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Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

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Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#531

Post by sudosysgen »

ericmay wrote: post #530
sudosysgen wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These organizations literally directly receive money from the government. Students grants are a factor too, but they are owned and financed in large part by the State. That's called a subsidy. They are losing money, that the taxpayer shoulders.

Ok. So I looked at the FY19 budget for one of the universities I attended and for the overall budget of $7.3 billion it's broken out like this (numbers are rounded). [1] Tuition and fees -> $1.8 bb Government appropriations (it looks like this is what you're referring to as direct subsidies?) -> $ 470 mm Grants and contracts -> $862 mm Sales & Services University -> $543 mm Sales & Services Health System -> $3.3 bb S…

Yup, government appropriations is about 38% of tuition. Part of tuition is also paid for by the government via various programs.

So if you want to look at total cost starting from the average amount a student pays as tuition you have to increase it by 38%. There are of course other intangibles paid for by the government such as the initial investment, often the land and a part of the endowment too.

So it is consequence fair to say that that tuition in state university is subsidized by the government.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#532

Post by admax88q »

apta wrote: post #350
jefftk wrote: post #10

> the feds should handle student loans the same way they handle medicaid/medicare reimbursement. I'm not sure how anyone looks at our health care reimbursement system and the decides that's the approach to apply to fix anything else? Personally, I'd like to see: * Employers are allowed to test students to see what they can do, but not evaluate them based on whether they went to school or where. * Make student loan de…

The real solution is to ban lending with interest. We have known that usurious lending is a parasitic practice for thousands of years, how did we not learn?

Without interest, why would anybody lend?

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#533

Post by thatcat »

sokoloff wrote: post #505
thatcat wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too high if the degree doesn't lead to employment or is not useful in employment. Consider the cost over a lifetime: it is much more than 27-37k after it is paid off and there is no way to discharge the debt. It's a risk that is put on students who are 17-18 and the effect is essentially to increase worker desperation of 21-22 year olds - suppressing labor costs to employers while increasing the monthly bills of…

I think if you look at what modern on-campus housing and amenities have evolved to become, I struggle to agree with a description of that experience as "poverty conditions".

I’ve heard that narrative too.. Dorms with 2 people in a 15x10 space was my first experience. Then there was a whole bubble of slum lords renting barely habitable split homes built a century ago near campus for the same amount my parents pay on their mortgage. Large minority of college students report being hungry and not being able to afford food. Sure there were some nice new buildings as seen on tv, many of them weren’t and had terrible seating and lighting though.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hunger-campus-fight-aga...

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#534

Post by hintymad »

bonoboTP wrote: post #259
noetic_techy wrote: post #34

"The question then becomes a matter of how we fix this without diminishing access to a college education." This is the crux of it that everyone needs to get over. Universality, High Quality, Low Cost. Pick two. By letting the government meddle you have guaranteed no one can afford college and will be long in debt to a loan they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I'd rather have cheap college then universal access for ev…

A lot of the cost of American college doesn't go towards education but things like sports stadiums and teams, various non-academic events, administrators, various other non-academic staff, uniquely-expensive American legal costs and insurance, on-campus police (a big wtf for Europeans), and then there are also those people who decide which Halloween costumes are appropriate for students, investigate various misconduc…

I thought college sports helped university get huge amount of money. But yeah, American's obsession of sports is bewildering. Caltech was mocked in national media for their poor performance in NCCA. I mean, really? Why would I give rat's ass about NCCA or Caltech in NCCA? For all I care about, I just wanna see Caltech produce top-notch education, research, and students.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#535

Post by hinkley »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #345
hinkley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also students are not yet used to thinking about debt, or how things are paid for really, which means that the whole practice is predatory. Those perks are paid for from imaginary money as far as they're concerned. I know some trade schools have attempted instead to do a risk sharing model where they are entitled to some fraction of your income for n years after graduation, but I don't think people are comfortable wi…

>Also students are not yet used to thinking about debt, or how things are paid for really And why politicians want to see them in the voting booths so badly.

Touché.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#536

Post by thatcat »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #361
thatcat wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too high if the degree doesn't lead to employment or is not useful in employment. Consider the cost over a lifetime: it is much more than 27-37k after it is paid off and there is no way to discharge the debt. It's a risk that is put on students who are 17-18 and the effect is essentially to increase worker desperation of 21-22 year olds - suppressing labor costs to employers while increasing the monthly bills of…

> Why should students pay for this while living for 4 years in poverty conditions when there is arguably little tangible benefit beyond checking a box required by employers? They wouldn't. But there is a tangible benefit for many, that is why they are willing to spend this money to go to school. No one forces kids to go to school at 18 just like it doesn't force kids to blow money on credit cards and rack up debt, or…

The fact that it continues is not evidence of effectiveness of educational ability, it’s evidence of structural entrenchment of the process due to the efficiency with which the process can extract value from students without options or perspective.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#537

Post by lcall »

For what it may be worth, I am aware of a couple of thriftier, high-quality, sustainable, (edit: also online,) alternatives:

BYU Pathway Worldwide and associated programs. It requires a "close tie" (i.e., family, close friend, attendance...) to the sponsoring Church but not necessarily membership. Tuition is lower (especially if you take the year of English etc first) and varies by country; bachelors programs (like IT, business, others) are available; programs excellent; and it is also suitable for those who need to first become qualified for entering a university (edit: i.e., learning English which is used in curriculum, and other basic skills), then provides that university. More info is in Wikipedia and I have gathered a bit of info including linking to a news article that explains it well I think, here: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854578440.html .

And: https://www.wgu.edu/ (also mentioned in wikipedia): state aid available from multiple states it seems (per wkp). Others have commented about it in other HN discussions.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#538

Post by baconandeggs »

fastaguy88 wrote: post #524
baconandeggs wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the price has gone up because students are responsible for more of the cost. That is not how prices work, the prices can't go up if the only buyers have no money. The price went up because they got access to credit. To government mandated credit.

I suppose this seems to make sense if you believe that higher education costs are a true market that has found some kind of equilibrium. But it's not. College graduate parents are going to try very hard to send their kids to college, and today, the vast majority of students at 4 year colleges come from families with college graduate parents. When tuitions were low, this did not require much sacrifice for those parent…

We are not arguing about the cost of education because students can't pay the tuition; they pay the tuition every year with no problem even though it keeps rising. The argument is because after they graduate they have a mountain of student debt. Students have a debt problem not a tuition problem. Colleges will keep raising prices as long as the students keep paying them because that is how markets work.

Loans have enabled all those "changes in education finance", all of them. You don't need to have 100% reach to influence a market, you don't even need to be technically in the same market to influence another one (see smartphones and taxis).

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#539

Post by jldugger »

km3k wrote: post #517
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the mistake of commuting from home my first year in university (UW, i graduated high school in the area), it is really not that great to “commute” and pure commuter schools (where most students commute to from home) offer a different experience from other universities. One point of university is to make it on your own. If your daddy is rich, this is in the dorms, if not, you rent a basement room nearby and bik…

I went to SUNY Buffalo and while it isn't purely commuter, there was a significant commuter population. I lived with my parents nearby and had an 8-9 minute commute. If I had an 8am lecture (before the majority of commuters were there for the day), I could typically leave the house at 7:49am and still usually get to my seat as the professor began the lecture around 8:01am.

I'm kind of impressed because when I was in college it took more than 10 minutes to find a parking space.

Re: Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? A blank check in 1993

#540

Post by Digory »

jldugger wrote: post #377
Digory wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many colleges have old buildings on campus that are cash cows. There's little incentive to cut margins by building new. But recent buildings look better, and the off-campus "communities" in Texas look better than ... most apartments in New York. [0] [0] https://www.theblockwestcampus.com/features.aspx

>But recent buildings look better, and the off-campus "communities" in Texas look better than ... most apartments in New York. [0] How bad are the apartments in New York? The one you cite has great marketing literature but abysmal reviews: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-block-austin-3?osq=the+block

I guess this is the equivalent in NYC.[0] Which, admittedly, looks nicer than my dorm in college, even accounting for the normal difference between advertising and reality.

But most of my Manhattan-based friends started off with summer jobs and living in spaces smaller than closets out in suburbia. But that came with a certain vie boheme that you probably don't get at "The Block" in Texas.

[0]https://www.63wallstreet.com/63-wall-street-new-york-ny/inte...

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