Colleges already make the large majority of their money from international students. I'm not sure closing the door on low income students is the way to go.
There are literally thousands of universities in the U.S. The Federal system was (pre-trump) getting pretty aggressive about cutting loans to bottom of the barrel universities. This needs to keep happening, and there needs to be guarantees of credit transfer. That would make a much bigger difference and allow competition to keep costs under control.
Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
11–20 of 588 posts
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#12Is this surprising to anyone? Colleges battle each other to provide amenities, loans are easy to come by, and the colleges have nothing to lose when the students default. I remember my first day of college (in 1993!) and remember part of registering was signing all of these forms where my options were a) take out loans and go to school or b) don't take out loans and don't go to school. I had no idea what it meant to…
> Is this surprising to anyone? Yes. Most people here who actually post in US college cost discussions seem to think the federal government is still only in the business of guaranteeing loans. As this article indicates, when the federal government is making these loans and owning them from start to finish it changes the dynamics considerably. > I remember my first day of college (in 1993!) ... I was fortunate to only…
Private Engineering-focused college in the Northeast. All-in annual cost was listed at $24k for tuition, room, board, fees, etc.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#13No, the real reason was that country wasn't producing enough jobs for the expanding labor force so we artificially created a new requirement to keep young people out of the job market for an additional 4+ years. Credentialism is a tool governments/businesses use keep control of the labor situation. The college tuition fiasco is a private/public creation. Now who wears the pants in the private/public relationship, tha…
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 as a civil servant.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#14For undergrad I used Army money and was poor enough for Pell grants after that ran out. I got out with $12K in loans. Much later in law school I was shocked how my first financial aid award letter (I can't remember if it was for one semester or one year) offered $80,000 in loans even though I had an $18000 tuition grant/waiver. I met younger students who had close to $200,000 debt before starting law school. It is to…
At least lawyers and doctors are smart enough to keep their rates high enough so they can repay their loans. A while ago I was looking for a lawyer and it was surprising that there were no freelance lawyers that changed maybe 80 dollars per hour. They all wanted 250 and more.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#15No, the real reason was that country wasn't producing enough jobs for the expanding labor force so we artificially created a new requirement to keep young people out of the job market for an additional 4+ years. Credentialism is a tool governments/businesses use keep control of the labor situation. The college tuition fiasco is a private/public creation. Now who wears the pants in the private/public relationship, tha…
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.
Kind of like what's been happening with housing in the places with jobs. It's too bad there isn't some sort of system where we could all have a voice to regulate these sort of things. Kind of like the US had before the Managementism replaced Capitalism and Corprotocrocy replaced deomocracy.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#16> the feds should handle student loans the same way they handle medicaid/medicare reimbursement. I'm not sure how anyone looks at our health care reimbursement system and the decides that's the approach to apply to fix anything else? Personally, I'd like to see: * Employers are allowed to test students to see what they can do, but not evaluate them based on whether they went to school or where. * Make student loan de…
The fix for both is the same. Get the government out of the demand side and, if anything, only work on the supply side.
Want lower doctor and hospital prices? Try competing against a “free but you have to wait” government option. Budget $X million dollars per year to put some primary care doctors on retainer.
Want lower private school tuition? Try competing against a free (or at least low cost) government / public option.
If you boost the demand side then the market will suck up any money thrown at it. Loans and subsidies going are the worst approach as they encourage price increases.
This works with housing too! Stop subsidizing rents (increasing demand) and build more houses (increase supply).
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#17Colleges already make the large majority of their money from international students. I'm not sure closing the door on low income students is the way to go. There are literally thousands of universities in the U.S. The Federal system was (pre-trump) getting pretty aggressive about cutting loans to bottom of the barrel universities. This needs to keep happening, and there needs to be guarantees of credit transfer. That…
I believe you've been misled about "large majority of their money from international students" and am curious where you got this information from. From the data I've looked at, the net revenue a vast majority of colleges make are under 2% from international students. For R1 universities (the national ones you've heard of), it's still under 10% , and finally even if you look at undergraduate tuition only (ignoring graduate students, ignoring other sources of revenue), it's still not the majority.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is this surprising to anyone? Yes. Most people here who actually post in US college cost discussions seem to think the federal government is still only in the business of guaranteeing loans. As this article indicates, when the federal government is making these loans and owning them from start to finish it changes the dynamics considerably. > I remember my first day of college (in 1993!) ... I was fortunate to only…
Private Engineering-focused college in the Northeast. All-in annual cost was listed at $24k for tuition, room, board, fees, etc.
That's about what Rose-Hulman quoted me before aid. I would have had to borrow or work for about $12k/year if I had gone there.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#19How did this hit the front page of HN? There's literally no analysis in a piece on a topic that has been analyzed to death.
The hypothesis is that increased availability of loans in 1993 is responsible for the rise in tuition between 2010 and 2020. Just stated as a fact, with nothing to back it up. Okay.
The most obvious answer that is cited by literally everyone that looks at this topic is that it's partially caused by cuts in state funding. Nope, let's just dismiss that, it was the one-time change in the availability of loans.
I don't see anything wrong with having a discussion, but there's not even anything to discuss, because it's just a statement that a change 27 years ago explains everything. HN can do better.
Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993
#20Is this surprising to anyone? Colleges battle each other to provide amenities, loans are easy to come by, and the colleges have nothing to lose when the students default. I remember my first day of college (in 1993!) and remember part of registering was signing all of these forms where my options were a) take out loans and go to school or b) don't take out loans and don't go to school. I had no idea what it meant to…
Yeah, 50k of debt here, still paying it but it's doable on a programmer salary. Don't know what kids these days will do.
OnlyFans, apparently.