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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

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have far, far too many liberal arts graduates. There is a huge labor shortage that we need those people to fill in fields like restaurants, plumbing, nursing, construction, farming, etc.

There's no labor shortage. There's only a wage shortage. Restaurants are a particularly egregious example, as someone with firsthand experience. Restaurants treat their employees like shit, work them to the bone, and then pay them as little as humanly possible. I got out and never looked back, because it turns out people are willing to shower you in cash if you can string together 3 lines of Python. Healthcare as a w…

+1 to no labor shortage in the construction industry. Good luck getting trained as a tradesman outside the unions. Joining a union is a practical impossibility if you're a white male. You'll be subsidizing your non-union employers with your own savings as an apprentice well into your journeyman career. You'll be sitting idle unpaid in between jobs, when it's raining or snowing, when your car doesn't start... Even when employed, you'll have no benefits, no health insurance, no paid vacation. You'll be competing for the scarce work with people who're in this country without a work permit. Guess what the going wage is for your services.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I’m 100% sure we’re headed towards another real estate meltdown sooner or later. Real estate prices and rates have skyrocketed. The number of people who could afford 500k mortgages at 3% is much higher than people who can afford 750k mortgages at 7%. But lenders aren’t going to suddenly go from approving 100 loans a month to just 10 a month. The incentive structures are designed to weasel and lie to pump…

It's crazy to see homes still selling with an increase in value of 10% from a year ago and interest rates more than doubled.

Wonder what percentage of this demand is organic home owners vs. investors (including foreign investors).

There’s been massive capital movement across the globe. Money moving out of China and Russia in particular. And the gulf countries with a surplus of cash thanks to multiple years of expensive oil.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#693
"In 2022, the relative values of $100.00 from 1983 ranges from $249.00 to $701.00.... A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say the relative value is $294.00. This answer is obtained by multiplying $100 by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1983 to 2022." - https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#694
I think using the CPI is flawed. Especially because the formula to calculate it changed. Also, more efficient industries yield cheaper products. This puts downward pressure on the CPI. I don't think this can be applied to tuition in this magnitude. For comparison, M2 money supply increased 10-fold the last 40 years.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy to see homes still selling with an increase in value of 10% from a year ago and interest rates more than doubled.

Wonder what percentage of this demand is organic home owners vs. investors (including foreign investors). There’s been massive capital movement across the globe. Money moving out of China and Russia in particular. And the gulf countries with a surplus of cash thanks to multiple years of expensive oil.

There might be something to that. Russia has become a bad place to invest money, while china’s real estate bubble looks to finally be popping. It could be that Russians and Chinese are accelerating on capital flight from their own countries due to current circumstances.

But it’s really just speculation. I haven’t noticed an influx of ore Chinese buyers into my market.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Student loans can be discharged through bankruptcy, if you pass hardship requirements. - https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation... - https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/busting-myths-...

My mom’s “City College” MBA student loans were somehow discharged when she went on medical disability. It is totally possible, but she was really not in a good spot after 50 health wise.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#697

My preferred solution is to establish an open university in the US (or make it borderless), through which anyone can earn a degree remotely for as little cost as possible -- like $5000 per year or $20k per degree. Georgia Tech and others have shown this is possible (see their 13 MS degree programs in engineering). Certainly by enlisting the growing set of tools used for remote professional collaboration, it should be…

See: - Western Governors University (WGU) - Open University (OU) Both online; both relatively cheap. N.B. Georgia Tech’s online masters programs are professional masters and not research/thesis masters — so unless you are getting paid by someone else to get them, they are almost certainly a waste of money (and there is negative selection pressure during hiring for people with these sorts of degrees).

My 35 years of experience after a comparable part-time MS in CS says otherwise.

Professional masters are often compared to a BS curriculum, which is in no way a disability to hiring or advancement since most people in engineering don't have research degrees nor need them to thrive.

In fact, the presence of a research thesis in lieu of taking a couple more courses in useful subjects would be more of a waste in the real world than the reverse, IMHO.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#698

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'…

> When students can file for bankruptcy Agree with everything you say, except for this. Allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy will result in millions of students pulling that lever as soon as they graduate. They, of course, get to keep their degrees and use them to make money their entire lives. If you file for bankruptcy and, for example, want to keep your car (which has a loan), you have to reaffirm…

> This is insane. What are we doing?

expecting academia to be a job training program, reprimanding higher level general eduction as "33%" waste, trying to address the symptom (high loans) instead of the disease (why are they high) and pretending that cutting required courseloads wouldn't also reciprocate to higher tuition costs like every single time financial aid services like FAFSA increase, repeatedly posting out-of-touch "basket weaving" examples instead of allegedly any single other degree path with "bullshit degrees", having your only argument to discharging loans be that you can't repossess knowledge like you can cars, pretending this is an issue about students not holding "commitments" instead of addressing targeted bilking of a vulnerable group of people, trying to set up a cringe libertarian stance about government stepping in to "force" you to take courses and "distortions" from "political agendas" and anti-union sentiments completely irrelevant to any other issues anyone is talking about, creating huge fake scenarios of being hundreds of thousands in debt for fake degrees and passing this off as an even slightly applicable scenario to others, ... etc

> Our 18 year old's graduate high school devoid of marketable skills

it's really unfortunate for them that they had dead weight watching over them for 18 years, waiting for them to fail and to then immediately turn blame on someone else. it's not unknowable what they're being taught. the problem more and more seems to be that people like you have a voice in the world that someone might be fooled into believing is valid.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#699
post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When students can file for bankruptcy Agree with everything you say, except for this. Allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy will result in millions of students pulling that lever as soon as they graduate. They, of course, get to keep their degrees and use them to make money their entire lives. If you file for bankruptcy and, for example, want to keep your car (which has a loan), you have to reaffirm…

> This is insane. What are we doing? expecting academia to be a job training program, reprimanding higher level general eduction as "33%" waste, trying to address the symptom (high loans) instead of the disease (why are they high) and pretending that cutting required courseloads wouldn't also reciprocate to higher tuition costs like every single time financial aid services like FAFSA increase, repeatedly posting out-…

> the problem more and more seems to be that people like you have a voice in the world that someone might be fooled into believing is valid.

Wow.

It sounds like North Korea Would be fantastic for you. You never have to hear from anyone with any opinion outside the officially approved. You’d fit right in. Highly recommended.

Re: Tuition costs have risen 710% since 1983

#700

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'…

> Hint: It's tough to get your 1st credit card if you have no credit history in the US and most lenders will not even entertain that idea. Some will do if you put in a collateral like $500 of actual cash deposit to guard against the default risk. Is that true these days? At my university 20 years ago, the credit card companies would bribe 18-year-old freshmen to sign up for their cards.

I had 0 credit history in 2016. Didn't have student loans and had avoided credit cards. Absolutely screwed me when I needed an Auto loan for a used car that I was willing to pay a heaft chunk up front. Couldn't get credit cards either, only one that would offer me one was a $100 secured card from Discover. Took me a year and luck that a loan agent at a credit union took pity on me before I could get that auto loan.
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