My fat governor hates climbing!

rgold wrote:In the competition for students, colleges increasingly have to invest in things that will attract students and parents, and those things often have nothing to do with education, knowledge, curriculum, or anything recognizable as vocational or intellectual competence.

This week's NY Times Magazine has a long article that expands on this point (and they mention climbing walls). See nyti.ms/1M7WDRU. Here's a excerpt.

[start quote]

But probably the single most important factor behind the rise in tuition [at top-tier schools] is one that few other businesses share: Students are not just customers; they are also an integral part of the core product. When considering a school, potential students and their parents often look first at the characteristics of past classes: test scores, grade-­point averages, post-­college earnings... The higher the prices that schools charge, the more options they have in recruiting exactly the students they want... A school that charges $50,000 is able to offer a huge range of inducements to different sorts of students: some could pay $10,000, others $30,000 or $40,000. And a handful can pay the full price...

If an elite school like Harvard or Princeton insisted on admitting only students willing to pay the full freight, they would soon find they weren’t so elite. Many of the best teachers would rather go elsewhere than stay in a gated, rich community. The most accomplished rich kids could be lured away to other schools by the prospect of studying with the best students and teachers. So, a school with the same high sticker price for everyone would be unlikely to have the attributes — high test scores, Nobel Prize­-winning faculty, a lively culture — that draw national or international attention...

[At selective schools] there is more competition to attract the students who are most appealing: those with high G.P.A.s and test scores, high likelihood of graduating, the right sort of major — English majors, for example, effectively subsidize engineering students because engineering is more expensive to teach. Typically, fierce market competition leads to lower prices, but among elite schools, the opposite occurs, paradoxically. They often find that raising prices enables them to offer greater benefits to the most coveted potential students. (It also allows them to take part in the amenities race: nicer dorms, better food, a climbing wall: things that are regarded as essential to attracting those coveted students.)

[end quote]

If there is room, economically speaking, for a climbing gym near a university, one will likely spring up. It's why college towns seem to have lots of good bars and restaurants; there's a demand. The university needn't provide optional extra-curricular or recreational activities at the cost of every student. If the students want it, the local market will provide it, and only at the cost of those willing to pay for such things.

The argument could be made that a student cannot afford the costs of these activities right now, and would prefer to pay for them at the time they pay off student loans. But that's just kicking the can down the road, and I'd argue that perhaps they could be spending that recreational time, or some of it, studying. But it's not my money, so I guess it doesn't matter.

I think Christie's point is pretty simple: the student body shouldn't have to pay for facilities the majority aren't using and don't need. Education is already ridiculously expensive and offering these things to kids at a cost that they'll pay later is like asking them to choose any new car they want, and telling them they can start paying for it in 4 years. How many of them are mature enough to make the financially sound decision?

I thought conservatives love a free market? If you don’t like how the school spends money ,don’t go there. Or run for the student governing board.

Or am I missing some random principle where wall street firms and healthcare companies, which are FAR more subsidized by public dollars, deserve an open market and universities must be held under tight control.

I don’t necessarily oppose the idea of making schools more affordable and cutting on waste, but this guy is a hypocrite. How many box seats does the oil and gas industry buy every to NFL games thanks to tax subsidies? Wake up fatty!

I think comments about Christie's weight are cheap shots. Typical "attack the messenger" rhetoric.

Christe's a douche for sure but there is some merit in his argument. My university built a massive, incredibly nice (expensive) rec. center right before I started there. It had a "showpiece" climbing wall that was only open when the staff belayers were around. Had the faux rock look and was worthless for actually training. I was charged a mandatory fee of hundreds of dollars per semester for use of the rec. center and I almost never went there.

When I was in school, students voted on student fee increases to pay for additions to the Rec center. So, when they added a climbing wall, swimming pool, larger free weight areas, etc, it was because the majority of the student body decided that they (or more likely their parents) were ok with higher fees to pay for it.

Also, a university is in many ways a business like anything else. They are looking for ways to attract students, and facilities are a major way to do that. So if adding a climbing wall can bring in more students, hopefully then they can start using that surplus of money on more academic pursuits.

I think it's pretty common for conservative politicians to jump on the "cut spending at all costs" bandwagon, and that's likely all that's happening here. Chris Christie doesn't care that many smaller schools that don't have 100 year reputations need things like rec centers to attract students, he just wants to show his supporters that he is trying to cut taxes (by blaming a bunch of broke college kids who just want to work out a little between classes).

Tim Lutz wrote: LMAO!

This was awesome... thnx!

I went to Bates and in my time there (00-04) they went and took gravel from the side of the building and glued it on the wall along the inside of the track building and that was the climbing wall.

Jake Jones wrote:Who pays for football stadiums?

The people via taxes usually.

gription wrote: The people via taxes usually.

Used to be taxes would pay for some of the bill for college. Now tuition costs pay for it all as states don't have it in the budget. Don't forget alumni checks and renaming the stadium bring in some coin.

That fat guy you gents talk about just wants to cut the waste. Wasting money on dumb shit is one of the reasons tuition costs are so high. Those evil corps do it to cut operating costs but OH NO don't cut my climbing wall fat boy!

JSH wrote:Christie is just another troll under a bridge, making a fuss over a climbing gym to distract you from .... well, there's that bridge.

CLASSIC BURN

I am a graduate student. The University I attend charges a separate fee for recreation. As a grad student I am exempt from that fee. However, when I am on campus I regularly use the rec facilities including the climbing wall and pay to do so. As popular as the rec center is, I seriously doubt any students would consider griping about the rec fee.

Another issue. Republicans should be for small government and minimal government intervention. I guess he wants government to regulate student rec facilities at universities?

The students can pay to go to the climbing gym up the street, or the one on campus... As a father, I would like for my kids to go across the street to the rec center than across town.

I don't know if I added anything to the conversation, but thanks for letting me rant... Regardless, I'm sick of rich guys and lawyers telling me (us) how to live my life.

So this is a question of transparency and paying for things you don't utilize....WHAT ABOUT MY TAXES? I'd love to be able to pick and choose where every fraction of every cent goes, and keep the money from the shit I don't utilize!

David-Gman wrote:... Regardless, I'm sick of rich guys and lawyers telling me (us) how to live my life.

Have you considered Libertarianism?

Embarrassed to say wrote:So this is a question of transparency and paying for things you don't utilize....WHAT ABOUT MY TAXES? I'd love to be able to pick and choose where every fraction of every cent goes, and keep the money from the shit I don't utilize!

But you do utilize stuff, even the stuff youre unaware of. Lets say you dont have kids. Why should you pay for school taxes, you say? Well, a better educated society is better for everyone, not just those getting the education, but for those who will employ them in the future as well. So if you own a business, and you want to hire smart people, but you never paid into the education system that helped create those smart candidates, you would then be a pariah.

Well, that certainly isn't bad logic BUT you could also make the reverse statement that by helping fund athletic centers on universities (including climbing walls) you're helping to pay for a physically fit society, thereby reducing health care costs....RIGHT?

But I'm not saying I wouldn't fund education and schools...I'm sure we could all micro-analyze our share of taxes and find things we truly do not utilize, no matter how far you stretch it.

Embarrassed to say wrote:Well, that certainly isn't bad logic BUT you could also make the reverse statement that by helping fund athletic centers on universities (including climbing walls) you're helping to pay for a physically fit society, thereby reducing health care costs....RIGHT? But I'm not saying I wouldn't fund education and schools...I'm sure we could all micro-analyze our share of taxes and find things we truly do not utilize, no matter how far you stretch it.

Yes! I dont know if you were trying to get me to eat crow, but I agree with the above. Its like a car. Routine maintenance and upkeep is cheaper than fixing things when they fall apart. The human body is not much different. So the small cost of the gym has huge benefits that surely outweigh that cost.

And just remember, while we bitch about this stuff, they are pulling the wool over our eyes. The U.S. spends more on corporate welfare than it does on social welfare!!

thinkbynumbers.org/governme…

Even Forbes, which is pretty pro-business, asks where is the outrage? forbes.com/sites/taxanalyst…

I doubt that Chris Christie cares to look at the issue more deeply than climbing walls. But if he, is truly concerned about the cost of college, he should look at how many levels of college administrators have been added over the years. The place where I teach has discovered the joys of micromanagement and levels of administrators, going from 6 to at least 12 in the past 15 years with only a slight increase in enrollment. What do all these administrators do? Come up with clever ideas like creating forms with more required signatures or creating traffic jams as forms of control.

The topic is misleading. He's against college rock climbing walls.

“You have rocks right out there. What the hell do you need a rock climbing wall for? Tell the kids at UNH, ‘Go outside and climb those rocks.’”

This is the only policy of this authoritarian douchebag RINO I can agree with!

Schools are chopping sports like swimming, diving, wrestling, gymnastics in order to avoid cuts to football. But a little climbing wall is cramping the budget?

Jim Turner wrote:Schools are chopping sports like swimming, diving, wrestling, gymnastics in order to avoid cuts to football. But a little climbing wall is cramping the budget?

How much do those "little climbing walls" cost? I suspect in the tens of thousands of dollars.