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Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

statecraft.beehiiv.com

131–140 of 771 posts

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#131
post #10

Makes sense when you have student loans backed by the federal government. If an 18 year old with no money and no credit history gets accepted into a qualifying university, she will be able to receive a loan since the bank knows that the government will protect their investment if she fails to pay them back. So now young people have this easy access to credit, and universities can greatly increase tuition and fees wit…

false narrative, two counter points: 1. State govs have reduced funds to all public colleges. 2. Fed gov has refused to increase grants such as Pell on inflation basis. And that is way before the other forces of price increases and demand increases.

You're right that state govs have definitely reduced funding in many places for public colleges. And although this started decades ago in some cases, it is significantly exacerbated by the size of loans that students can easily access (due directly to federal backing of such loans). Therefore, states can reduce spending on colleges with the knowledge that the colleges can easily increase tuition to make up the difference.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#132
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I think the impact of the federal government on undergraduate costs is largely overstated. The limits for dependent students, which is most undergrads, is really small over 4 years. https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized... You can only borrow $31k over 4 years. That isn't a lot at all.

I would disagree that 31K is not a lot of money, but then again, maybe it is not a lot of money and my opinion is warped. I think if the government took a few points off for performance as a preferred return on the massive endowments, all of this would go away.

[deleted]

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't repay your student loan, it dies with you. They won't go after your estate for the balance.

At great sacrifice to your credit score

Death makes your credit score somewhat irrelevant.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#134
There are two broad solutions to these kinds of problems: demand-side and supply-side. This article is another data point in exactly why demand-side solutions are short term if they work at all. More likely they don't work.

A supply-side solution to education would be to create more spaces in quality higher education and to make those places cheap or free by government subsidy, often with price controls on the receiving institution. This is largely how most of the developed world works.

A demand-side solution is to make something more accessible, which has the net effect of increasing demand. This almost always raises prices. It's no surprise that money backed by the government has increased prices. It's inevitable. Demand for high-quality college places still exceeds supply so those colleges can (and do) respond by increasing costs. Sometimes that extra money benefits the students through better facilities (eg a new library, better and/or more dorms, etc). Often however it's lost in subsidizing college sports, which most colleges lose money on, and inflating administrative costs. Division 1 football coaches make millions a year for a supposedly amateur (that's what one of the As in NCAA stands for) competition. That extra money makes those programs more expensive to run too through the same means.

We see the same problem in housing. Nearly all legislative efforts are demand-side (eg programs to help first homebuyers) where what we need is simply to increase housing supply by building more units, making more current units available or both. But that runs afoul of vested interests where our homes have become retirement accounts.

It's worth noting that many elite colleges are sitting on eye-watering endowments that could easily be used to pay for tuition but they largely don't do that (outside of a few programs for students from poorer backgrounds).

Pretty much all of this is by design. Post-WW2 there was a concerted campaign to charge for things that were once cheap or free including health care and education. This is nothing more than economic bondage, the developed world's equivalent of Pakistani brick kilns. A person saddled with debt is a compliant worker who will show up to work and not complain or fight for better working conditions. That's literally the point.

It's why the prison population is used as cheap labor. It's why most states like illegal immigration. It's why states are enacting child labor laws. My point is that all of this, including spiralling student debt, is a systemic problem.

Education should be free.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#135
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than just "backed by the federal government," the loans are basically protected by the government. Being one of the small list of things you can't bankrupt out of, the risk in giving out the loans has been fully pulled from the lenders. It is frustrating to hear the discourse over the inappropriate students that are taking on too much debt, all the while ignoring the lenders that are taking on too much risk. At…

> lenders that are taking on too much risk The lenders are taking no risks since these loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. There are also very large late fees and penalties that can triple (or more) the amount owed.

Now I read that Wall Street is creating CDO's based on these loans, like they (continue to) do on mortgages. Some people die "early" without paying back these loans, and sometimes, they will owe more than they took out. Given the mounting problems with the numbers here, it seems a whole generation of people in the middle of this bubble are going to go to the grave while still owing on these loans. What happens to these CDO's? Are we headed for a smaller "meltdown?"

I went to school from 87-91. I could already see the problem starting. I was hoping this bubble would burst before my own children went to school. Two of three have gone to public schools so far, and we've paid through the nose for it. We are pushing our third towards some sort of trade school.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#136
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And interestingly both have predominantly grown in "administrative" costs

No no don't let the Physician cartel get out of this. Year over year they get at least 5% pay increases with US tax dollars. Not to mention, they get private pay increases by weaponizing the ACGME to keep residency slots low. Residency does not need to be paid. Outside of the Medical industry, people pay for their college. For some reason Physicians make tax payers pay for their education and a decent salary.

Medical school is education, and in the US it’s astronomically expensive (some people graduate with half a million dollars of debt).

Residency is more like on-the-job training (a hospital still makes money when a resident sees and treats you). It just takes longer to train a physician because there are human lives at stake.

Yes, teaching fellows and others in academia are often taken advantage of and work for free, but that doesn’t mean physicians are evil for getting paid during residency.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#137
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't going to happen because the whole point of the current government back student loan program is to give kids from not-ideal backgrounds access to credit, and hence access to the full range of schools available.

Crazy idea, but how about the gov just gives kids from not-ideal backgrounds access to grants and scholarships, rather than credit.

There already is tons of that. The issue is the "full range of schools" part. You can be from a family with a 400 credit score and combined income of $45k, and get loans to go to a $50k/yr university.

If the government is going to step in and provide direct funding, it will almost certainly only apply towards community colleges followed by local state schools.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#138
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't going to happen because the whole point of the current government back student loan program is to give kids from not-ideal backgrounds access to credit, and hence access to the full range of schools available.

Crazy idea, but how about the gov just gives kids from not-ideal backgrounds access to grants and scholarships, rather than credit.

How is that different from the current system?

People from low or mid-income families have access to scholarships and funding. Kids from ideal backgrounds don’t take out loans.

If you’re saying schools get a blank check via grants and scholarships, then I’m not seeing how that fixes the issue.

This problem feels super similar to the Us health care system. Those with blank checks for pre-negotiated prices (have health insurance), pay low healthcare costs, and those without pay insane prices. Overall everyone is paying insane prices.

Can you explain your reasoning more?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#139
post #101
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? That is a misleading read of that page. Only if you have parents/guardians that can get a PLUS loan is that the limit. You have to look at the other column for everyone else. And that is the principal. With a short limit on how much of that can be subsidized, meaning the rest is accruing interest from day 1. Such that they amount you would owe will be laughably higher than even that number after your scho…

how is it misleading? most undergrads are considered dependent, which means they can only borrow $31k in total over 4 years. beyond that they would need to tap alternative sources.

> how is it misleading?

Because the limit cited only applies to students whose parents can get (federal, direct, and capped only by the school’s estimate of costs) PLUS loans, and yet is characteized as a limit of the impact of federal subsidies on school costs.

A cap that only applies where another unlimited federal loan stream is available to the same student is, well, not a limit at all, when discussing federal impact on prices.

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