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http://dukecheck.com/

New York University — which is opening a new undergraduate and graduate campus in Shanghai this fall — has finally revealed the cost of attending:

The Chinese government is limiting tuition and fees that can be charged to citizens of the mainland to 100,000 Chinese Renminbi or $16,334.53 at the current exchange. For international students, the cost will be the same as studying at NYU in New York City, or more than three times as much.

The NYU Shanghai tuition schedule will be, by far, the highest ever approved by the government. Most Chinese universities charge top out at around $1,600 a year.

These numbers are very important for Duke Kunshan University, where financial projections require tuition and fees of $41,000 a year for undergraduate work and the MBA degree, and $46,200 for the much smaller Masters in Global Health program which will embrace perhaps 20 students. (Those tuition figures are two years old; for all we know they have changed.).

Without this tuition income, the deficit — which already tops $100 million in the initial years in some projections — will soar. Duke University’s share of this is over $50 million, with the city of Kunshan obligated to pick up a shade less.

We’ve tried and tried to nail administrators at Duke on how this will fall together — or apart — but there has been only silence.

In the Academic Council in April, 2012, Peter the Provost was subjected to close questioning. Asked whether the Chinese have ever approved tuition on the level that Duke wants to charge, PTP responded that they have for an executive MBA program run jointly by the giant HSBC bank and Beijing University.

Wrong, Peter. Just plain wrong. The MBA program’s website says the tuition is 30,000 yuan, meaning, $4900.37 at the current exchange rate.

Two years ago, the Allen Building crowd morphed DKU and began talking about an international student body at DKU — which originally was designed to educate Chinese. We reported at the time the impetus for this: to charge a higher tuition for students not from the mainland. The government must approve the higher amount, just as it will set the tuition for its own citizens.

NYU says it still cannot estimate the cost of housing, but is suggesting students count on $1,000 per semester. The small type on the webpage says the Trustees of NYU can change this at any time without notice.

Food will add another $1300 per semester.

NYU shanghaiThe national government is paying for the start up and construction of NYU – Shanghai , prompting its president, Yu Lizhong, to say, ‘We reduce the tuition for mainland students because it is a government backed university.”

The university has also announced plans for a foundation that will help Chinese students with the $16,000 cost of tuition, which, given the Chinese economy, is a staggering burden. Duke has been most vague about how it will avoid a socio-economic disaster in Kunshan, with only the politically connected and the rich able to afford its rates. With no endowment, there will be no need-blind admissions as in Durham, which is interesting, since this is a core value of Duke which we are not exporting.

Yu Lizhong made one other revelation: students at NYU Shanghai will be exempt from taking the mandated courses in ideology that every other college student takes in China. There has been no public discussion of this point for DKU: are we exempt too?

Yu Lizhong that students will be required, however, to study “China’s social evolution and Chinese culture in global perspective.” Hmmmm

While courses will be taught in English, everyone will be required to become fluent in Mandarin. That’s another point that hasn’t been discussed in Durham.

Students will get two degrees: from NYU New York and from NYU Shanghai. At DKU, the plan is to issue diplomas just like the ones in Durham — although we’re betting the Christian cross gets knocked out along with the motto “Eruditio et Religio.”

Shen Xiaoming, vice mayor of Shanghai, says NYU Shanghai will serve as a new model for higher education in China. Wait a minute: Uncle Dick has justified DKU because that’s its role!

Goombah just checked in. He’s the consigliere ot DukeCheck. His thought: “what a train wreck.”