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

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#461

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

drunner wrote: post #37

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/

Related: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-administrati... I always thought the issue was in admin body count. However, just picking the largest universities in Germany and US on wikipedia we see: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Academic staff: 5,565 Administrative staff: 8,208 Students: 51,606 Michigan State University Academic staff: 5,703 Administrative staff: 7,365 Students: 49,809 Those look…

Are adjuncts included in those numbers? Universities use a ton of contract labor to teach classes and those adjuncts aren't actually employees.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#462

Post by jldugger » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 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…

IDK that we _need_ to increase state funding, but it absolutely explains the tuition trend. I don't feel particularly bad about people graduating with student debt if they have high paying jobs on the other side.

What does feel bad is turning qualified students away, like one school I know used to do.[1] Every year they would pick a GPA cutoff to admit more engineering students to the upper level classes you need to graduate, not based on evidence of students failing but on faculty headcount. It's a total bait and switch, and thankfully it seems they ended the practice right before the pandemic.

And it's tricky, we run teaching universities because we think there's some benefit to students being taught by practicing researchers. But the reality is that, especially in STEM, research funding is what matters more than tuition funding. Which in essence means in order to admit more students we need more research labs and buildings, because the 3/3 teaching load of a tenure track faculty member will not yield competitive wages.

[1]: https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/osu-college-engineering-c...

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#463

Post by nightski » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

pixelatedindex wrote: post #412

nightski wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PPP loans weren't really loans. It was known they would be forgiven before taking them out. If that had not been the case, most businesses would not of participated. I believe they were structured as loans providing a mechanism for congress to pass the aid immediately. Actual business loans require assets/collateral, even those from the SBA. At least this has been my personal experience with my businesses. You can't…

That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. Businesses make way more money than an individual, so why charge the individual more APR? And PPP really should not have been forgivable - if you run a business, then it’s your responsibility to have enough money in the coffers to survive any economic downturns. Individuals get punished way more harshly than businesses when things go south.

That's not really true imho. If we are going to be pedantic and talk about the pandemic, almost all taxpayers received individual stimulus checks in the thousands. On top of that those with children received a lot more. The vast majority of PPP loans went to small business and it was to make up for the government shutting down parts of the economy (it wasn't simply an economic downturn). I don't agree with how hastily and sloppy it was administered, you'd think we would have plans in place beforehand. But hey it's the government.

As far as interest rates, I had six figures of student loans and they were at 2.88%. Rates today are higher, but that's because they very loosely follow the federal funds rate. This is no different for business loans. But loosely speaking, interest rates on federal student loans are pretty low compared to other types of loans.

In fact, the reason the stock market reacts so badly to interest rate increases is precisely because it increases the cost of borrowing for business.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#464

Post by abeppu » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

naijaboiler wrote: post #342

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 precipitious…

I'm actually confused about the healthcare situation -- is it actually getting more expensive relative to the benefits? I've heard so many times that a bunch of surgeries that used to have really long recovery times can now be done on an out-patient basis, or laproscopically, and that some things which used to require surgery can now be treated with medication. Isn't that productivity growth? Even if the cost per day in the hospital goes up, if the same or better patient outcomes can be achieved with fewer/shorter hospital stays, that sounds like patients are "winning"?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#465

Post by leshow » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

zer8k wrote: post #356

verteu wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The US's healthcare system is so bleak because we quite literally fund healthcare for the rest of the planet. Taxpayers in the US get access to the best treatment decades earlier if they're rich enough. Prices are increased on US citizens to account for the strong arming other governments do to get prices lower for their citizens. If the pharma companies couldn't do this, for example, they'd refuse to negotiate with…

Almost everything you have said here is untrue. Pharma companies still make profits in other countries, they just make much more profit in the US. Much of medical research is in fact funded by the government to begin with.

By removing the for-profit system, you would actually be removing rampant rent-seeking on something that should be a human right.

> Imagine if the price of insulin, almost completely funded by US citizens paying absurd prices, went up to its US price.

A very strange example to select, considering it was first discovered by Canadians and the patent was later sold for $1. US citizens are certainly not "subsidizing" insulin elsewhere.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#466

Post by clusterhacks » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #398

kjkjadksj wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of the larger school in my experience, is that its like going to a dozen small schools at once. Plenty of people I know where able to transfer from one good program to another in a completely opposite field once they learned what they actually liked (usually quite different than what you imagined as a highscooler especially if your parents have no concept of the field), because the school was large enou…

I think you and GP are using different definitions of "larger". One definition is "more programs". Another is merely "more students". Generally, go for the one with the lower student:teacher ratio. My anecdote: I and a friend both went to low ranked undergrad universities (state schools). Mine, however, had a low student:teacher ratio per class. Comparing notes with him, the main benefit was that professors actually…

Yep, I attended a lower-ranked state school for an undergrad in CS and had a wonderful experience. Lots of positive interactions with faculty in CS and math. My undergrad school was also attended by a large population of highly motivated students for historical reasons. I stumbled into this school almost by accident and was really happy with my student peer group because most were quite ambitious.

I also then went to a well-known and ranked R1 university for grad school. I didn't enjoy it very much but also didn't match well with an advisor out of the gate. That colored my experience significantly and in hindsight was really mostly my fault.

Oddly enough, I returned to this school and work a somewhat hybrid staff/research software engineer job and have been here for more than a decade. Go figure.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#467

Post by speakfreely » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #260

adventured wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all the while ignoring the lenders that are taking on too much risk. At least, they would be taking on too much risk, if they hadn't captured the market so effectively The lenders? Risk? 93% of all student loan debt is owned by the US Government. What risk? How is it everybody pretends it's the Big Evil Bankers making all the money on this racket? It's equivalent to the false narrative about private prisons driving…

I honestly don't know what you are trying to say here. Government debt has been discharged before. Look into the number of cities that have declared bankruptcy. (That is, you don't even have to look at failed nation states. Plenty of places in the US have done this.) That is, no amount of lending is ever risk free. To pretend that you can hedge all risk out of a loan is the problem. It doesn't matter who issues it. I…

It's not about getting the risk to zero. It's about managing it. Right now anyone can take on massive debt to go to college programs they almost certainly will not finish. There's no risk evaluation for individual students, no qualification process that decides to only give loans to those with a history of performance that indicates they will finish. And almost 40% of student loan defaults are people that didn't finish [0].

Whether they finish or not, it surges the demand for education and makes it more expensive for the people that did perform well in high school and achieved a minimum level of personal organization to succeed in an academic environment.

[0] https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-how-many-student-loan-...

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#468

Post by ibgeek » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:15 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…

Adding to this: we should be looking at the actual amount paid by students have receiving financial aid. Analyses of tuition - average financial aid show that the actual amount paid has been relatively flat at private institutions. A lot of private institutions (mine included) give a 50% scholarship to most students.

Increased costs at public universities are driven largely by lack of state funding. This is also in part because the number of students attending public universities has gone up tremendously but state funding hasn't kept up.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/college-prices-arent-skyr...

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#469

Post by 015a » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #36

taeric wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than just "backed by the federal government," the loans are basically protected by the government. Being one of the small list of things you can't bankrupt out of, the risk in giving out the loans has been fully pulled from the lenders. It is frustrating to hear the discourse over the inappropriate students that are taking on too much debt, all the while ignoring the lenders that are taking on too much risk. At…

> lenders that are taking on too much risk The lenders are taking no risks since these loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. There are also very large late fees and penalties that can triple (or more) the amount owed.

And yet, some lenders (Navient is the big one) have now lost so much money due to COVID forbearance that they've exited that industry entirely.

There's inherent risk to everything, everywhere. Making the loans undischargable in bankruptcy doesn't negate the risk of non-repayment; it just hides it. Until, eventually, all the band-aids fall off, reality bares its ugly head, and we all wish we hadn't-a done that. Yet, in thirty years we'll forget about it and do it all over again, in some new, crazy, way.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#470

Post by nsvd » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #249

patrickthebold wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Able to pay", but where is the "Want to pay?" I feel you also need to argue: "18 year olds don't realize they are being ripped off", or "college is actually worth that much". It's probably a different answer for different students.

Society is better off as a whole with a well educated populace. We shouldn't optimize for college only for kids who can learn to program or whatever. Most other developed nations manage to send every smart kid to college for ten thousand dollars per kid or less. Once again, it is only the US that thinks it is a special butterfly that can't somehow manage to give kids college. Sure, most European colleges don't spend…

That's a popular opinion, but how do you quantitatively prove it? While the formal education of a population may correlate with wealth, I think it would be harder to prove a causal link.