Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#221

Post by jedberg » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #201

jedberg wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how things used to be. It means that only rich people can go to college, because they are the only ones who can afford it. Prices can only come down so far. The college still has to pay professors and maintain facilities. There needs to be a middle ground where we support poor but promising students in a way that doesn't inflate prices. I don't know what that solution is.

> It means that only rich people can go to college, because they are the only ones who can afford it. I hear this a lot, but I don't understand the argument to be honest. If someone is poor today , then they can take an exorbitant amount of debt that they can't discharge in order to attend university. In a world where loans are dischargeable in bankruptcy and the federal government limits subsidizes loans, we'd expec…

The interest rates would be so high that it wouldn't make sense for a promising student to take that loan. If you're a loan company and someone comes to you asking for $100,000, and they have no credit and no family with assets, even with a 4.0 GPA and perfect SATs, they are still a huge risk.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#222

Post by fwungy » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

I watched the university I was in for graduate school add all sorts of campus buildings, luxury apartments, and new administrative titles and hierarchies. Handing out massive contracts is a good job, but it's all borne on the students backs, and most of that stuff was not necessary for a good education.

They do a lot of catering to student egos too to get them in the door - "ooh, you're so special and wonderful, we're going to help you make it with our programs", knowing full well that most of the degrees were garbage.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#223

Post by vkou » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #160

vkou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding directly by issuing a blank check to the vendors? No, it won't. Funding directly by setting a price cap, and paying vendors that amount for services rendered? Seems to work for almost every other developed country in the world . With the monetary savings of #2, it could even give every medical student a fully free ride.

> Seems to work for I love when someone says "seems to work". In the strict sense, that only ever means "does something". Not necessarily "does what someone wants"... and never "does what I want". When it works for those other countries, does it "do what you want"? Because it doesn't "do what I want" at all. > With the monetary savings of #2, it could even give every medical student a fully free ride. Won't someone t…

> Won't someone think of the millionaire heart surgeons in the 1%? They obviously needed free rides back when they started, it's why they're only single digit millionaires!

> Starving the people you want to provide your medical treatment isn't the brightest strategy

Gosh, it's almost like I pre-empted the latter complaint with the note that you've responded to above...

Expanding the number of doctors, and lowering doctor pay and workload, and lowering the cost of becoming a doctor will produce better health outcomes for everyone. Yes, some people will stand to lose from this, just like the current bloat of worthless administrators and billing clerks and other paper-pushers will stand to lose from a cleanup of the system.

I don't care about their well-being.

> I love when someone says "seems to work". In the strict sense, that only ever means "does something". Not necessarily "does what someone wants"... and never "does what I want".

> When it works for those other countries, does it "do what you want"? Because it doesn't "do what I want" at all.

This exact criticism can be levied on the current US system.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#224

Post by morsch » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

hatf0 wrote: post #122

Can confirm. Currently attending a mid-tier public state school, and I'm looking at ~1200/mo (2000/mo, including housing - living w/ 3 roommates) out of pocket (since I'm trying to avoid taking out loans as much as possible). I've worked up to 2 jobs at the same time just to keep making ends meet. It's really rough out there, and my degree program doesn't even begin to cover fundamental CS concepts like P/NP-complete…

> It's really rough out there, and my degree program doesn't even begin to cover fundamental CS concepts like P/NP-completeness, DFAs, etc

Then it's presumably not a CS degree...?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#225

Post by boeingUH60 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #128

tempsy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No its not Literally says "Subsidized and Unsubsidized Aggregate Loan Limit $31,000-No more than $23,000 of this amount may be in subsidized loan" Just confirms most people have no clue how small the limits actually are.

I am afraid you are woefully confused. A good friend had $150k in debt from undergrad and $200k in additional debt from law school, and this was 10 years ago.

Your friend spent the cost of a new house on education, lol. There's only one country where I hear of things like this...

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#226

Post by maxbond » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

pixelatedindex wrote: post #213

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

I’m a newbie, what’s a CDO?

Collateralized Debt Obligation, sort of like a bond that's composed from many loans on something you can repossess, like houses or boats. They're notorious because they were involved in the 2008 financial crisis.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cdo.asp

Or if you prefer the Big Short explanation:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTqtH-Oo4

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#227

Post by pixelatedindex » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #181

chiefalchemist wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, the government gave the leaders license to do "predatory".

In other words, the government has become a predatory lender with some intermediaries.

Which I find really weird, they take this stance against education but businesses don’t have to deal with such predatory loans - in fact govt loans for businesses tend to have low interest rates, or forgiven like the PPP loans.

Why do we take anti-individual stances, but pro-business stances? Is that a byproduct of capitalism, or am I misreading the world?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#228

Post by bitshiftfaced » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

dpierce9 wrote: post #50

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Main cause: Government-backed student loans. While it is technically the student paying, in reality the money is going (indirectly) from the federal reserve to the universities. Everyone loves free government money... The fact the student may never pay off those loans (and hence the government foots the bill) is the cherry on top.

I will say it again: Private high school costs have also gone up astronomically and there are no federal loans for them. [0] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-private-school

This says that the average private highschool tuition is $15,645.

In 2003, the average private highschool tuition was $8,412 (Snyder, Dillow, & Hoffman, 2008), or $14,079 (in today's dollars).

Please correct me if I've made some mistake, but plugging those numbers in shows that the annualized real increase in price is 0.5% per year over 20 years.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#229

Post by vkou » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

verteu wrote: post #217

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems to work for I love when someone says "seems to work". In the strict sense, that only ever means "does something". Not necessarily "does what someone wants"... and never "does what I want". When it works for those other countries, does it "do what you want"? Because it doesn't "do what I want" at all. > With the monetary savings of #2, it could even give every medical student a fully free ride. Won't someone t…

I suspect GP is referring to the fact that the US has the one of the worst health outcomes per dollar spent vs peer countries [1] [2]. If "better health outcomes per dollar" is not "what you want" -- how come? [1] https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/07/how-does-the-us-healthcare... [2] https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/wh...

People making this argument tend to want 'better health outcomes for millionaires/healthy white collar people', either because they are one, or they think they will be one.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#230

Post by Xeronate » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #180

Xeronate wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems wrong to influence your son's decision based on your financial situation rather than his desires/passions. Of course if he's naturally interested in the trades then sure.

Most people desire not being poor over most other things.

There are a lot of ways to make money. Picking a job based on money is a good way to be absolutely miserable. My parents pushed me towards making money my entire life and there is nothing I regret more than following that advice. Every day I wake up dreading going to work and it seeps into every aspect of my life.