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

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

#201

Post by arijun » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #196

michaelchisari wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What also works against the idea of subsidies being the culprit is that it's not just universities that have seen this cost inflation. The community college in the town I grew up in was $17 a credit hour in 1997. Adjusted for inflation, that's $26.17 a credit hour. A 4 credit hour class would cost $104.68. That's something many working people could cover to take a class here and there to further themselves or their j…

I don’t understand your logic. People take out loans all the time to get community college degrees. Those loans are federally backed. So the increase in credit would indeed inflate community college costs.

They’re responding to the claim that “the price has gone up because students are responsible for more of the cost“ which is in the post above them. If the true cause of the increase was a drop in state funding, you’d expect other schools to not change in price very much.

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

#202

Post by eanzenberg » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

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…

A big reason college costs have increased is due to students who pay in full are subsidizing students who cannot, or get a completely free ride.

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

#203

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by cpitman » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

bawana wrote: post #89

jimhefferon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colleges are now awash in money It is not possible for me to overstate how very much this is not true at the college where I work, and at all colleges with which I have a personal connection.

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…

FWIW, both of those examples are not only the executives of a university, but also of a hospital system. The vast majority of college presidents make well under that, with a median in 2015 of 300k (https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publication...).

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

#205

Post by darth_avocado » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #167

darth_avocado wrote: post #119

Why not move from a pre-paid to a post-paid system? The government stops writing blank cheques. The students enroll for free, signing a 30-year mortgage like contract, that would say pledge 1% of your post tax earnings to the school/university you went to. Universities will then have incentives to remove the programs that don't have as much of a use in the modern day and age, and add the ones that are needed. The gov…

> Universities will then have incentives to remove the programs that don't have as much of a use in the modern day and age Out of curiosity, can you name some examples of programs that in your opinion don't have much of a use today?

Say a degree in English. The point is not that it's not relevant in this day and age. The point is that we don't want as many people graduating with the degree. There's an estimated 1.5M people with that degree out there in the world, with about 60k new graduates being added to the pool every year. If the college has to choose between 1% of the salary of a doctor or say 1% of the salary someone who works in retail, the college would choose the former. Not all colleges would cull their programs, because there would still be a need for that degree in certain professions. It would just better align colleges with the market, ensuring you have a quality ROI if you choose to go for a college degree.

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

#206

Post by jariel » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

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 relative share of people attending college from 1970-2020 has increased dramatically.

So spending per-student may be down, but spending overall certainly is not.

... is one of many complicating factors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

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

#207

Post by pb7 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

giantrobot wrote: post #166

pb7 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most students graduate with no assets so what would stop someone from graduating and declaring bankruptcy before they begin working? Would that not reduce the ease in getting student loans since banks would be reluctant to loan to someone that doesn't have a wealthy cosigner, effectively eliminating poorer people from attending?

You don't declare bankruptcy like Michael Scott by just yelling into a hallway. If college loans could be discharged, your fresh grad example still has to convince a court to discharge the loan. That's not likely to happen unless they also managed to rack up many tens of thousands of dollars in unsecured debt. No one is going to give a 22 year old that much unsecured credit so it would be pretty obvious they're tryin…

Your argument doesn’t sound very convincing. People declare bankruptcy now all the time; it’s quite easy actually if you really have no assets and don’t mind your credit ruined for 7 years or less.

You haven’t actually stated under what conditions you would be allowed to discharge your debt, you’re just trying to convince me that it wouldn’t be abused and also that we really need this to happen. Again, not very convincing.

There’s a reason student debt was made undischargeable right around the same time that the government started guaranteeing loans.

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

#208

Post by baconandeggs » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #161

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…

What also works against the idea of subsidies being the culprit is that it's not just universities that have seen this cost inflation. The community college in the town I grew up in was $17 a credit hour in 1997. Adjusted for inflation, that's $26.17 a credit hour. A 4 credit hour class would cost $104.68. That's something many working people could cover to take a class here and there to further themselves or their j…

> What also works against the idea of subsidies being the culprit is that it's not just universities that have seen this cost inflation.

The entire economy is subsidize. We have a credit-based system, hence universal access to cheap credit is the end-game, that is why car loans are starting to creep into the 10-year territory with 0 down and no credit score.

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

#209

Post by tzs » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #159

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…

This explanation doesn't really explain why both private and public university tuitions have been rising without bound.

I've not been able to find much tuition data going back a long time online, but for the little I could find (Stanford going back something like 110 years, and one public school whose name I don't recall), it has almost always been raising a bit faster than inflation.

When I graphed the data over time, there was no place that stood out as being a place after which tuition increases were consistently worse than what they had been before. There would be a couple years or so here or there where it rose more rapidly during those years, and a couple years here or there where it did not rise as rapidly as in prior years, but mostly its been pretty steady.

Most articles I've seen where someone says the high cost of college is because of change X appear only look at the growth since X and just assume that X was the cause. So if tuition goes up 4% a year for 10 years, then some change is made, and it goes up 4% a year for the next 10 years, you'll see articles blaming the previous 10 years of 4% annual rise on X.

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

#210

Post by imtringued » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #176

jimhefferon wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

It's not that extreme around here but if there is some money left over... You can be sure that it will be spent. It's not like management gets a bonus for not spending money.