Doing some HW on USC

[datguy2004]

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Hey everyone, I was just thinking about how expensive USC is and decided to do some homework....Im not shooting down SC, I have been accepted there but not sure yet if I am going to go. So take it with a grain on salt.

Tuition for USC/year avg $67,000.....and there are four classes (D1, D2, D3, D4). 67,000 x 4 = 268,000. There are 140 students per class, that comes out to 268,000 x 140 = $37,520,000 per year from all their dental students!!!!

$37.5M per year, that is NOT including international students, and specialty programs, and the income they receive from the clinics, money from the state, and private donors!!!!

The funny thing is there are no lectures, and no REAL professors just only administrators for each PBL. Where is all this money going to...We're prob talking about much more than $50 million all together! Is it going to the administration? They dean must get a good paycheck. Is it going to reseach? It doesnt take 50 million to fund labs....No, they get grants from other sources like NIH/Federal/State/Private funding. Are they burning it during the annual bond fire? Are they making new buildings....not really....the dental building is rather old, just looks nice inside b/c of upgrades.......Does it really take $50++ to run a dental school?

Please explain.

 

[DREDAY]

good point. i wander the same.

 

[Sprgrover]

It's crossed my mind as well, and unfortunately I dont' have a snappy answer...sorry 🙁

 

[fouyboy]

Only the people on top and in charge know the real answer.

Im guessing laundry (or extra bonuses the beginning of every semester), and....i'm not talking about dirty clothes 😀. sadly, im not sure whether i'm joking or not.

High tuition is also seen at other public schools since tuition itself has about doubled in the last four years, so the cost of dental schools are pretty comparable amoung private and public schools. The more i think about it, i'm starting to realize dental programs are both acedemic instutions AND corporations.

Lets rally for no more bonuses and reduced tuition cost! There goes my inner Berkeley tendencies.

Good luck all!

It's crossed my mind as well, and unfortunately I dont' have a snappy answer...sorry 🙁

 

[crazy_sherm]

Having the #1 football team requires a lot of money. Imagine all the Escalades and Navigators they had to buy all the athlete's "uncles" in order to recruit them.

 

[DB#1]

Not only that...!!!
They have the highest secondary application fees, $65 for Domestic, and $145 for Canadians and International applicants.
Say 2,000 applicants submitted fees this year
400 international applicants is $58,000
1600 Domestic applicants is $72,000
Together application fees collected are $130,000 (probably enogh to pay all of their staff including the dean 😀 ). And they don't even have a formal interview "because it will cost too much"???
Give me a break, or my money back with interests. Is this a multinational corporation or a Dental School? 👎
Definatly not going there 👎

 

[delicious]

$37.5M per year, that is NOT including international students, and specialty programs, and the income they receive from the clinics, money from the state, and private donors!!!!

I don't think the income schools receive from their clinics is really that much. Remember, patients usually pay less because they have not-so-experienced dental students working on them. I wouldn't be surprised if the clinics lost money.

To be fair, $37.5M really isn't really that much money. Think about all the administrators, support staff, building/equipment costs. Some of these schools are probably even in debt - in fact, i'm sure of it, and they have to pay interest.

As for the teaching staff. I don't know USC. But I hear that tutorial groups are like 20-30 people, so you have 6-9 staff for each tutorial class. That's 5-8 more people than if you just had a single lecturer. Even though these tutorial leaders may not be directly teaching the students, I'm sure they're experts in some area and deservedly get compensated.

 

[delicious]

Yes, I've thought about it, and I have decided that it is more expensive for a school to do problem-based learning.

Ok, I don't know USC - so maybe someone can chime in. From my experience at other schools, these tutorial "administrators" are often dentists, PhD candidates, researchers, and the like. They're not just people passing out papers. They participate in the pbl by guiding the conversation, etc.

 

[jonnytight]

Let me know what you think...lets say 1/2 goes towards the admins and maintanance costs (which im over exaggerating)...that leaves about 20 million for the pbl coordinators (PhDs, DDSs, Profs, whateva).....

class of 140/(20 people per group) = 7 groups.

7groups * 9coordinators per group = 63 coordinators total

20million/63 coordinators = ~$320,000k. I dont think the pbl coordinators are getting that much per year....it still doesnt add up...and i think its it going towards other means. and im not not gonna saw what i think b/c of high ranking people that might be reading this.

I don't think the income schools receive from their clinics is really that much. Remember, patients usually pay less because they have not-so-experienced dental students working on them. I wouldn't be surprised if the clinics lost money.

To be fair, $37.5M really isn't really that much money. Think about all the administrators, support staff, building/equipment costs. Some of these schools are probably even in debt - in fact, i'm sure of it, and they have to pay interest.

As for the teaching staff. I don't know USC. But I hear that tutorial groups are like 20-30 people, so you have 6-9 staff for each tutorial class. That's 5-8 more people than if you just had a single lecturer. Even though these tutorial leaders may not be directly teaching the students, I'm sure they're experts in some area and deservedly get compensated.

 

[fouyboy]

You forgot to divide by 4 for each dental class. According to your calculations, that would be 80,000 per coordinator. Which reasonable, BUT:

My quesiton is, are there 9 coordinators per group? sounds really high?

ANYWAYS, something is up, but maybe i should stop procrastinating by trying to trace our money.

Let me know what you think...lets say 1/2 goes towards the admins and maintanance costs (which im over exaggerating)...that leaves about 20 million for the pbl coordinators (PhDs, DDSs, Profs, whateva).....

class of 140/(20 people per group) = 7 groups.

7groups * 9coordinators per group = 63 coordinators total

20million/63 coordinators = ~$320,000k. I dont think the pbl coordinators are getting that much per year....it still doesnt add up...and i think its it going towards other means. and im not not gonna saw what i think b/c of high ranking people that might be reading this.

 

[jonnytight]

Yes, you are correct about the dividing by 4....but when we were at the USC pbl session....there is only 1 faculty during the session......so it still doesnt add up and i dont think it ever will!!

You forgot to divide by 4 for each dental class. According to your calculations, that would be 80,000 per coordinator. Which reasonable, BUT:

My quesiton is, are there 9 coordinators per group? sounds really high?

ANYWAYS, something is up, but maybe i should stop procrastinating by trying to trace our money.

 

[delicious]

Yeah, I meant one tutorial leader per group and there's like 20-30 students in a group. So, there's a bunch of tutorial leaders for a class of 140. Like, say a group is 20, then there'll be 7.

I want to say that you can't just do some simple math to try and figure this out. There are levels of complexity with this that you probably couldn't even begin to imagine. The fact is: USC is expensive, but there's a whole bunch of other schools that are in the range of say $5000 below. USC isn't a total freak, and i wouldn't chalk it up to mismanagement or some Mr. USC stealing all the money.