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Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

statecraft.beehiiv.com

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Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#481

Post by kaitai »

Xeronate wrote: post #292
pixelatedindex wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you have enough money now to switch to something that makes you happy? Personally, if you’re going to be miserable anyway (as most Americans are these days), it’s probably better to be miserable with money than without money, lol

I'm 29 and have 500k saved up (live in Santa Monica which is quite expensive), but yes I think I will quit my next stock vest which is Friday. And idk. My best friend from high school moved out here with me and he's a waiter making 40k a year and seems totally happy. Works like 30 hours a week, no mental stress, able to work out and work on himself. I think money is highly overrated.

I was happy with a low income until I had a kid. Then the calculus shifts. Same with physical disability or taking on caregiving responsibilities.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#482

Post by jasonmp85 »

hospitalJail wrote: post #48
dpierce9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where does it say that? Btw private school looks quite affordable. I used to think my neighbor was rich, they were, but for only $20k/yr you can send 2 kids to private school? That is cheaper than daycare.

[dead]

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#483

Post by clusterhacks »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #380
clusterhacks wrote: post #262

I am beginning to believe that the root cause of tuition costs in the US exceeding inflation is based much more on FOMO on the benefits of college education rather than federal government guarantees on student loans. My claim is that buyers (parents+children) of college degrees are maybe not behaving rationally with respect to cost. High-cost schools position themselves as offering a "better" outcome or opportunity t…

In the end college costs so much because people are willing to pay, because they think it's a good investment. Generally they have been right, college was the best investment you could possibly make historically. Now it's just an average investment, but the FOMO of not going puts it over the top.

Good take.

We are questioning if it is even an average investment, especially the truly high-cost and selective private schools where tuition sits at $80,000+ contrasted with $30,000 at our state's well-known and respected flagship university. The extra $200,000 in costs is breathtaking to consider.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#484

Post by nsvd »

grumple wrote: post #390
algoatecorn wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do though. I was a Pell Grant recipient. All I did was fill out the FAFSA and the grant was automatically applied. That got me through community college debt free. When I transferred to a 4-year, I once again filled out the FAFSA and was eligible for an interest-free loan which covered the difference between tuition and my Pell Grant.

Pell grants are tiny though. Really, the current grant system doesn't work. We should tell the universities they must provide needs-based grants on their own and prohibit using ability to pay during admissions - or they don't receive federal grants. This way they aren't incentivized to continue to bloat costs (as happens now), since now the school is responsible for the costs.

The tuition for my university (state school) is about $7,000 per year which is coincidentally close to the maximum you can receive through the pell grant.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#485

Post by kevstev »

stingraycharles wrote: post #288
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…

Purely out of interest: what do they do with all that money? Does it increase the quality of education and/or research?

A lot of the increase was driven by the "arms race" to attract the best students by building ever more facilities to make their ever glossier brochures more attractive. My school when I was leaving in the early 2000s was on a $200 million dollar building spending spree- a new library, a new sciences building, etc. I don't have a citation for this, but I had read somewhere awhile back that the administrative ranks have swelled at these schools and they are making tons more money than they used to in the past as well.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#486

Post by janalsncm »

zdragnar wrote: post #383
janalsncm wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 entir…

The rise in prices has largely been driven by schools going on real estate binges and bloating administrations. Right before I graduated, my school decided to build a new football stadium, because they decided using the city's stadium wasn't attractive enough for students. They promised tuition wouldn't be used to pay for it, and it wasn't. We just got something like $500 added to student "fees" instead. I have no sy…

Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the cause is administrative bloat, government-backed student loans that can’t be defaulted on, or space aliens. What is not debatable is that higher education is necessary in an advanced economy, and starving the job market of highly skilled workers is a fast track to companies shifting to other places where they are more abundant.

Either the US will figure it out like every other developed nation has seemed to do, or there will be grave geopolitical consequences. Whether the US political/economic machine can figure it out is a question that only time can answer.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#487

Post by kristopolous »

0xParlay wrote: post #432
kristopolous wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> It's not economics, analysis, reason or anything like that - it's pure orthodoxy and blind dogmatism. It would be rich if the data in the article in no way supported your rant.

It doesn't.

Just like the evangelicals see God in every leaf and water drop, the neoclassicalists will read any evidence and always see the same conclusion.

The article doesn't blame government at all. It's way more nuanced but ideologues will only see what they want to see.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#488

Post by skrtskrt »

itake wrote: post #138
rhplus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea, but how about the gov just gives kids from not-ideal backgrounds access to grants and scholarships, rather than credit.

How is that different from the current system? People from low or mid-income families have access to scholarships and funding. Kids from ideal backgrounds don’t take out loans. If you’re saying schools get a blank check via grants and scholarships, then I’m not seeing how that fixes the issue. This problem feels super similar to the Us health care system. Those with blank checks for pre-negotiated prices (have health…

> People from low or mid-income families have access to scholarships and funding

It might be relatively common for low income to get full rides or near full rides, but anyone in mid-income is getting saddled with tons of debt.

I applied to college in 2011 with a household income of like 95k, with an older sibling already in college, and most "financial aid" packages from state universities added up to between $60k-$160k total debt for four years. Going out of state to places like Ohio State, Maryland, etc. was already $50k/year back then.

This was inclusive of significant amounts of merit-based scholarships. Most (all?) schools do not allow you to stack merit scholarships with need-based grants. If you earn a merit-based scholarship, they reduce your need-based aid by that exact amount.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#489

Post by imtringued »

lr1970 wrote: post #388
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…

> Worse than just "backed by the federal government," the loans are basically protected by the government. It is really strange that government does not constrain tuitions of the colleges participating in the loan program. Currently, Universities have no incentives to control costs in any way.

Literally all they have to do is limit the maximum loan size. Max $50k per year. Anything beyond that is not subsidized or requires proof of academic performance or ability to repay.
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