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I know I am being kind of argumentitive here but that line that Gragg had saying/implying that the firms "spent" $200k and that the school should be paying those costs just got to me.
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I'll stop commandeering the conversation after this but one last thought:
When I was in school, like many of my friends, I had the good fortune of landing an intern gig at an architecture office. I was, unfortunately, rather ignorant about the expenses of running a company. When I found out what I was being billed at relative to what I was being paid, I was miffed. I mean, how could a company charge 3 or 4 times my hourly rate?!? It seemed abusive. So I asked questions. Most companies are more than happy to talk about how they make money and how they lose money--its in their best interest. After getting a little taste of how it works, I started to read other articles and books about business management and continued asking questions. Though there are a lot of direct ways a comany can spend money (salary, health care, rent, etc.) its a pretty simple to understand how it works: make enough money to pay the bills you have. If you make more than that, great, sock it away for a more difficult year and spread with the employees that helped generate it.
If there is one thing I am disappointed in my architectural education, it was the lack of business preparation--particularly since the schooling I had was so focussed on design and the assumption that after getting out of school we all could simply join the profession, open up shop, and make buildings. It is an uncommon set of cirmumstances that would allow that to happen (combination of money, luck, knowledge, and jobs to do).
However, I'm still a little confused with the idea that the school wouldn't pay the losing firms fees. Why wouldn't they? Whether the school chooses their scheme is immaterial. It would be like going to three different doctors, getting three different opinions, and having three sets of diagnostic tests done. Then, as the patient, taking one doctor's prognosis and not paying for the others.