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

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#341

Post by pixelatedindex » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

somewhat_drunk wrote: post #87

basisword wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only governments could make…laws to restrict the price of University. Or…could limit the maximum loan size thus encouraging Universities to not charge more than that.

Price controls are one of the few things that economists on both sides of the political aisle agree do not work, and/or have unintended consequences which are worse than the problem they attempt to resolve. https://www.econlib.org/the-consensus-on-price-controls/

Sometimes it feels like economists come up with these ideas in an ivory tower, detached from reality. Any kind of price control seems to make economists very upset, rent control being another example.

Reality is that there are so many other factors that it’s probably better to have some sort of price control as a form of regulation, instead of only focusing on supply/demand levers.

I’m not an economist so I’m happy to be proven wrong, but the stance of “x,y and z policies need to be implemented so supply/demand is changed to mitigate these issues”, but the reality is that politicians and the business landscape doesn’t incentivize such changes. For example, colleges aren’t incentivized to keep the cost low, housing construction isn’t incentivized because NIMBYs control what can be built where, etc.

So when someone says “well the economists don’t agree on that”, it really rubs me the wrong way.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#342

Post by naijaboiler » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

The only service category that has outpaced higher education is hospital services. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century/

People forget that fundamentally, these are services that become relatively more expensive over time (as other things get relatively cheaper). Both healthcare and education don't really benefit from cost-reduction from scaling. At the end of the day, its still one service provider to few service consumers. Productivity in that sense is unchanged in 30 years. Meanwhile, consumer goods can continue to drop precipitiously with technology and scale. As technology improves productivity in other sectors, Net result over time, is that things like healthcare and education and other services which don't scale will continue to get relatively even more expensive (i.e. grow faster than inflation).

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#343

Post by codegeek » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

ourmandave wrote: post #56

codegeek wrote: post #41

It is free money for lenders because backed by the Govt AND protected against bankruptcy. It is Free money for colleges because they know they will get paid regardless. Remove this "free money guarantee" and watch how market corrects itself. When students can file for bankruptcy and/or the debt is not guaranteed by Govt, lenders would now use the same criteria they use to issue credit cards to 18 year olds. Hint: It'…

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

Sure but then it depends on *when* you die. Let's say you graduate at 22/23 and live till 70. For almost 50 years, you will be chased for that debt. Is that a good way to live ?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#344

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #303

dragonwriter wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government actually can do, and often does, policy with racially disparate impacts. Disparate impact is not a Constitutional limit on government discrimination, its a judicially-created rule in the application of certain statutory anti-discrimination laws. (And the disparate impact rule is politically and legally unpopular with the same faction that currently dominates the Supreme Court and whose members on the C…

I didn’t say it’s a constitutional issue. It’s a political non-starter.

> I didn’t say it’s a constitutional issue. It’s a political non-starter

And I said your argument for that is nonsense, since the government does lots that has racially disparate impacts.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#345

Post by janalsncm » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

eschulz wrote: 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…

It only makes sense if you believe education is just like any other commodity whose price should be driven by market forces. Should government have any say in whether its citizenry gets educated? Is there a public interest in it?

I can’t think of an easier way for e.g. China to win the 21st century. American undergrad enrollment is already down. As the world gets more technical, that is not a good sign.

When an entire generation of Americans are priced out of higher education, who is going to develop the technologies of tomorrow? Should we assume foreign students will always want to come to our schools and stay to work in our companies? It’s not sustainable.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#346

Post by jansan » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

therealmarv wrote: post #290

If you look at the whole World: It's a country specific problem. There are even English speaking graduation programs with international degrees abroad from top universities everywhere. To give some examples study in Sweden, Denmark, Germany etc and spend nearly no money on tuition. Factor the cost of living in and it's overall still cheaper than studying in the US. And I have no doubt that people grow personally (bes…

Some companies even pay your study. You do a regular BS at a university (or college), work as an intern at the company between terms, and the company will pay you 1000€+ per month over a period of 3 to 5 years. This is not a scholarship, but a mixture of apprenticeship and study (called "dual study"), which is becoming increasingly popular at least in Germany.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#347

Post by BeetleB » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #173

One thing that was mentioned in the article, but which seems to be missing from the discussion is the decrease in state funding for higher education. When I was looking for colleges in the 80s, the most expensive private schools were on the order of $20K all in. Those same schools are on the order of $85K all in, which is an increase of "only" (hah) 450%. However, my alma mater (SUNY Buffalo) has increased in-state t…

Indeed. I attended a talk by one of the presidents of a local state university about a decade ago, and she showed a plot showing that the overall cost to educate a student hadn't changed in 30 years (inflation adjusted). What had changed was the state support per student. As it dwindled, the university continually increased the tuition such that the overall cost remained constant.

It's one university, so I don't know if it applies to the others, but drops in state support is often excluded from these conversations.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#348

Post by fmajid » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

Universities are the gatekeepers for good white-collar jobs, and will charge whatever the market will bear, which is quite a lot. Government subsidies are absorbed as pure profit. The money goes into cushy salaries for administrators and empire-building, specially in real estate.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#349

Post by Levitz » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #41

It is free money for lenders because backed by the Govt AND protected against bankruptcy. It is Free money for colleges because they know they will get paid regardless. Remove this "free money guarantee" and watch how market corrects itself. When students can file for bankruptcy and/or the debt is not guaranteed by Govt, lenders would now use the same criteria they use to issue credit cards to 18 year olds. Hint: It'…

>Remove this "free money guarantee" and watch how market corrects itself.

While I agree, I can't imagine what it would be like for the first generation of students under such change. The reason they are government backed is to make college a possibility to begin with.

First ones in line would probably get massively screwed, no?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#350

Post by intrasight » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

tkiley wrote: post #254

a counterpoint to this narrative: grants/scholarships have been rising rapidly, so actual net tuition prices are surprisingly flat in recent years. > Between 2006-07 and 2019-20, COA [cost of attendance] increased by around 27% at both types of institutions, but declined by 7-8% in the few years after that. The recent decline occurred because colleges posted similar nominal COA increases as in the past, but inflation…

I can vouch for this. My daughter went to Yale. I paid the "Yale tax" of 20% of my income. An that only because I made more than $100K. Below $100K parental salary and it's free.

"List Price" is meaningless at university.