Summer terms at public universities - how do they work?
July 20, 2018 11:18 PM   Subscribe

I am faculty at a U.S. public university and I want to better understand how summer term works as a cash cow for the university. It feels a little scammy.

Every public university that I've been at treats summer term like a cash cow. But how are they making this money?

Things I understand:
- Summer term is not support by tax dollars
- Summer term is (usually) operated by a campus entity separate from the registrar's office
- Summer tuition rates are higher than the academic year rates
- Many forms of federal aid are not able to be used for summer term
- Pretty much anyone can enroll in a summer term class - enrolled students, non-enrolled students, and (everywhere that I've been faculty at) this includes those that do not meet the academic year SAT, TOEFL, etc. standards
- Instructors (who are typically on 9 month contracts and summer teaching is an entirely different contract) are paid differently for summer (this varies by institution, sometimes it is a flat rate, sometimes it is a percent of the academic year salary) and sometimes benefits are not included
- At every university I've been part of, summer classes were severely under-enrolled and far more classes were offered than could fill
- Some of the services that students would have access to during the academic year are limited or not available in the summer (writing center, academic advising)
- I do not know what the "cut" that the departments get is for summer. I know that with other non-tax-dollar stuff like professional MA programs or online classes, the department and the college and the university come to an agreement about profit sharing. I suppose summer works the same

Don't get me wrong, I financially depend on summer teaching. But there is something scammy about it to me and I'd like to better understand how the university is making money here.
posted by anonymous to Education (20 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
At every university I've been part of, summer classes were severely under-enrolled and far more classes were offered than could fill

I think many public universities, along with private institutions, use summer terms as a lowish-stakes way to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. It's an opportunity to see what course may be interesting to the community for continuing education and professional development, not just the typical degree-seeking student.

I do not know what the "cut" that the departments get is for summer. I know that with other non-tax-dollar stuff like professional MA programs or online classes, the department and the college and the university come to an agreement about profit sharing. I suppose summer works the same

Summer works the same at some institutions but not others. Some offer summer courses entirely through a school or department of continuing education, involving no other school or academic department.
posted by dayintoday at 3:33 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’m not sure what you mean by point 1, and I don’t think point 2-5 are generally true, based on my experience at a handful of large state universities over the past 20 years.

I think they use even higher ratios of adjuncts to real faculty in summer; that’s one way they can make a little more money. I also think faculty often earn less. They take t because most of them are spreading 9 month’s pay over 12, and keeping insurance throughout, so it feels like extra money and do they tolerate lower wages. Also people hustling for extra cash can’t always be picky.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:18 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


I don’t think point 2-5 are generally true, based on my experience at a handful of large state universities over the past 20 years.

2-5 were the case at the large state universities I attended (one a place that could attract visiting students in the summer "for the experience", the other where visiting summer students were rarer and tended to be students who'd grown up in the area back for the summer).

There was some office that ran summer classes. At the end of the day, it resulted in the same transcripts and whatnot, but the process for visiting students in the summer was different than during the academic year. (It varied whether "regular" students registered through this office or the usual system.)

Tuition is, in effect, higher because summer classes are paid per unit, but the per unit cost of full-time tuition works out to be lower. (I just checked and the per unit rate is different in summer--there's no in-state/out-of-state distinction at either, but the first university does charge visiting students more.)

I never took summer classes, so I don't know much about the financial aid situation, but I do know summer Pell grants only became a thing in the last year or two. I had a substantial scholarship in undergrad that I do not believe made funds available for summer.

Point five was not the case inasmuch as I don't think full-time faculty ever taught in summer (but probably could if they were so inclined), rather grad students were paid a flat rate (but that rate varied by department, or possibly administrative unit).
posted by hoyland at 5:28 AM on July 21, 2018


grad students
FWIW, I taught summer classes as an _undergrad_ TA, and worked under regular assistant prof faculty. But dang in hindsight the university was making tons of money off me! I was also able to use scholarship money in the summer too. I suspect even more undergrads are used to teach now, where possible, because the payoff is so high.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:46 AM on July 21, 2018


The physical campus needs to be maintained over the summer regardless, and having students on it keeps the space from being wasted.
posted by metasarah at 6:06 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


I work at a public state university and none of what you've said applies where I work. Our tuition rates are the same all year, if a class doesn't have high enough enrollment it's canceled, why wouldn't registration go through the Registrar? All of that seems strange to me.
posted by poppunkcat at 6:38 AM on July 21, 2018 [12 favorites]


(last comment)
It's going to be tough to get anything more than hearsay and anecdote on this. Every one of these institutions has different organization and different funding models.

For more established anecdotes, check out the archives of the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
-Here's a piece on putting high school kids into college spaces in the summer.
-Here's a piece about lower summer salaries for professors.
There's lots more relevant stuff if you search through their archives.

One thing that may be adding to the confusion here: summer is a time that many cash-cow-ish programs are run, but that doesn't mean that Universities are generally more profitable in the summer.

The only people who can really answer this for your institution are your own deans or provosts. A dept. chair or head may be able to tell you how summer terms affect their own local finances, but that doesn't mean much about the university as a whole.

In principle you can look up public records for your public institution, though it may not have enough resolution or detail to get at what you're interested in.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:53 AM on July 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


At the schools I have been to, summer is treated like any other term for the students. For the faculty, I don't know.
posted by maurreen at 6:58 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


My state University was very different than what you describe. It was essentially no different than fall/spring classes, other than there were fewer offerings and some facilities were closed. It was actually a little cheaper, though you could take fewer classes unless you got special permission (that wasn't that hard to get).

The cash cow was the continuing education and high school groups/kids' camps that would use the facilities that would otherwise sit empty.
posted by Candleman at 7:10 AM on July 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


What is your question and what don’t you understand?

I have never heard of a university getting the full sticker price of tuition.. Its costs are the adjunct salaries, each of which is probably about the cost of a SINGLE student’s summer tuition for the class. And the fixed costs of the university are already paid for during the year.

I guess the “scam,” if you want to call it that, is that the school is effectively selling its reputation to attract summer students without actually providing the value that gives the university its reputation: students are taught by adjuncts who don’t teach during the academic year. The students don’t receive an actual degree wffom the university because they’re not in a degree program, and they’re not studying alongside regular students who have a reputation of academic achievement that granted their admission. And yet the student gets to say, “I took these classes at [famous state university]“ when the student could have gotten the equivalent credits from a regional state university or a community college.
posted by deanc at 7:41 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


As a regular student, in my experience summer terms had the following groups:
1. Local students. I had a different scholarship than my regular scholarship for the summer, so I guess I could in theory have had to pay when otherwise I wouldn't.
2. The football team. They're in town anyway, and this reduces their courseload during the fall.
3. International students, who aren't going to fly all the way home. These are the guys who pay sticker price all the time.

Dorms and the like aren't occupied, so yeah any sort of summer camp or anything gets those buildings to make some money back.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:43 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


The only reason the institution where I work is able to not lose money on summer school is by admitting transient students, who are mostly students at the big research universities in the state who are home for the summer and looking to take transferable gen ed courses at an "easy" school. They are often disappointed to find out that our classes are not easier, but they are cheaper and our class sizes significantly smaller than at the fancier schools.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:56 AM on July 21, 2018


I think they use even higher ratios of adjuncts to real faculty in summer; that’s one way they can make a little more money.

I'm an adjunct at a State University over summer term and it works well for me. Summer classes are accelerated and they pay the same as regular classes so there is more work in a shorter time for the same pay. A lot of the people in these classes (where I teach, University of Hawaii) are faculty/staff/working professionals so there is a different and interesting mix of people and classes are somewhat smaller. I don't know the economics of the situation at all but I know that this lets full time faculty do research, go on sabbatical or other stuff while there are still classes and the U can sample and try out class topics that they might not want to devote a whole semester to.
posted by jessamyn at 8:35 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm an academic advisor at a state university. All the academic advisors at my institution are 12 month employees, and are actually quite busy during parts of the summer working with different orientations of incoming students, so all our students have access to advising year-round.

Our campus is large, and air-conditioned all summer and administration is always looking for ways to keep the building filled - college classes, conferences, tons of summer camps for high school students.

Admission and enrollment standards here are the same year-round, so nothing is being waived for low scoring students to enroll.

My understanding about summer tuition for our campus is that more of the tuition comes back to the department than during a fall/spring semester. So if we can offer classes, and pay for an instructor (or have a tenured prof teach in exchange for teaching release during fall or spring) and meet a certain minimum of students, we get more money funneled back to us.

It's not scammy, just a different funding deal. And as an advisor, summer classes can be a very useful tool for my students who are behind, or who have failed required classes, so I'm happy they are an option.
posted by Squeak Attack at 8:49 AM on July 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


Colleges are budgeted such that 9 months of tuition, grant and contract overhead and (if public) state aid covers, 12 months of expenses, including faculty benefits and infrastructure. This makes summer tuition icing on the cake, as it only has to cover marginal costs (mostly faculty incremental pay, given benefits are covered).
posted by MattD at 9:42 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ditto if everything Squeak Attack says. I don’t think summer classes are particularly scammy, and they can be really helpful to some students.

What is true is that a lot of colleges rent space to independent programs during the summer, and students sometimes think those programs are affiliated with the university where they’re hosted. They also often have summer camp things for high-school students, who sometimes believe that participating in such a thing will give them an advantage in admissions. It won’t. Those things are mostly just cash cows for the institution, plus maybe a little bit of marketing for college admissions.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:29 PM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


I am currently taking Summer classes a a public University. All Summer classes at my school are online only.

First semester Summer is on 2017-2018 Financial Aid, Summer semester 2 is paid for by 2018-2019 Financial Aid. The whole Summer term is 2 months, rather than 3 months for a regular term.
posted by irisclara at 3:51 PM on July 21, 2018


I would also guess that many public institutions (and some private ones) are making some changes to the classes they offer during the summers as we face continued pressure to increase graduation rates and reduce time-to-degree. In other words, I expect that many of us are having to get more serious about offering courses that many students need or should be taking during the summer and encouraging more students to take courses during the summer instead like the fall and spring semesters instead of treating summer like its own unique semester with a different population of students.
posted by ElKevbo at 7:13 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


In other words, I expect that many of us are having to get more serious about offering courses that many students need or should be taking during the summer and encouraging more students to take courses during the summer instead like the fall and spring semesters instead of treating summer like its own unique semester with a different population of students.

Shortly before I finished grad school, the university president announced an ambition to switch to a "year round" schedule, offering a full-fledged summer semester. It seemed obvious that his objectives were to a) take in three full semesters' worth of tuition a year and b) instantly reduce the six year graduation rate US News cares about (until they realise they should be counting by term, not year anyway). I don't recall him having any particular argument for why this was a good idea. The faculty were not amused (and, in some subjects, taking classes in summer would interfere with the traditional paths to success). I never found out what became of that plan.
posted by hoyland at 8:30 AM on July 22, 2018


I took a summer class after the end of my fourth year of college so I could finish my degree. It was a "distribution requirement" class -- European History, 1830-Present, if I remember correctly -- and it wasn't 100% undergrads. It met three hours at a whack, several times per week, and we packed in a semester's worth of material. Honestly, it was a lot to cover in that short a span of time, and I felt like I got my money's worth (which was a lot of money at the time, maybe eight or nine hundred bucks in 1994).

I now work at a smaller university in New England, and our summer classes can either be a full summer term (8 weeks), or one of the two shorter terms (4 weeks each); I am not sure how the offerings break down across these terms, though, in terms of rigor or recruiting. Our undergraduate programs are about to switch from trimesters (10 weeks) to semesters (15 weeks), so an 8-week summer term is not that much less than a trimester during the regular school year.

In either case, my anecdata says: "not a scam."
posted by wenestvedt at 7:43 AM on July 23, 2018


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