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Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

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Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#511

Post by boeingUH60 »

brightlancer wrote: post #494
boeingUH60 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passion doesn't pay the bills. It's good to be passionate about something, but many passions are not marketable. Many have drowned in student debt following their passions, but this wouldn't be so in many countries that have university education fully covered or significantly subsidized by taxes.

If passion doesn't pay the bills, it certainly can't pay taxes. Why should engineers and plumbers and garbagemen pay taxes to send someone to art school for years? Once something is paid for with tax money, then the people paying the taxes want a say in how it's spent -- which is not just reasonable, it's a requirement of a liberal democracy.

Of course, countries with tax-funded higher education ration degrees. There are limited slots, and art courses are usually at the bottom of funding considerations.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#512

Post by hoosieree »

imtringued wrote: post #489
lr1970 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How about a tuition capped at the median salaries of its graduates?

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#513

Post by jedmeyers »

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.

> Currently, Universities have no incentives to control costs in any way.

Most universities are the supporters of the existing government structure, so it seems to be a mutually beneficial relationship.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#514

Post by no_wizard »

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…

Two things you have to do to keep tuition costs down nowadays, by my estimation, unless you get a full ride scholarship or accepted by the an Ivy League:

- Do your first two years at community college. A lot of states have zero tuition costs for community college credits. I think in all 50 states its the absolute cheapest way to do get your first two years done

- Enterprising students may realize that if you're married, FAFSA (which is used to compute both federal and state aid) will use your married income and not your parents. Most students make little to money while in school. This automatically games the algorithm in your favor. Tricky to manage socially.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#515

Post by FormerBandmate »

jedberg wrote: post #169
londons_explore wrote: post #54

I'd like to see a new funding model for universities. I'd like to see universities be able to register for a share of tax revenue from their students post-graduation. For example "This course costs 5% extra income tax for 20 years". Then, you pay nothing for the course, but after you graduate you pay a 5% higher tax rate, and that extra money goes to the university. The IRS would administer the scheme since they alre…

The one problem with this scheme is that it turns colleges into job training and nothing else. They would most likely drop any major that doesn't make a lot of future money. There is still value in providing philosophy courses and music and art and all the other things that don't lead directly to high paying jobs.

This value is nowhere near 200 thousand dollars, and everyone knows it

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#516

Post by Willish42 »

Xeronate wrote: post #162
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…

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.

One has to think the ROI for any financial investment in someone Regardless of whether the parent can support that tuition cost or the kid has to take on loans themselves, it should be up to the individual whether they take on that risk irrespective of the parent's financial situation, which is I think where this heavily-downvoted reply was going.

As somebody who's education was way less supported than the rest of my family, who came out with a better job than all of those others in spite of that, there's a decent chance your kid will resent being "held back" by such a choice for a very long time if you give them trade school as their only option in life.

Lots of people find ways to be successful in the arts by eventually finding something cross-disciplinary, and with the direction most non-white-collar jobs in the US are heading I wouldn't bet my kid's life on trade school. What made sense as a sentiment on Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs" 10+ years ago doesn't quite hold up as well today, and those projects were funded by the Koch brothers and the whole "trade school is just as good" thing should be taken with a mountain of salt. I'd love to see more data proving trade school proves better today, especially for young adults with educational backgrounds and access to learning and job opportunities whose parents are in the economic class to be browsing HN

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#517

Post by brightlancer »

prepend wrote: post #376
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.

How many kids do you have? Interests are all well and good, but costs are real. Following passion is for rich people (or people who get unlimited student loans).

> Following passion is for rich people (or people who get unlimited student loans).

I think this is a truism that people want to be false.

But in any developed country, most poor people are pretty rich when compared to the world, and it offers them lots of freedom to choose what field they want to work in, where they want to work (both city and company), etc. There isn't the expectations that sons take their fathers' jobs and that daughters take their mothers' (often being a homemaker).

It still sucks to be relatively poor in a developed country, but most are rich enough that they can follow their passions in ways their grandparents never could and half the world can't today.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#518

Post by leshow »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #341
somewhat_drunk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I'd wager econlib is cherry picking https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-library-of-economics-and-...

Mainstream economists have thought very different things at different times. The current mainstream orthodoxy is largely free market fundamentalists that took over in the 80's. There are heterodox economists that disagree with this view. Practically, there are also many examples of price and rent controls and de-commodification "working" throughout modern history and currently on other countries.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#519

Post by eitally »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #171
hospitalJail wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're paying $20k for daycare and there's not really a free option, that's just what you have to do. If you're paying $20k for private school, and there's a free option (public school) - you obviously have a healthy amount of disposable income.

But once you've become sensitized to the impact of paying for daycare on your budget, it's easy to logically just continue the same budget and funnel the same money to a different school.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#520

Post by bell-cot »

SoftTalker wrote: post #447
jrockway wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there is pretty much no social safety net, people are probably going to find some sort of work even if they have a lot of student loan debt. And, the debt servicer can garnish those wages. You are essentially selling yourself into slavery if you take a student loan! (And the reasoning is so weird to me; I went to a state school and tuition was $750/semester. Why are people paying more unless they are extremely…

You're entirely right, but if I have $200K in debt for my useless undergrad degree, and I can only find a job at Starbucks, garnishment or not the bank is not getting their money back. The court will order some kind of payment, sure, but they'll prioritize me paying for rent and food.

Hopefully for you the court's prioritizing will actually allow enough $$$ for your rent and food and medical expenses and transportation and clothing and etc. And adjust that when inflation hits the costs of those things.
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