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Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

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Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#301

Post by darkerside »

noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

The linked blog makes total sense to me, and frankly, I'm astounded that the false dilemma presented in the parent is the top voted comment.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#302

Post by rlanday »

I don’t understand this argument here:

> Up until 1993, the federal government merely guaranteed/backed student loans that private lenders gave. This meant that only in the case of someone defaulting on their loan would the government be on the hook, stepping in and paying the college what’s owed.

> This amendment completely overhauled that system, making it so that for the vast majority of student loans, the federal government directly made the loans to students. More specifically, the federal government pays the universities/colleges up front, and the student then owes the government that money.

What’s the difference between the federal government directly making a loan and a private lender making a loan and immediately pawning off all the risk on the federal government? Either way the lender does not care if the borrower will be able to pay it back. It sounds like the problem predates the Student Loan Reform Act of 1993.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#303

Post by darkerside »

wwarner wrote: post #261

I'll grant that some people overpay for some types of education because of loans that shouldn't be available. But it could be simpler still. Contrary to the typical contrarian viewpoint, a college education costs a lot because it is very valuable. American schools are filled with excellent foreign students that pay the premium rate, and receive no state support. Why? Because it's a great value. Technology has created…

How much of that value is entry into the world's most powerful country?

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#304

Post by secabeen »

throwawaygh wrote: post #38
apsec112 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuts in state funding don't explain the rapid tuition increases at private universities.

I know first-hand that this is not how pricing decisions work at regional private colleges/universities. The process regional private colleges go through is as follows: 1. List a set of "peer institutions", usually with the primary input coming from admissions. Here, "peer" means "competes for the same set of students we're after". Almost always the region's public colleges and universities will be on this list. 2. S…

Yes, this is a great summary, and exactly what is going on.

Interestingly, it hasn't seemed to have much change on the spending side. Colleges are charging more to the median student, but are using a lot of it to subsidize less well-off students. It's not showing up in huge increases in faculty salaries, or administrative costs.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#305

Post by scorecard »

It is not the case that free universities are necessarily 2nd tier. QS World Univerity rankings puts ETH Zurich, a free university, as #6 overall. Times Higher Education world ranking lists ETH Zurich as #13 overall.

The other Swiss flagship university, EPFL, which is also free, is ranked #14 overall in the QS world ranking.

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-un...

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#306

Post by dpc_pw »

Lending with interest (Usury) creates systemic instability, in a similar way that Dollar Auction scheme does. There's no way to have stable financial system in the presence of wide-spread usury. This fact has been known to ancient cultures, which routinely banned usury or counter-acted by having an universal debt-jubilees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_jubilee

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#307

Post by tropdrop »

scorecard wrote: post #305

It is not the case that free universities are necessarily 2nd tier. QS World Univerity rankings puts ETH Zurich, a free university, as #6 overall. Times Higher Education world ranking lists ETH Zurich as #13 overall. The other Swiss flagship university, EPFL, which is also free, is ranked #14 overall in the QS world ranking. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-un...

What is this ranking site (QS world)? Not to dismiss it outright, I'm just usually suspicious of any rankings aggregator of universities at this point.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#308

Post by dodobirdlord »

hpkuarg wrote: post #292
srtjstjsj wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people don't go to expensive private college for the degree , as that is available cheaper elsewhere. They go for the feeling of elitism. Some of the worst money wasting colleges are the scam trade schools like University of "Phoenix".

University of Phoenix was founded and is based in Phoenix, Arizona, so if you want to put scare quotes on a part of it, maybe "University" of Phoenix is the better way. ;-)

I think their point is that most of the University of Phoenix's programs are online.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#309

Post by secabeen »

apsec112 wrote: post #212
fastaguy88 wrote: post #91

It is difficult to overstate how mistaken this article is. College has mostly gotten more expensive because state support for public universities has dramatically decreased, from over 80% in the 1970's to less than 20% now. Since the taxpayer no longer pays for public higher education, the student does. The logic of this made some sense at the time; very high tuition subsidies were a gift to the upper middle and uppe…

Calculating state support as a percentage of total cost is misleading, since universities can make "total cost" be whatever they please. California spends 34% more on higher education than it did in 1975, adjusted both for inflation and for state population growth. If a university wants their budget to double, and the state won't double their funding, then the remainder will have to come from tuition. But that's not…

34% is a decent number, but that includes both Community Colleges, Cal State Schools and UC, all of which have opened additional locations in the last 45 years, as more and more jobs in the state require a college education.

If you want to accuse the universities of spending more, do you have data to back up that assertion that they are spending significantly more on a real, per-student basis?

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#310

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

dnautics wrote: post #13
CincinnatiMan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know that there’s any groups deciding on something but rather individuals acting in their best interest, getting a degree, that ruins it for everybody else. An arms race among individuals.

> I don’t know that there’s any groups deciding on something Credentialism is exactly that. If in the pre-covid era you went to Washington, DC, you will see huge illuminated ads in the metro stations for companies, for example "graduate school" (literally the name of one company I saw) which offer super sketchy master's degrees. This is because if you have a master's degree, you get a mandated pay bump in your salary…

Holy shit, it just made sense why so many students in my Master's Degree are operating out of Virginia and Washington, DC.
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