them by 3 touchdowns a few weeks ago and they were the higher ranked team.

 

[WanderFranco]

I agree with your overall premise, like I said, you could've/should've picked a different example as we just outscored them by 3 touchdowns a few weeks ago and they were the higher ranked team.

They stink, and they took a series from us very recently. It absolutely gets to the point that "tuition" didn't send kids from CG to Blacksburg.

 

[CBurrr93]

We seem to locate kids who have no idea how to approach an at bat. Been a problem for a decade. We have guys who may test well at some showcase or have a cool launch angle. But we don’t get enough competitive at bats. If you watch baseball around the country, the approaches at the plate are night and day from what we throw out there. We look defensive when we should be offensive and vice versa. It’s really strange.

 

[WanderFranco]

We seem to locate kids who have no idea how to approach an at bat. Been a problem for a decade. We have guys who may test well at some showcase or have a cool launch angle. But we don’t get enough competitive at bats. If you watch baseball around the country, the approaches at the plate are night and day from what we throw out there. We look defensive when we should be offensive and vice versa. It’s really strange.

Yes, this is it for certain. Florida high school players have strayed into the Perfect Game showcase mentality. They wear all the cool protective gear, put their sunglasses on the back of their hats, take BP with home runs in mind. But when the guy on the bump is trying to get them out, we see what they really are.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Look at it this way: Virginia Tech didn't have a single guy on their 2022 roster that we wanted. Not one kid on their roster was a Miami blue chipper who picked VT because of "tuition". But they still beat our *** twice.

In other words, there are baseball players all over the freaking place. And a whole lot of them have money. As long as we take the lazy approach of getting south Florida swag, we will have a team full of "talent" that can't really play baseball all that well. Some of us have said it on this very board for several years now. We don't get out there and grind to find baseball players.

This is just an ignorant comment. Virginia Tech is a VIRGINIA state school. The benefit to choosing Virginia Tech over PRIVATE schools in Virginia is that the tuition at VaTech for VA residents is much lower.

As for Miami...we have to recruit kids who can go to UiF, F$U, UCF, USF, FIU, FAU, and FGCU, all of which involve a much smaller cost of attendance for Florida residents.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Using this week's top-25 doesn't really indicate the overall health/wealth of a program. BC just got swept and their record in conference is identical to ours. Everybody here knows about Vandy - good on them for prioritizing baseball the way they have under Corbin - but they are, pretty clearly, the outlier. Stanford who, like Vanderbilt, happens to have an endowment north of the GDP of most countries has also been really good lately with Esquer - coincidence? But neither Wake nor BC has been to Omaha this decade (or century, for that matter). They have 2 regional wins, combined, since 2016. Not exactly baseball powerhouses. Congratulations on a good half-season, but have they done enough to prove that Vandy isn't an outlier?

What about USC though? And Rice? And Tulane? Tradition-rich (private) baseball schools, lived in Omaha throughout the early 2000's, in fertile recruiting grounds, but have all become programs that struggle to make regionals. We are in a little bit better shape than those schools but are not where we were in the heyday. Did everyone just happen to hire dud after dud after dud to replace their legendary skippers? Maybe. But I tend to think there is a little more to the story.

******* nailed it. USC is one of the greatest comparatives you can cite (though Rice and Tulane have been good too).

USC is a private school in a massive city (biggest in the state) that ALSO have history with football (and even a moderate amount of basketball). At least it can be argued that baseball is all that Rice and Tulane actually have, but USC is the best possible comparative...

And WHAT has happened to USC? They are weathering the same kind of problems that Miami faces. Kids can just go to UCLA or Cal or any of the other AMAZING UC state schools for a lot less money than paying for USC tuition.

 

[Ajcane8]

Are baseball players poorer than regular students? Because we don't seem to have a shortage of applicants, thus making the University anything but "cost prohibitive".

Not sure. I have anecdotal evidence from my own experience that would tend to say yes, they are (at Miami, anyway), but I won't pretend to know the actual numbers. That said, you don't have to convince "regular students" to apply, at least in the way that you have to convince ~10 of the top ~500 baseball players in the country every year that it is worth their while to pay 100k/yr to play here vs. 15k/yr at Florida.

Convincing the 6th, 7th, 10th recruit in a class - you know, the guy who ends up being the 5th starter or 6th guy out of the pen, guys who may not be highly rated or expected to contribute early, but who are integral in providing enough depth to win games in May - those are the guys you have to beat Sully (or convince to not got to fiu/ucf/fgcu) for. But that's the same area where it becomes cost prohibitive (for most baseball players - ie the ones who are not independently wealthy and/or do not have an ultimate goal of pitching in Yankee Stadium) whether or not the amount of regular students who apply remains constant.

And, there is no reason to pretend that tuition cost is not the main reason that keeps otherwise qualified "regular students" from attending. Just ask the people on this website alone who have UF or UCF or... diplomas.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

The flip side of that question is: did families just realize Miami is expensive right when Morris shut things down and DiMare took over? Because Miami, not Vanderbilt, was the outlier when it came to private schools and baseball. What changed?

Give it a ******* rest. You are trying to make some sort of an argument that there was ONE POINT IN TIME where Miami became so much more expensive. Just stop it.

The reality is that every year that passes WIDENS the gap between private and public school tuitiions. And at a certain point, that differential EXCEEDS the amount that can be bridged with Pell Grants and other federal/state financial aid that is NOT loan-based.

When I started at UM, my undergrad tuition was $8,800 for the year (and I was on half-scholarship). My tuition at the University of Florida would have been approximately $2,000 for the year (depending on the number of credits I actually took, while Miami charges the same for 12-18 credits).

The gap has gotten a LOT wider since 1986.

 

[canesstevealum08]

Give it a ******* rest. You are trying to make some sort of an argument that there was ONE POINT IN TIME where Miami became so much more expensive. Just stop it.

The reality is that every year that passes WIDENS the gap between private and public school tuitiions. And at a certain point, that differential EXCEEDS the amount that can be bridged with Pell Grants and other federal/state financial aid that is NOT loan-based.

When I started at UM, my undergrad tuition was $8,800 for the year (and I was on half-scholarship). My tuition at the University of Florida would have been approximately $2,000 for the year (depending on the number of credits I actually took, while Miami charges the same for 12-18 credits).

The gap has gotten a LOT wider since 1986.

Think the USC comparison is a good one. One other thing to note is that the phrase "falling off" is relative. Our last appearance in Omaha comes in 2016 that's not that long ago even though we missed the post season in 2017 and 2018. Consider that in the last 20+ years mid majors in Florida have had a tremendous Baseball uprising thus spreading the talent out to other places. We owned postseason baseball down here for a very long time UF has caught us in terms of recruiting and popularity. There's also the new facility arms race in baseball that we're behind in as far as modern amenities at mark light (weight room not included)