Why Is College in America So Expensive?

Even if the quote says the public system that covers most students is "working well", the average student loan debt of a graduate is still pretty high [1]:

> When they graduate [in 2016] the average student loan borrower has $37,172 in student loans, a $20,000 increase from 13 years ago.

Of course this is an average, but I don't expect this is something where some people with millions of dollars in student loans are skewing the averages. I imagine the median is not that far off.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-much-the-average-s...

This. You have plenty of data points to choose from. Show us. Empty ideology just won't cut it.

Your roommate in a suite could have just as easily been like that (unless it really was a socioeconomic class problem). GPA in the same-major across housing situations would be interesting to explore. I had neighbors who partied every Friday night with loud music and underage drinking until ~2 AM. It sucked, particularly when they did that during finals week and I had 8 AM finals.

I have friends who were in the suites, and there was basically no community developed there. In the standard dorms, people knew each others names because they'd run into them on the way to the bathroom. People kept their doors open (particularly in areas without air conditioning).

I say all this as a graduate of Iowa State, which I understand has one of the higher on-campus housing rates (95% of freshman, 50% of people who were on-campus last year are again this year).

> the main driver is the availability of student loans

100% this.

If you want to have an affordable college education, you can have one.

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1. I'm from Florida and the best school in the state is (arguably) the University of Florida. In-state tuition is $3,191 per semester, so $25k for four years. And that's the amount if your GPA/SAT/ACT doesn't qualify for the relatively easy 75% Bright Futures state scholarships or more-difficult-but-still-common 100% scholarships.

2. I went to Brigham Young University (private school) in Utah which is $5,620 per semester, so $45k for four years. And that's assuming your GPA/SAT/ACT doesn't qualify for the easy 50% scholarships or the hard 100% scholarship.

Text book are pricey, but there are ways to avoid paying the bulk of the costs. E.g. rentals, buying used. UF's libraries have text books with 3hr checkout times.

A three-month $10/hr 40hr/wk summer job is $5k pre-tax. A nine-month $10/hr 10hr/wk part-time job is another $4k. Plus, the IRS will give you $2.5k per year via the American Opportunity Credit.

Naturally, there's also food, rent, and transportation, but those exist regardless of college attendance. (Though finding cheap shared living is far easier in college towns.)

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Coming out of a undergrad with $50k+ in student loans is not done because you have to. It is done because you choose to. Given the availability of student loans, lots of people choose to.

Some examples other than what people have already mentioned:

Prescription drugs. The FDA has a "no existing alternative first" policy - they work on approving drugs for conditions where no current treatment works before they even start considering competitors to existing drugs. This sounds quite logical, but the effect of it is that every new drug is granted a monopoly for a long period of time before any competitor can even legally sell their alternative, so the drug company can literally charge whatever they want.

Building codes. In my grandparents' day, it was still possible to construct your own house: you bought a plot of land, hired a concrete mixer to come pour the foundation, bought a lot of 2x4s, and spent a bunch of time hammering & sawing. Now, you have to conform to all of the local building codes (which in the Bay Area, I've heard, is an 800-page tome), and you need to get approval for every feature of the design from the city building inspector, who has the power to completely block your construction if you get on his shit list. As a result, the only people who can build housing are ones who have good relationships with the city and the know-how to adhere closely to all the building codes.

Zoning. Even if you have that know-how and relationships, there are some things you just can't do with housing. Own a 1/4 acre with a single family home and want to convert it to a 4-plex? Too bad, it's not zoned for that.

And you can see the economic impact of all of these by looking at situations where they're absent. Consider generic drugs: once a generic has been approved, the price of a drug can fall by 90% or more. Or compare housing in the Houston metro area, where you can get a 3BR2BA for under $200K, to the Bay Area, where the same house will set you back $2M.