This is a great point, especially about "unbundling" all the fees and accessories (including requirements that students live in expensive dorms). Too often, those are just used to fund more staff positions or activism by certain organizations. Students should have a right to refuse those and focus solely on their education. Very often though the people advocating for these higher fees are the activist students who benefit from them as well as the staffers whose salaries are funded in part by them.
That said, many students are beginning to rightly suspect that extracurriculars play a larger role than many of their classes in helping their resume and gaining career-applicable experience. So it's important that those be offered, but in a reasonable way.
There's also a lot of financial incentives for universities to offer that "White Lotus" style as more full-pay students can, they argue, help subsidize lower-income students on financial aid. I'm not sure how the math breaks down on that in practice though.
Finally, one other idea: encourage more 3-year degree tracks, especially through the use of summer courses or the ability for students to knock out certain required classes online.
This is a great point, especially about "unbundling" all the fees and accessories (including requirements that students live in expensive dorms). Too often, those are just used to fund more staff positions or activism by certain organizations. Students should have a right to refuse those and focus solely on their education. Very often though the people advocating for these higher fees are the activist students who benefit from them as well as the staffers whose salaries are funded in part by them.
That said, many students are beginning to rightly suspect that extracurriculars play a larger role than many of their classes in helping their resume and gaining career-applicable experience. So it's important that those be offered, but in a reasonable way.
There's also a lot of financial incentives for universities to offer that "White Lotus" style as more full-pay students can, they argue, help subsidize lower-income students on financial aid. I'm not sure how the math breaks down on that in practice though.
Finally, one other idea: encourage more 3-year degree tracks, especially through the use of summer courses or the ability for students to knock out certain required classes online.