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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

#171

Post by ummonk »

twic wrote: post #129
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…

Has the inflation-adjusted cash value of that support decreased, or the fraction of the costs it covers? "80%" and "20%" makes it sound like the latter. Because if it's the latter and not the former, the cause isn't declining support, it's increasing cost.

The latter. We've seen an increase in cost of education (as evidenced by private school tuitions, which have gone up and never had taxpayer support).

In addition to this, student enrollment has increased, so per-student taxpayer funding has not kept pace even as taxpayer funding for public universities has gone up relative to the overall population.

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

#172

Post by ldiracdelta »

baconandeggs wrote: post #162
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…

> the price has gone up because students are responsible for more of the cost. That is not how prices work, the prices can't go up if the only buyers have no money. The price went up because they got access to credit. To government mandated credit.

Exact same mechanism as lowering the interest rate on housing mortgages. The buyer says "I am willing to pay $2000/month", and the interest rate just changes how much of that payment is principle vs interest.

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

#173

Post by t0mbstone »

non-entity wrote: post #90
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…

> Or how about breaking the degree monopoly with something like equivalent certification programs and let private companies fill the gap. Similar to what Google is doing with its certificate program they are rolling out. This stuff has existed for years and there are probably thousands of "certification programs". Most of the time, they're deemed worthless.

The real question is why schools like Khan Academy aren't accredited?

Why can't we have free online courses for everyone, where the only costs are the actual free market costs that go towards staff required for administration, courseware development, instructors, and test proctoring?

Why should a college degree from an online university cost a fortune, if the course material remains mostly unchanged from year to year? At the end of the day, all you need is the educational materials, someone who help guide you through them, and then a test to prove that you learned the material. Why isn't that good enough??

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

#174

Post by andreilys »

alexpotato wrote: post #139
georgeecollins wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Universities in Europe really that high quality? Certainly some are, but as a parent researching schools I have been really surprised by how many European colleges are a bit mediocre by the criteria I was evaluating. For example, Spain and Italy have some of the oldest colleges in the world. But in many ways there are four or five colleges in California that are better, four or five colleges in Texas, and across…

Speaking as a dual US/Italian citizen there are some things I would add to your picture (which surprised me when I first learned them). I should also add, my picture is a bit dated since I last looked at this in the early 2000's but a lot of this is still true: US vs Italian "high school" - Finishing Italian secondary education is most equivalent to US high school + at least the first year of most US universities - I…

“ Another comparison: at the time (early 2000s) multiple people in senior level positions in European companies mentioned to me that in their opinion, having an MBA from a top US school was equivalent to a degree from a top Italian economics school like Bocconi University”

HBS and GSB have much more brand value than Bocconi university. Whether the economics education you get is on par is debatable but it’s clear one of the selling points of an elite US MBA is the signaling.

I’m skeptical of the claim that Bocconi university has anywhere near the signaling effect of HBS/GSB.

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

#175

Post by OnlyOneCannolo »

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…

Another problem is how the money is allocated. State schools' budgets used to be mostly general funds, but now they're overwhelmingly non-general.

Even if they're getting the same amount of money, that money is already earmarked. If it doesn't cover all their expenses, they need to figure out how to monetize their assets to make up the difference.

Universities have gotten much better at finance out of necessity.

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

#176

Post by Clubber »

jimhefferon wrote: post #154
bawana wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. They ARE AWASH in income. They just figure out how to spend it fast. Fancy buildings, fancy retirement plans, outrageous administrative salaries.... For example the Chairman of UMASS Medical Center makes 2.3 million. The CEO of Harvard makes 9.25 million. How are these jobs an order of magnitude harder than the governor of Massachusetts. (salary 150K) Or harder than the US President (salary 400K). I ca…

I cannot stop you from believing things that are false, but I can only assert that they are false.

I worked as tech support at a major university in the US in the mid-90s in the College of Business Administration as an internship. The way it works is you get a budget. If you don't spend all of your budget, you get less budget next year. No department wants a lesser budget. This resulted in all professors, most who only use Word and Excel, to get $4000 brand new, top of the line Dells every year. I know, I had to set them up and deliver them.

This probably isn't how it works everywhere, but it's certainly the case in some places. This was a large public/state school.

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

#177

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

I'm not sure how your argument actually contradicts the argument of the article. State support for public universities declined while state issued loans to students increased. Both would seem to facilitate higher priced private universities and work together - if you just have student loans, student might still prefer lower priced public universities. If you just defund public universities without the massive expansion of student loans, many student might be not be able to attend university.

Also, I get the figure of inflation-adjust college education cost doubling over thirty years. You can spin that as "only slightly beating the cost of living" but education is a major part of society's expenditure of resources and so such a doubling, over a longish time is still majorly important.

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

#178

Post by graeme »

Dannymetconan wrote: post #40
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…

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other. You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

You completely missed the point. The author said pick two out of three. High quality, low cost, universality.

As you say, you can have high quality, and low cost. But European university isn’t as universal as north american universities are.

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

#179

Post by lost953 »

whyenot wrote: post #157
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…

California's CSU system has more than half a million undergraduate students. Tuition and fees are still not much more than $8,000 a year. You can still get a very good education for not a lot of money. Just a comparison: San Jose State University (public) and Santa Clara University (private) are less than ten miles from each other. Tuition at SJSU is $7,852 (+ fees). Tuition at SCU is $53,634. Yes, SCU has labs with…

The SCU biology class is going to go to Monterey, the SJSU is going to go nowhere. SCU doesn't have the latest equipment in its labs, but it does have decent labs, SJSU is probably similar.

What you are paying for is lifestyle, access, connections, and a system to prevent people from falling through the cracks. Most people graduate in 4 years at SCU, not as true at SJSU. After 10 years SCU graduates are some of the highest paid in the country, not so much for SJSU.

Plus the sticker price isn't everything SCU has tons of aid although its probably still 3 to 4 times more expensive (for average people).

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

twic wrote: post #128
Hokusai wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. That is a supposition that proves to be false. The same happens for health care. To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that. Also, I would like to notice, that for E…

Americans are absolutely, utterly, unable to imagine that the way they do things is not the best. It's incredible to watch from outside.

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