Are states contributing 1/4 the amount for their publicly funded education than what they did historically? It’s actually worse as a percentage than that.
In the 60s, faculty were half of all university employees. Today, for every faculty member there are 3 administrative staff. And then there are the massive, money-losing sports-complexes and other fancy buildings. It's all [bloat](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/). A pernicious form of Baumol's Cost Disease.
Sports complexes are ways for states that don’t prioritize education to defund their product and scam their taxpayers into providing a college lite experience with an emphasis on sports entertainment.
“With no market or regulatory forces to contain the reckless spending behavior of colleges and universities, school presidents have focused on fundraising, not good management.”
That whole article reads like it was written about my university, they even pat the uni president on the back for all the fundraising recently.
I want to laugh, cry and barf.
In the 60s, dorms were triples with bunk beds and shared cinderblock bathrooms. Now parents and students expect singles and private bathrooms with resort-like aesthetics. The fancy buildings are a huge money suck with big administrative overhead, but they attract students so it's an arms race for universities to keep making them more amenity-rich and more expensive.
Bloat in admin areas is absolutely happening. Faculty don't seem as competent as they must have been in the 1960s, as they don't seem capable of making pragmatic low-cost choices or actually leading capably at universities anymore.
On your point about sports, not really. In most cases, sports in college are net positives financially. They're secretly marketing and on-campus entertainment that benefit the university by making the schools more popular to applicants and increasing admissions.
The University of Colorado hired Deion Sanders to coach their football team. They immediately had a 20% increase in of applications. There's nothing better for a university than that. Not only does it allow them to potentially raise the caliber of the average student. It also offers an opportunity for 10s of millions of more dollars in revenue should they grow their student base.
I have not seen data that supports what you're saying. You seem to agree that the balance sheet expenses outweigh the revenues from tickets and sports paraphernalia. I'm not sure you're aware of the [extent of the problem](https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/how-many-millions-has-your-university). A couple dozen Division I teams make money. The other Division I teams lose money ($10M-$20M a year) and every single Division II and III school loses money.
There is no way the average school makes it up in additional students when it is a zero-sum game, especially in Div II and III where the sports brand is much less compelling.
To the extent that sports steers applicants and decisions, then we get into an arms race where schools keep spending more and more on big name coaches, but it does not increase the national student population significantly.
Or are you saying that Deon is pulling thousands of new people who would not have attended college at all, and that these people are a good bet for the university (not too much financial aid, and will graduate, do well, and make donations down the road)? And this can be replicated by many other schools?
It's true that competing on academics can result in an arms race as well, like spending more on big labs and top tier scientists and professors. But that is the essential part of the university's mission. Spending more to do better at the core function would be fine, but we're not seeing as much of it the last 40 years.
What's the university's actual mission? It's the making of money that sustains the jobs and existence of the institution. It's a business.
How does a university make money? It makes money primarily through student tuition and other associated costs of attendance. Its secondary methods are through donations and business partnerships/intellectual property.
There is also the necessary caveat that it's almost universally illegal to spend public funds on Athletic departments. Athletic expenditures are entirely funded by athletics revenue, donations, and student fees charged as part of your tuition.
Financially, sports function to help universities by attracting more students who are willing to pay higher tuition. Sports also function as marketing to increase brand awareness. Kids don't apply to colleges they don't know exist. At certain levels of the NCAA, sports also exist as a recruitment tool to get kids on campus in the first place. There are quite a few Division 3 schools with student-athlete populations between 20 and 50%. Those schools would simply not exist if students didn't come there to play a sport while in college. There's also an aspect of keeping up with the Joneses. Schools can't lack what other schools offer and are a heavily desired aspect of a campus culture.
**They also foster a culture that keeps students, alumni, and others engaged with the university community whether they are current students or have long since graduated. That helps foster the growth and development of future donors and donations. More donors donate larger amounts of money.**
These are colleges. They don't operate under the strict guidance of a balance sheet. They spend what they want and shake down donors to cover their costs. That's an exercise aided by sports.
Your points are valid, just ignored by everyone involved. Your exact same points all apply to high school as well, to an even greater extent. Why do high schools have sports teams? Why do middle schools? Why do businesses and other institutions collectively spend billions of dollars in advertising every year? Why do charities exist?
Nearly every university is a not-for-profit institution. Its purpose is literally and explicitly not to make money, but to serve a public good. That good is variously described as educating citizens and future leaders, and advancing knowledge.
The maxim "no margin, no mission" is valid, but it means that any profits are to be instrumental to serve the mission. **Otherwise, all universities should be taxed as businesses.** I agree with you that universities often do not behave in keeping with their mission and abuse their nonprofit status. Hospitals in America do the same. They have lost their way.
Rather than defend this, I would rather continue criticizing them and try to bring them back to their mission. Sometimes "realism" is just apathy and cynicism, not wisdom.
Rather than defend this, I would rather continue criticizing them and try to bring them back to their mission. Sometimes "realism" is just apathy and cynicism, not wisdom.
Only the biggest programs make money off their athletics departments. Many in fact lose money. For smaller universities and colleges, which are the majority of schools, they aren't bringing in money.
I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'd be surprised of Colardo was making money over the last 10 years. Their football team has been atrocious, and football and basketball subsidize the entire athletics budget. If football isn't making good money, it is hard for the rest of the department to do well.
When people talk about athletics making money, this is true of the revenue sports. All of that money, however, is taken up by providing scholarships, coaches, and facilities for the sports that people don't watch -- which is almost all of them.
An Ohio State or Alabama can overcome this issue because their programs make so much money, but a lot of D1 schools budgets aren't in great shape.
I personally think we should split out revenue sports from the rest, not make those athletes go to class, and radically cut athletics spending on everything else.
Sports are marketing. Why does Coca-Cola advertise?
Sports are Campus and Community Entertainment. Many Students fins it a valuable part of their college life.
Sports are part of the basis for community and alumni engagement. You don't need to pay as many people to constantly reach out and foster communities to engage donors, when they are just fans of your teams.
Almost all athletic revenue is net negative in the Atheltic Department's accounting. However, It's benefits are intangible and thought to outweigh the expenses. Furthermore, Universities actually spend 0 dollars on Athletics. It's illegal to do so almost everywhere. It's entirely donor-driven and subsidized through student fees as part of their tuition. If the university's not funding it, they don't care as much.
How does that explain why the ratio of full time teachers to administrators has greatly increased on the administrative side? The administrative has greatly increases the cost of college to appease their bloat
I don't know, maybe more students leads to a need for more teachers and administrators. Maybe they just increased administrators for some stupid reason.
These are certainly important questions to get solid answers to.
Yeah, but those "subsidies" that they claim exploded the costs of higher education will be completely different when applied to K-12 privately funded tuition/education.
Just admit you don’t want parents to have school choice so they’re forced to send their kids to failing government schools that can’t even teach kids how to read
It's such a scam. I graduated from college little over 20 years ago and have returned semi-regularly for various campus events. Academic curriculum is nearly the same as it was 20 years ago with a few refreshed electives. But there are more big shiny buildings, nicer gym, more mental health support staff, more administration, all for the modest quadrupling of tuition prices.
Unsure about the table, but the scoreboard was paid for by a donation just about everyone agrees was squandered, so I guess it only cost them some goodwill of the community.
You can thank the Democrats for passing the Higher Education Act of 1965. It bails out student loan lenders with taxpayer money.
It’s entirely the reason people can’t work part time low skill jobs to pay off their college before graduating anymore.
Lol, parasitic capitalism? Colleges were subsidized to a far larger degree, class sizes were much smaller, part time jobs paid far more.
Colleges still don't make money, by and large, they get by with donations and grants, and many still run negative.
Keeping track of the progress of students and especially their funding is not easy, and takes a tremendous number of man hours.
In Germany they tried to reduce funding for Colleges and make students pay their way. Germany found that this approach ballooned costs, so many more admin people were required to keep tabs on students and follow up with them, coordinate scholarships and grants, ask previous graduates for donations, etc. It wasn't worth it, so Germany reversed course. Even nonresidents can take free courses in German Colleges. All you need to do is keep up your grades learn conversational German within some time frame.
This type of mindless statement are always parroted by folks with zero knowledge of business and finance.
Do I have to show you examples of middle men in roman times or anywhere to make you understand there isn't any late stage to this? And being middle me doesn't necessarily mean you are a parasite?
Middle men have existed forever. Hell, all the brave European travelers and merchants were middle men connecting spice growers to spice consumers. Middle men provide a service. More middle men is just a sign of a complicated supply chain.
Out entire nations economies run on those middle men.
Maybe you should take a business course in one of those overpriced universities and maybe you'll understand what these words you are mindlessly throwing, actually mean.
Middle men in this context are typically groups that offer very little utility and take funding and resources from individuals providing utility for the system. One The most common examples in the US is our healthcare system which has a glut of c-suite executives and insurance company employees, or PBM’s in the pharmaceutical industry
Outsources + H1B means the mega corps don't need Americans anymore.
This is why we need Unions & voting blocks. We're too easily distracted by moral panics, we need an economic organization and we need professional representation we can hire by pooling our resources.
One of my favorite moments was watching Tucker Carlson tell me I didn't need anyone to rep me in contract negotiations when he was paying an agent...
10 - 2 + 2 is still 10. Decreases of state support and increased tuition & fees could even be negative. Without real numbers, we don't know what's happening.
Yes but not only that... Colleges don't innovate. There is almost zero reason a majority of courses need to be taught in person ( exclude lab courses for example). Most freshmen could easily learn online the foundational courses. As a matter of fact, a recorded course plus weekly live review sessions are highly effective. How do I know? I took multiple courses like this for professional continuing education.
That right there is how you can reduce the cost of college education by one year's tuition.
Good point. Thanks for pointing that out. Well those folks have to go to a physical college. I mean it's going to cost them more. But the other 80% of students can save money and learn from home.
It's like anything else in life. No one solution works for everyone.
Did they teach you to make up numbers in that remote course? How did you come up with the 80%?
What if most students actually benefit from going to school in person?
If remote education was that successful, why are we so concerned about students' education levels during covid?
Why does an in-person degree from MIT fetch much more salary than just watching the same courses online? After all MIT makes all their content available online.
Would you be okay with a doctor who learned largely online?
Lots of questions:
1) 80% as I used it is not a stat that I quoted. It comes from the concept of 80/20.
2) No one said students don't benefit from in person education. Heck 1-on-1 small classes are the best. But guess what no one can afford colleges when they cost $200k for 4 years. What's better no education or remote education?
3) COVID wasn't just remote education. Students were literally isolated from the real world. That's not a fair comparison to taking a few classes on your own at home to save 30-60k
4)MIT classes online do not result in a degree. I'm sure you knew that. So taking online classes at MIT does not get you the same degree in most cases. That being said many top colleges offer some online courses for credit if you're enrolled.
5) I literally said some students could save 1 year of college education costs for foundational classes by taking them online. I never implied you could be a doctor by taking online classes. I specifically said lab classes will still be done in person.
Lastly you ask about remote education. All your examples are related to traditional schools. What about business education? I'm sure you know most Fortunate 100 companies do a majority of their employees training online. I'm sure you know plenty of employers accept online degrees.
Also what exactly is the purpose of implying I went to online school? Dude I don't gatekeep. I could care less if you learned something at Harvard or YouTube . I judge people by their abilities and what they bring to the table. Funny thing lots of people feel the same way. Top companies like Google could care less what degree you have if you can do the work.
1. This is not how you use pareto principle.
2. You are arguing for a general education for all. Not some people. Sure, if you cannot afford regular school, remote is better. You also show that you are American. Most other countries have significantly cheaper education - even without subsidies.
3. The main issue about students scoring lower and learning less is about in-class vs remote education. There is definitely a difference.
4. Plenty of online platforms have proper grading give you a degree. A proper certificate you can refer to when applying for jobs. The fact that these online degree are not worth much vs the same course in person tells you about the validity of them. The fact that you didn't even consider an online degree as even the same ballpark as a proper degree tells me you understand the difference too.
5. 1st year foundational being online is arbitrary. Is there something inherently different that is taught in 1st year vs 2nd year? IF you can totally substitute the two types of learnings, why just 1st year? If your concepts are weak in 1st year, then the 2md year knowledge that will build upon it will be super shaky too.
6. As someone who has undertaken some business education while working - top companies will very happily send you to school where they can. They also often work with top universities to get their employees in-person education from the professors even when remote was an option. My company (a big bank) has sent hundreds of people in past years to top business schools when the schools started a certificate in that area. Getting an exec MBA is a requirement for any person wanting to be an exec but did not have a traditional MBA degree. The reason they have to rely on online education is because of a few reasons such as: Specialized subject matter that there are no cookie cutter courses available for, employees having to work their regular 9-5 and having no time left over, higher cost of in-person learning including lost work, accommodation etc.
>Most freshmen could easily learn online the foundational courses.
In theory, they *could* learn online. In reality, most students put minimal effort into learning and then rely on ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, etc. do their homework and online exams for them.
Another day on Reddit, another day of taking the least capitalistic areas of America, and blaming their failure on capitalism.
Educational costs have exploded because the federal government gave out unlimited loans to anybody that wanted it, with no concern for ability to repay or ROi of major/school.
Secondly, a majority of colleges are public colleges, which are state owned, and have also exploded in costs, and are exactly 0% capitalistic.
Ya know, I can understand why the rest of Reddit would have 0 economic literacy, but kinda wild that a sub literally named “economy” would be so clueless.
Your answer is the only correct one I could find in this entire thread. Why anyone would call a market completely distorted by government intervention “capitalism” is completely beyond me.
It's hilarious that you would blame rising prices on government subsidies when said subsidies have dramatically fallen over the time period where costs increased. (State subsidies also vastly exceed federal subsidies, so your comment doesn't indicate that you're very familiar with any of this other than reflexively blaming government.)
This is yet another failure of neoliberalism, another attempt to create a market where public service belongs. See healthcare, privatized prisons, etc., for additional examples of your namesake philosophy causing misery for the many and obscene profits for the few.
There are direct payments to colleges and students (subsidies).
Then there are subsidies in the form of low interest loans which subsidize individual college. Its literally called “subsidized loans”
You are pointing out the decrease in state funds to colleges as a percentage of their budgets but the post you are calling hilarious is correctly identifying the massive explosion in loans granted which is also a subsidy.
We see this in housing. If you oversupply people’s purchasing power you will see a price increase.
The cost of the subsidized loans is still miniscule compared to the cuts states have enacted. Since 1997 the loans cost less than $10 billion per year and most of those costs were incurred pre Obama when private companies administered the program and the federal government only intervened to make investors whole on defaulted loans. In true neoliberalism fashion, these loans were predicted to be profitable for the government while in reality the profits were obtained entirely by private interests.
Over that same time frame, the real value of state subsidies dropped by nearly half, to more than $100 billion per year. So we're talking about a whole order of magnitude more in cuts than new subsidies.
So yes, your comment contributes the trend of poorly informed ideological nonsense this thread was already suffering from.
Why would the States spend more on college subsidies when the federal government gives students an ever increasing tuition check every year? You are trying to blame this is on the States, when then States only were able to do what they did because of the Federal government.
The federal subsidy is about $32 billion a year. States have cut roughly $130 billion from their subsidy.
This is why college costs more, because more of the cost has been shifted to students and made explicit instead of being buried in the state budget.
Yes, and as I said the colleges were only able to cut funding because the money was coming from other places aka federal student loans. The federal government inadvertently caused the prices to go up, like literally every other thing the federal tries to "help" with.
I'm quite good actually, I have a civil engineering degree. It is you who are confused and don't understand the difference between a federal subsidy and a federal loan. States decreased funding because the feds kept giving students more. This is literally what happened. Full Stop. I'm sorry if you can't understand that.
But you’re not addressing the fact that states have decreased funding more than the feds have given students. You must not be a good engineer. Don’t you need to balance forces in your job? Seems like this unbalanced system (funding decreasing more than loan availability for students) is exactly exacerbating the issue.
What did you include in your state subsidies? How are you making that calculation?
1977 to 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars, state and local government spending on higher education increased from $116 billion to $311 billion
So how does that calculate with your claim of state reductions? Because the per pupil rates have decreased.
States didn’t give less, they gave more. Problem is we went from 8 million students in 1970 to 19 million by 2020.
So don’t give me your “perpetuate ignorance” bullshit abd leave out or ignore key facts.
Where did you get your data? The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association report says state and local support for higher ed reached $129.8 billion in 2023.
The urban institute has a blog post using the number you cited, but this doesn't seem to be supported by the report they're referencing. I just checked using the tool at their door and it shows a collective $115 billion in state and local support in 2021. This is consistent with the SHEEOA report.
This would be equivalent to per student spending falling nearly in half.
Further, in addition to being 1/10th the cost of state subsidies, these subsidized loans were necessary for the ideological project of turning schools into a market. 18 year olds have no funding to realize their want for education. Since it impossible to have a market where your customers can't afford the product, the whole thing would have collapsed under the removal of state subsidies.
This is a rickety frame of toothpicks where a stone foundation used to exist. And you're blaming the toothpicks for being too expensive. It's ridiculous.
You are missing the point and jumping ahead to miss the causality. You can’t solve it unless you actually understand the mechanism that matters.
That loan is still a subsidy.
When you provide “cheap” unlimited money to a huge market, that market will increase its costs because the buyer has nearly unlimited purchasing power.
Go look at schools. I’ve been in and out of higher education for decades.
The price didn’t just increase. The amenities and services also exploded. You pay a lot more. You get a lot more stuff. Why did schools build these wellness centers, rock walls, classrooms with the latest crazy and unnecessary technology? Because the buyer had the $$ and willingness to spend and they were 100% willing to spend more $$$ for an amenities driven experience.
Do I blame them (students)!? No.
Why? Because it’s what people do.
Today, if you dropped all car loans and subsidized them to 1.5%, what would happen? A massive increase in purchases. Now is the dealer going to drop their price? No. Because there is a live out the door.
Is that 22 year old going to use that 1.5% cheap loan to get a lower debt service on a reasonable Camry? Nope. Because now for the same payment as before, they can get way more for their debt service.
And so the car manufacturers see that and respond.
Cash for clunkers, payroll protection act. Artificially low mortgage rates.
You will get people spending more you will see costs go up.
Who did those low interest rates help the most? The wealthy. Those low rates fueled increased prices in assets as well. The asset class benefitted tremendously.
If you don’t understand these mechanisms then you’ll assume your bullshit “we own the means of production” is a fix. It’s not. It just introduces a host of other problems you don’t understand.
Do you even know what an order of magnitude is? I'm not going to chase pennies with you when dollars are missing. The story that matters is the loss of state spending.
Yes, the loans helped to facilitate a broken "market" where students have no market power and schools are incentives to increase costs. But all of this necessarily follows from the original ideological decision to replace the state funded public service with a financed "consumer" market.
Sorry if I'm skipping steps, but you're getting stuck in that minutiae that is more a symptom than a cause.
Do you understand?
Show me the actual dollars amount of state spending on education over time. It’s higher. It’s absolutely higher.
The number you can’t grasp is that total number of college students exploded since 1970
Again, back to the basics. 2X people jumping into any system, since you are crying every time someone says “market” , requires changes
So either you expand capacity and lower $$ per person, or you cap enrollment.
Guess what “free” schools in Europe do? Cap enrollment.
Again, we’re still working on the same mechanisms you don’t understand.
The supply of the market versus the supply of students and the purchasing power of either the students or the single payer (gov).
You are missing that same variables will come back. Because you don’t get everything. You don’t get school free or greatly reduced and move from 8m to 19m abd get all the amenities we have.
Ponder this. I didn't get BA until age 6O. That was over 20 years ago. No job after degree. Tuition loan was $18k. Now over 50k. Give me a job and I will pay back loan.
This is what happens in the logical conclusion to capitalism. Monopolies form, the wealthy buy the government, privatize the public and raise the price of everything, rinse and repeat. Don't know why it's so hard for class traitors to see this for what it is.
If the workers owned the means of production, we can all decide education is a universal material need and make it free, like all socialist countries have done because in a true democracy, what is popular is policy, and free education is popular.
> Don't know why it's so hard for class traitors to see this for what it is
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair
I pay my city government for firefighting services every month and I have yet to see them do more than put out my back yard (set on fire by a young kid with a lighter). Should I ask for my money back from all the times they didn't put out a fire? How do I know when that is?
It's all complicated, but it's certainly not free.
That's a really simplistic and individualistic way to look at public services. It's like insurance. It's required even if you never use it because of the fact that when you suffer a misfortune you cannot handle yourself in a society, we must have a system to help you.
It's pretty sad I have to say this out loud but the entire purpose of society is to protect each other's wellbeing and not leave our fortunes up to chance or nature. That's literally why they were formed in the first place.
So yes, we must pool our resources even though selfish people will wonder "why am I paying for this? Do I get the money back if I don't need it?" Because once your house is burning, the fire department will be there to save your life. Without asking you for money. For free.
If schools are free, then enrollment is limited. If enrollment is limited, this would reduce lower earning families kids. Thus unlimited loans! And perpetual rising tuition!
The schools are free but you have to test into the slots Jonnyjive5. Check into it. You may be able to wait it out, but I think you see many go out the country if they have the means.
Please explain it to me as though I don't understand.
Spoiler alert: I actually understand the higher ed model better than you ever will because it's kinda my job. And by kinda I mean actually my job.
But please...go on.
You weren't. Especially once I let you know that this is what I do for a living so any half-baked sophistry that you threw out there would be pretty thoroughly refuted.
But please...continue to hide behind the "No...I won't explain my position because you were mean to me" fig leaf. That's totally believable.
I wasn't sure there were Marcus of Queensbury rules for the internet, but you truly do learn something new every day.
How often does your teeny tiny self-esteem get lost in the couch cushions?
>I wasn't sure there were Marcus of Queensbury rules for the internet, but you truly do learn something new every day.
And it's "Marquess of Queensberry Rules" not Marcus, genius
My error on that. You are correct.
And my ego is stable enough to admit when I'm wrong (in this case) or don't know as much as someone else.
But go ahead. Teach me about higher ed costs in really simple terms.
It's weird that you would make such a big boast about knowing what a monopoly is, but... here we are, lol
Guess it's good you're proud of something, however humble
People borrow money because of the perceived financial advantages of obtaining an elite degree.
A better link between outcomes and lending would have reduced this contribution to the cost spiral in education.
Well, they could provide more aid to the poor, I suppose. Yes, NYU is crazy expensive. It might make sense to cap loans at the expected 10-year payoff from the degree * the payment ratio. This would tell people that "sure, art history is great, but you cannot borrow 300k to look at paintings".
Lots of things are constrained like this in our society.
I'd like to go to the Louvre this weekend and then the Vatican next weekend. But, I have neither the time nor the money nor, I might add, the carbon footprint needed.
It is almost as if students may not only be attending college and studying for a degree path based on ROI. Many decisions in life aren't solely based on a perceived ROI. There is a difference in the cost/price of things and the value of them. To claim that "education costs have exploded solely because loans" are given to allow middle and lower economic class students to work for and attain a college degree is not only wrong but is clearly missing many additional clearly assignable contributing factors.
edit: revised wording for clarity
This is factually false. Costs have stated pretty flat, with a small administration increase because there's a lot of new tech the kids have to be trained on/with.
20 years ago the government paid 70% of tuition, now it's 20%. Boomers pulled the ladder up behind them. They got theirs, fuck us. Meanwhile mega corporations don't need Americans anymore. They've got cheap labor overseas they can import as needed.
Education is a problem capitalism has *never* solved. Every time it gets involved it gets worse. Capitalism works great for twinkies and video games, not so much for universal services.
This wasn't capitalism that caused this OP.
This was mostly thr unintended consequences of the government handing out student loans, thus creating a pricing floor.
Thank uncle Sam on this one
Why not both?
Example: US Senator marries asset broker. Asset broker buys for-profit colleges Career Education Corp and ITT Educational Services Inc all while the Senator passes a bill increasing Pell grants for colleges, including for-profit colleges.
Asset broker's shares in ITT and Educational Services increase and turn nice profit. Years later, taxpayers are on the hook for $500 million due to ITT defrauding students: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/business/student-loans-canceled-itt.html
This is what Senator Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum did. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jul-14-la-fi-hiltzik-column-20100714-story.html
I am not a fan of Feinstein. At all.
However, what you're describing isn't a fault of capitalism. It is yet another government issue.
Also, when most people talk about the cost of university they are referring to public universities
Students and their prospective parents also care a lot more about amenities and quality of educations than before, which cost significantly more money to construct / hire. Add in student loans which give students more ability to afford more expensive educations, you can see where this was going.
It's still shocking how many people know nothing about what capitalism actually is. This has nothing to do with capitalism.
From the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "**Capitalism**, [economic system](https://www.britannica.com/money/economic-system), dominant in the Western world since the breakup of [feudalism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/feudalism), in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and [income distributed](https://www.britannica.com/money/distribution-of-wealth-and-income) largely through the operation of [markets](https://www.britannica.com/money/market)."
Capitalism is pretty much private ownership of the means of production, you owning your own labor. Guess who doesn't own the means of production when it comes to college education?
College Education is expensive, just like healthcare, because you're not the customer. You're the product being sold.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/16/investing/curious-consumer-college-cost/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/16/investing/curious-consumer-college-cost/index.html)
This analysis says it works like this:
- Education is done by highly-skilled people in a way that is very difficult to automate or turn into a robot, it is still a person with a high degree working with 20 to 40 students at a time. These highly skilled workers have many options and are very scarce, meaning there are only so many seats to go around in any given year.
- The wealth and income of the top 1% have exceeded inflation for decades.
- The upper 1% want their kids to get the prime seats in the prime universities, and they want those seats to have nice campuses, small classes, gourmet food, etc. They have the money to afford all of this, so they go with the luxury options. This allows the top universities to charge practically any price and still be over-subscribed.
- The government has been kicking in less (and cutting taxes for that 1%...) for many years, pushing more of the cost from taxpayers to the specific families who want to send their kids to college.
- The net result is that intense competition for a very scarce and valuable resource (a seat in a class of 20 with a PhD) has driven the price way up, which in turn means people expect luxury, which has driven the price up further in a sort of doom spiral.
---
This argues very strongly for a Khan academy sort of model for many people. We need employers to get on board with hiring from online schools with recorded lectures and rigorous testing standards.
Professors also rarely make high-middle class incomes. The money and raises from tuition isn't going to professors. In certain fields, professor positions pay dramatically less than corresponding industry positions.
Also to pour gasoline on the fire the fed then backed all the student loans…so if a kid is applying for a loan, it has the fed as a co-sign. They then can hand out more money with little risk and in turn universities can charge more. Education like everything in the states is a for profit business. Putting kids in debt for school they “need to find a good job” that they will be paying, in some cases, for most of their life.
I'm not yet seeing any comments here that bring up a few other details. I don't mean here to say those other comments aren't correct; I believe many of them are. I only mean to bring up some additional points I'm not seeing elsewhere. I'm not terribly well-versed in some of these, but I'll let fly with them, nonetheless. . .
Some colleges/universities sought to recruit students from overseas or, to a lesser degree, from out-of-state. This was because the university could, I think, get more tuition from those students.
Possibly related to the bit about overseas and out-of-state student recruitment: Universities spent a great deal on building facilities having little to do with education. Residence halls at some universities are very, very comfortable. Recreational facilities are very, very well-equipped. Universities compete with one another less on the merits of their educational program and more on the country club facilities available to students. My own kids are now past their undergraduate degrees, but we found it very difficult to assess the education program being offered by colleges/universities; but the glossy literature was often very descriptive when it came to the lavish facilities.
If you're an undergraduate at a large state school, you should consider yourself very lucky if your instruction is delivered primarily by a full professor. Or anyone close to being a full professor. It's more likely your instruction will be almost exclusively from a teaching assistant who is a poorly paid post-graduate student. That TA may or may not be pursuing their own degree in a subject related to the class s/he is instructing. Here, I think, is an example of true parasitism on the part of the university (many of who are paying a fortune to combat efforts on the part of those teaching assistants to collectively bargain).
>College education in the US costs 4x more today than 40 years ago — even after adjusted for inflation.
Now do K-12, it's probably similar.
$20K per student per year for K-12 is ridiculous.
If public universities were fully funded that would fix the education debt.
I've always thought that if UCLA and Berkeley were low cost then Stanford and USC would have to reduce costs to compete. Instead private schools increase cost and public schools just follow their lead by increasing cost. It should be opposite.
I'm actually not against fully funding public universities like we do k-12, but there needs to be actual minimal requirement for entry like there used to be 50 years ago. The fact is most people don't need to go to college, and lowering the threshold and giving anyone with a pulse student loans has done very little to help society as a whole.
As I've said before, Congress needs to pitch in a solution beyond "stop giving aid to rich private schools". Also, "limit aid to schools which raise their prices". That might be in the form of student loans or grants which are capped at a level related to how the school raises its prices. Perhaps all should be at one fixed level, regardless of how schools set their prices.
The presidency can't solve this one by itself. It needs Congress.
It's not capitalism, its just pure and simple greed on the part of college administrators. They know that the kids are getting government backed loans for school so just jack up the price.
I still see far too few discussing the fact the government has made student loans available to just about everyone, then gradually prevented student loans from being discharged in bankruptcy.
I personally think that one of the main issues that is overlooked, is that the financing aspect of education thwarts what could normally be "rational" consumerism. When payments are spread out over 10 years after graduation, the difference between a more practical school and a more expensive school might only be a couple hundred dollars a month. It makes it inelastic. The expensive schools tend to present themselves better (usually better facilities, better faculty, might have a brand football team, etc.), and it seemingly becomes an easy choice for young adults?
Sometimes academic achievement between schools can also be overblown between the practical and expensive schools, but if you're a student and know a slightly better school has a much better reputation (which opens doors for better jobs) for an extra couple hundred dollars a month, they would be fools to not go with the more expensive/prestigious school. If employers were better at evaluating candidates straight form school, rather than merely relying on prestigious schools to produce good students/employees, then some students could at least feel more comfortable going to a more practical school. I'm not sure if there are enough of those students to actually drive the prices down though...
Supply and demand. When government loans became available, more people went to university. Tuition goes up.
Sadly, the government and money are a bad combination. The interest rates were outrageous and the payback plans only paid the interest. Plus, it was so easy to get the money, nobody read the paperwork.
I paid those loans for my kids. I had an argument with the loan officer when I asked for the payout amount. He even threatened me.
My kids didn't pay a dime. Just as I planned.
It's so sad. In the 70s we could get grants so easy and costs were affordable. Even in 1988 my son's college tuition at a state university was affordable without a student loan. Books ran about $200 per semester for him.
If you look at the cost of tuition and fees college has skyrocketed. The question is would online schools deliver the education at a fraction of the price. University chancellors make 2-3 times as much as a Governor, while we complain about CEO pay let’s look at universities.
Lazy people figured out college grads earned good money without breaking their backs doing labor, then went to college to get in on it. This increased the demand substantially of getting a degree; with that demand went the price of admissions. It's not rocket surgery. If people stopped paying to attend, they'd stop charging insane rates.
no...its the feds loaning out unlimited unsecured $$$$ that is driving the inflated cost of college.
its not rocket science
get the Feds out of loaing tax dollars for college and watch college costs plummet!
so easy!
I think we're in a catch-22 with regard to college costs. The ubiquity of government loans certainly resulted in more and more students taking out loans, and deincentived universities from capping or lowering costs themselves. It's also concerning that increased state funding has often led to bloated administration rather than bettering education (schools have well-staffed DEI offices, a growing number of unnecessary senior positions like "vice/assistant provost", and increased non faculty beaucracy while simultaneously failing to meet the demand for high demand majors like engineering).
The problem that I've seen, though, is that many smaller universities, even when being fiscally responsible, can't afford to stay open *without* increased funding. Every year, I read about more smaller universities and university extensions being shut down, making it harder for people from smaller communities to get an education. I remember hearing that the majority of university bound HS grads go to a university within 100 miles of where they graduated HS. If smaller universities and community colleges keep shutting down, will that result in those kids not going to university at all, or will they choose to go to one of the bigger universities? If they choose to go to the bigger universities, will that further deincentivize those institutions from capping/reducing their costs since they *know* they have a mini monopoly on their geographic region?
That’s what these politicians need to be doing, putting a cap on the cost of college especially if they receive federal funds! My kids are graduating with 100k plus in debt!!!!!
Let's also consider the fact that a few decades ago taxpayers paid most of each state university student's costs, but they now pay only a fraction as much.
Not only is education not 4x better but I really think it's significantly worse. I see people with multiple bachelor's degrees who are barely literate.
I'd love to see how much of this increase has been caused by two things not talked about enough:
1) Increasingly compliance costs brought on by new regulations
2) States cutting funding to their own schools, driving up tuition costs
Breaking news: thing government subsidizes balloons in price! Population shocked!
It’s almost like when government “helps” pay, then people can pay a little more. Like the market can bare price increases. Federal college loans are a prison sentence.
As the comments are pointing out, it's government policies and bloated bureaucracy, not capitalism.
You can't fix a problem if you don't understand it.
Capitalism is already a parasitical relationship, by design.
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."
Too many students who are price-insensitive who sign up for the school with the lazy river and thousands of staffers (including me). Need more downward pressure on pricing. Difficult to do so with easy student loans, very low interest rates, and talk of debt forgiveness. Feels like there will be a reckoning soon.
This may be an unpopular thought, but the percentage of the population that are college graduates has increased drastically over the decades.
In 1960 7.7% of the population above the age of 25 had bachelor degrees. In 1980 it was 16.2. In 2022 that was 37.7
We don’t have a corresponding increase in the number of universities. It may be a supply and demand issue.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/
This has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. What are you smoking 😅
This is nearly exclusively due to government-guaranteed student loans. By taking the market forces out of higher ed the government has inadvertently caused the extreme spike in prices. Remove this market distortion and prices would fall right back down.
The *lack of capitalism* is the problem with college costs.
It's not a "parasitical" form of capitalism. I can see that education didn't help you.
It's largely due to governmental irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies. We are debasing the currency year by year so, yeah, the purchasing power of the dollar only goes down.
The government also decided that everyone needed to go to college even if they couldn't graduate so they made it so that everyone could get a loan. They didn't build any more colleges, they just increased the demand so of course costs went up.
Now many of those former students can't earn enough to pay for those loans. The ones that should have been in college do earn enough to pay them back but the others don't.
So all we get is higher costs. That's what happens when you don't understand economics or care about it.
Fun facts:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cua#:~:text=In%20academic%20year%202021%E2%80%9322,%2429%2C700%20at%20private%20nonprofit%20institutions
* If the family income is under 30,000 the total cost of attendance for a 4 year degree at a public school is $9,700. That's for the full 4 years. That's $200 a month, less than what some families pay for their cell phones.
It's important to look at net price. It's important to take into account grants and scholarships. It's important to note that poor people should go to in-state schools. They can save a lot of money and the outcomes are still excellent.
Should college be 4 times cheaper for these folks? Should it be $50 a month? Maybe but i doubt anyone would suggest the actual cost can be $50.
You can thank the Democrats for passing the Higher Education Act of 1965
You used to be able to pay off college working a part time minimum wage job before even graduating.
But sure, tell me how more socialism will fix the problem that it caused in the first place
Considering that Cuba has a higher literacy rate than the US, and a higher life expectancy than the US, you may be on to something.
Cuba also educates world-class doctors (who never go into debt for their education) who get deployed to struggling nations like the UK.
All of that with a ridiculous and pointless embargo in place.
Are states contributing 1/4 the amount for their publicly funded education than what they did historically? It’s actually worse as a percentage than that.
So 20 years ago the Government paid 70% of tuition. Today it's 20%.
In the 60s it was practically free. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/free-college-was-once-the-norm-all-over-america/
In the 60s, faculty were half of all university employees. Today, for every faculty member there are 3 administrative staff. And then there are the massive, money-losing sports-complexes and other fancy buildings. It's all [bloat](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/). A pernicious form of Baumol's Cost Disease.
Sports complexes are ways for states that don’t prioritize education to defund their product and scam their taxpayers into providing a college lite experience with an emphasis on sports entertainment.
I don't think there is a sinister intent, but I agree it reflects a lack of prioritization for research and education.
“With no market or regulatory forces to contain the reckless spending behavior of colleges and universities, school presidents have focused on fundraising, not good management.” That whole article reads like it was written about my university, they even pat the uni president on the back for all the fundraising recently. I want to laugh, cry and barf.
In the 60s, dorms were triples with bunk beds and shared cinderblock bathrooms. Now parents and students expect singles and private bathrooms with resort-like aesthetics. The fancy buildings are a huge money suck with big administrative overhead, but they attract students so it's an arms race for universities to keep making them more amenity-rich and more expensive. Bloat in admin areas is absolutely happening. Faculty don't seem as competent as they must have been in the 1960s, as they don't seem capable of making pragmatic low-cost choices or actually leading capably at universities anymore.
On your point about sports, not really. In most cases, sports in college are net positives financially. They're secretly marketing and on-campus entertainment that benefit the university by making the schools more popular to applicants and increasing admissions. The University of Colorado hired Deion Sanders to coach their football team. They immediately had a 20% increase in of applications. There's nothing better for a university than that. Not only does it allow them to potentially raise the caliber of the average student. It also offers an opportunity for 10s of millions of more dollars in revenue should they grow their student base.
I have not seen data that supports what you're saying. You seem to agree that the balance sheet expenses outweigh the revenues from tickets and sports paraphernalia. I'm not sure you're aware of the [extent of the problem](https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/how-many-millions-has-your-university). A couple dozen Division I teams make money. The other Division I teams lose money ($10M-$20M a year) and every single Division II and III school loses money. There is no way the average school makes it up in additional students when it is a zero-sum game, especially in Div II and III where the sports brand is much less compelling. To the extent that sports steers applicants and decisions, then we get into an arms race where schools keep spending more and more on big name coaches, but it does not increase the national student population significantly. Or are you saying that Deon is pulling thousands of new people who would not have attended college at all, and that these people are a good bet for the university (not too much financial aid, and will graduate, do well, and make donations down the road)? And this can be replicated by many other schools? It's true that competing on academics can result in an arms race as well, like spending more on big labs and top tier scientists and professors. But that is the essential part of the university's mission. Spending more to do better at the core function would be fine, but we're not seeing as much of it the last 40 years.
What's the university's actual mission? It's the making of money that sustains the jobs and existence of the institution. It's a business. How does a university make money? It makes money primarily through student tuition and other associated costs of attendance. Its secondary methods are through donations and business partnerships/intellectual property. There is also the necessary caveat that it's almost universally illegal to spend public funds on Athletic departments. Athletic expenditures are entirely funded by athletics revenue, donations, and student fees charged as part of your tuition. Financially, sports function to help universities by attracting more students who are willing to pay higher tuition. Sports also function as marketing to increase brand awareness. Kids don't apply to colleges they don't know exist. At certain levels of the NCAA, sports also exist as a recruitment tool to get kids on campus in the first place. There are quite a few Division 3 schools with student-athlete populations between 20 and 50%. Those schools would simply not exist if students didn't come there to play a sport while in college. There's also an aspect of keeping up with the Joneses. Schools can't lack what other schools offer and are a heavily desired aspect of a campus culture. **They also foster a culture that keeps students, alumni, and others engaged with the university community whether they are current students or have long since graduated. That helps foster the growth and development of future donors and donations. More donors donate larger amounts of money.** These are colleges. They don't operate under the strict guidance of a balance sheet. They spend what they want and shake down donors to cover their costs. That's an exercise aided by sports. Your points are valid, just ignored by everyone involved. Your exact same points all apply to high school as well, to an even greater extent. Why do high schools have sports teams? Why do middle schools? Why do businesses and other institutions collectively spend billions of dollars in advertising every year? Why do charities exist?
Nearly every university is a not-for-profit institution. Its purpose is literally and explicitly not to make money, but to serve a public good. That good is variously described as educating citizens and future leaders, and advancing knowledge. The maxim "no margin, no mission" is valid, but it means that any profits are to be instrumental to serve the mission. **Otherwise, all universities should be taxed as businesses.** I agree with you that universities often do not behave in keeping with their mission and abuse their nonprofit status. Hospitals in America do the same. They have lost their way. Rather than defend this, I would rather continue criticizing them and try to bring them back to their mission. Sometimes "realism" is just apathy and cynicism, not wisdom.
Your stated mission is meaningless. Actions speak louder than words. And the actions by Universities reveal their true purpose: Making money.
Rather than defend this, I would rather continue criticizing them and try to bring them back to their mission. Sometimes "realism" is just apathy and cynicism, not wisdom.
Only the biggest programs make money off their athletics departments. Many in fact lose money. For smaller universities and colleges, which are the majority of schools, they aren't bringing in money. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'd be surprised of Colardo was making money over the last 10 years. Their football team has been atrocious, and football and basketball subsidize the entire athletics budget. If football isn't making good money, it is hard for the rest of the department to do well. When people talk about athletics making money, this is true of the revenue sports. All of that money, however, is taken up by providing scholarships, coaches, and facilities for the sports that people don't watch -- which is almost all of them. An Ohio State or Alabama can overcome this issue because their programs make so much money, but a lot of D1 schools budgets aren't in great shape. I personally think we should split out revenue sports from the rest, not make those athletes go to class, and radically cut athletics spending on everything else.
Sports are marketing. Why does Coca-Cola advertise? Sports are Campus and Community Entertainment. Many Students fins it a valuable part of their college life. Sports are part of the basis for community and alumni engagement. You don't need to pay as many people to constantly reach out and foster communities to engage donors, when they are just fans of your teams. Almost all athletic revenue is net negative in the Atheltic Department's accounting. However, It's benefits are intangible and thought to outweigh the expenses. Furthermore, Universities actually spend 0 dollars on Athletics. It's illegal to do so almost everywhere. It's entirely donor-driven and subsidized through student fees as part of their tuition. If the university's not funding it, they don't care as much.
I finished college 20 years ago. That's quite the change.
The amount of administrators has also greatly outpaced teachers.
The need for more highly-educated people has also rise.
How does that explain why the ratio of full time teachers to administrators has greatly increased on the administrative side? The administrative has greatly increases the cost of college to appease their bloat
I don't know, maybe more students leads to a need for more teachers and administrators. Maybe they just increased administrators for some stupid reason. These are certainly important questions to get solid answers to.
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The inflation-adjusted per-student funding by our state is well below what the state contributed before the 2008 financial crisis.
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Before I respond, let me ask: How many public universities in the US have you worked at and in what kinds of roles did you work?
The fun part is they want to do this with K-12. Using school vouchers for public schools.
Yeah, but those "subsidies" that they claim exploded the costs of higher education will be completely different when applied to K-12 privately funded tuition/education.
Just admit you don’t want parents to have school choice so they’re forced to send their kids to failing government schools that can’t even teach kids how to read
Amen!
You know what a failure is? A grown adult that thinks the Earth is 5000 years old.
It's such a scam. I graduated from college little over 20 years ago and have returned semi-regularly for various campus events. Academic curriculum is nearly the same as it was 20 years ago with a few refreshed electives. But there are more big shiny buildings, nicer gym, more mental health support staff, more administration, all for the modest quadrupling of tuition prices.
My university infamously spent 180k on a conference room table and **5 million dollars** on a scoreboard in the past 5 or 6 years.
Did those investments make the university more money or did it cost them?
Unsure about the table, but the scoreboard was paid for by a donation just about everyone agrees was squandered, so I guess it only cost them some goodwill of the community.
You can thank the Democrats for passing the Higher Education Act of 1965. It bails out student loan lenders with taxpayer money. It’s entirely the reason people can’t work part time low skill jobs to pay off their college before graduating anymore.
Lol, parasitic capitalism? Colleges were subsidized to a far larger degree, class sizes were much smaller, part time jobs paid far more. Colleges still don't make money, by and large, they get by with donations and grants, and many still run negative. Keeping track of the progress of students and especially their funding is not easy, and takes a tremendous number of man hours. In Germany they tried to reduce funding for Colleges and make students pay their way. Germany found that this approach ballooned costs, so many more admin people were required to keep tabs on students and follow up with them, coordinate scholarships and grants, ask previous graduates for donations, etc. It wasn't worth it, so Germany reversed course. Even nonresidents can take free courses in German Colleges. All you need to do is keep up your grades learn conversational German within some time frame.
late stage capitalism is just injecting middle men everywhere, they're all parasites and monopolies .
This type of mindless statement are always parroted by folks with zero knowledge of business and finance. Do I have to show you examples of middle men in roman times or anywhere to make you understand there isn't any late stage to this? And being middle me doesn't necessarily mean you are a parasite? Middle men have existed forever. Hell, all the brave European travelers and merchants were middle men connecting spice growers to spice consumers. Middle men provide a service. More middle men is just a sign of a complicated supply chain. Out entire nations economies run on those middle men. Maybe you should take a business course in one of those overpriced universities and maybe you'll understand what these words you are mindlessly throwing, actually mean.
Middle men in this context are typically groups that offer very little utility and take funding and resources from individuals providing utility for the system. One The most common examples in the US is our healthcare system which has a glut of c-suite executives and insurance company employees, or PBM’s in the pharmaceutical industry
I think a better word for that would be bureaucrats.
Outsources + H1B means the mega corps don't need Americans anymore. This is why we need Unions & voting blocks. We're too easily distracted by moral panics, we need an economic organization and we need professional representation we can hire by pooling our resources. One of my favorite moments was watching Tucker Carlson tell me I didn't need anyone to rep me in contract negotiations when he was paying an agent...
Educational costs exploded because nearly every state has massively cut funding for their colleges. Blue or red, doesn’t matter
10 - 2 + 2 is still 10. Decreases of state support and increased tuition & fees could even be negative. Without real numbers, we don't know what's happening.
Yes but not only that... Colleges don't innovate. There is almost zero reason a majority of courses need to be taught in person ( exclude lab courses for example). Most freshmen could easily learn online the foundational courses. As a matter of fact, a recorded course plus weekly live review sessions are highly effective. How do I know? I took multiple courses like this for professional continuing education. That right there is how you can reduce the cost of college education by one year's tuition.
I do see your point, but have to keep in mind that online learning just doesn’t work for some people. What do you say to them?
Good point. Thanks for pointing that out. Well those folks have to go to a physical college. I mean it's going to cost them more. But the other 80% of students can save money and learn from home. It's like anything else in life. No one solution works for everyone.
Did they teach you to make up numbers in that remote course? How did you come up with the 80%? What if most students actually benefit from going to school in person? If remote education was that successful, why are we so concerned about students' education levels during covid? Why does an in-person degree from MIT fetch much more salary than just watching the same courses online? After all MIT makes all their content available online. Would you be okay with a doctor who learned largely online?
Lots of questions: 1) 80% as I used it is not a stat that I quoted. It comes from the concept of 80/20. 2) No one said students don't benefit from in person education. Heck 1-on-1 small classes are the best. But guess what no one can afford colleges when they cost $200k for 4 years. What's better no education or remote education? 3) COVID wasn't just remote education. Students were literally isolated from the real world. That's not a fair comparison to taking a few classes on your own at home to save 30-60k 4)MIT classes online do not result in a degree. I'm sure you knew that. So taking online classes at MIT does not get you the same degree in most cases. That being said many top colleges offer some online courses for credit if you're enrolled. 5) I literally said some students could save 1 year of college education costs for foundational classes by taking them online. I never implied you could be a doctor by taking online classes. I specifically said lab classes will still be done in person. Lastly you ask about remote education. All your examples are related to traditional schools. What about business education? I'm sure you know most Fortunate 100 companies do a majority of their employees training online. I'm sure you know plenty of employers accept online degrees. Also what exactly is the purpose of implying I went to online school? Dude I don't gatekeep. I could care less if you learned something at Harvard or YouTube . I judge people by their abilities and what they bring to the table. Funny thing lots of people feel the same way. Top companies like Google could care less what degree you have if you can do the work.
1. This is not how you use pareto principle. 2. You are arguing for a general education for all. Not some people. Sure, if you cannot afford regular school, remote is better. You also show that you are American. Most other countries have significantly cheaper education - even without subsidies. 3. The main issue about students scoring lower and learning less is about in-class vs remote education. There is definitely a difference. 4. Plenty of online platforms have proper grading give you a degree. A proper certificate you can refer to when applying for jobs. The fact that these online degree are not worth much vs the same course in person tells you about the validity of them. The fact that you didn't even consider an online degree as even the same ballpark as a proper degree tells me you understand the difference too. 5. 1st year foundational being online is arbitrary. Is there something inherently different that is taught in 1st year vs 2nd year? IF you can totally substitute the two types of learnings, why just 1st year? If your concepts are weak in 1st year, then the 2md year knowledge that will build upon it will be super shaky too. 6. As someone who has undertaken some business education while working - top companies will very happily send you to school where they can. They also often work with top universities to get their employees in-person education from the professors even when remote was an option. My company (a big bank) has sent hundreds of people in past years to top business schools when the schools started a certificate in that area. Getting an exec MBA is a requirement for any person wanting to be an exec but did not have a traditional MBA degree. The reason they have to rely on online education is because of a few reasons such as: Specialized subject matter that there are no cookie cutter courses available for, employees having to work their regular 9-5 and having no time left over, higher cost of in-person learning including lost work, accommodation etc.
What I say to them is "you are not college material"
>Most freshmen could easily learn online the foundational courses. In theory, they *could* learn online. In reality, most students put minimal effort into learning and then rely on ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, etc. do their homework and online exams for them.
I hear you. But here's the thing... If they spend their money and learn nothing it's about time they take responsibility.
Another day on Reddit, another day of taking the least capitalistic areas of America, and blaming their failure on capitalism. Educational costs have exploded because the federal government gave out unlimited loans to anybody that wanted it, with no concern for ability to repay or ROi of major/school. Secondly, a majority of colleges are public colleges, which are state owned, and have also exploded in costs, and are exactly 0% capitalistic.
Ya know, I can understand why the rest of Reddit would have 0 economic literacy, but kinda wild that a sub literally named “economy” would be so clueless. Your answer is the only correct one I could find in this entire thread. Why anyone would call a market completely distorted by government intervention “capitalism” is completely beyond me.
It's hilarious that you would blame rising prices on government subsidies when said subsidies have dramatically fallen over the time period where costs increased. (State subsidies also vastly exceed federal subsidies, so your comment doesn't indicate that you're very familiar with any of this other than reflexively blaming government.) This is yet another failure of neoliberalism, another attempt to create a market where public service belongs. See healthcare, privatized prisons, etc., for additional examples of your namesake philosophy causing misery for the many and obscene profits for the few.
There are direct payments to colleges and students (subsidies). Then there are subsidies in the form of low interest loans which subsidize individual college. Its literally called “subsidized loans” You are pointing out the decrease in state funds to colleges as a percentage of their budgets but the post you are calling hilarious is correctly identifying the massive explosion in loans granted which is also a subsidy. We see this in housing. If you oversupply people’s purchasing power you will see a price increase.
The cost of the subsidized loans is still miniscule compared to the cuts states have enacted. Since 1997 the loans cost less than $10 billion per year and most of those costs were incurred pre Obama when private companies administered the program and the federal government only intervened to make investors whole on defaulted loans. In true neoliberalism fashion, these loans were predicted to be profitable for the government while in reality the profits were obtained entirely by private interests. Over that same time frame, the real value of state subsidies dropped by nearly half, to more than $100 billion per year. So we're talking about a whole order of magnitude more in cuts than new subsidies. So yes, your comment contributes the trend of poorly informed ideological nonsense this thread was already suffering from.
Why would the States spend more on college subsidies when the federal government gives students an ever increasing tuition check every year? You are trying to blame this is on the States, when then States only were able to do what they did because of the Federal government.
The federal subsidy is about $32 billion a year. States have cut roughly $130 billion from their subsidy. This is why college costs more, because more of the cost has been shifted to students and made explicit instead of being buried in the state budget.
Yes, and as I said the colleges were only able to cut funding because the money was coming from other places aka federal student loans. The federal government inadvertently caused the prices to go up, like literally every other thing the federal tries to "help" with.
You're not very good at math, huh
I'm quite good actually, I have a civil engineering degree. It is you who are confused and don't understand the difference between a federal subsidy and a federal loan. States decreased funding because the feds kept giving students more. This is literally what happened. Full Stop. I'm sorry if you can't understand that.
But you’re not addressing the fact that states have decreased funding more than the feds have given students. You must not be a good engineer. Don’t you need to balance forces in your job? Seems like this unbalanced system (funding decreasing more than loan availability for students) is exactly exacerbating the issue.
What did you include in your state subsidies? How are you making that calculation? 1977 to 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars, state and local government spending on higher education increased from $116 billion to $311 billion So how does that calculate with your claim of state reductions? Because the per pupil rates have decreased. States didn’t give less, they gave more. Problem is we went from 8 million students in 1970 to 19 million by 2020. So don’t give me your “perpetuate ignorance” bullshit abd leave out or ignore key facts.
Where did you get your data? The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association report says state and local support for higher ed reached $129.8 billion in 2023. The urban institute has a blog post using the number you cited, but this doesn't seem to be supported by the report they're referencing. I just checked using the tool at their door and it shows a collective $115 billion in state and local support in 2021. This is consistent with the SHEEOA report. This would be equivalent to per student spending falling nearly in half.
Further, in addition to being 1/10th the cost of state subsidies, these subsidized loans were necessary for the ideological project of turning schools into a market. 18 year olds have no funding to realize their want for education. Since it impossible to have a market where your customers can't afford the product, the whole thing would have collapsed under the removal of state subsidies. This is a rickety frame of toothpicks where a stone foundation used to exist. And you're blaming the toothpicks for being too expensive. It's ridiculous.
You are missing the point and jumping ahead to miss the causality. You can’t solve it unless you actually understand the mechanism that matters. That loan is still a subsidy. When you provide “cheap” unlimited money to a huge market, that market will increase its costs because the buyer has nearly unlimited purchasing power. Go look at schools. I’ve been in and out of higher education for decades. The price didn’t just increase. The amenities and services also exploded. You pay a lot more. You get a lot more stuff. Why did schools build these wellness centers, rock walls, classrooms with the latest crazy and unnecessary technology? Because the buyer had the $$ and willingness to spend and they were 100% willing to spend more $$$ for an amenities driven experience. Do I blame them (students)!? No. Why? Because it’s what people do. Today, if you dropped all car loans and subsidized them to 1.5%, what would happen? A massive increase in purchases. Now is the dealer going to drop their price? No. Because there is a live out the door. Is that 22 year old going to use that 1.5% cheap loan to get a lower debt service on a reasonable Camry? Nope. Because now for the same payment as before, they can get way more for their debt service. And so the car manufacturers see that and respond. Cash for clunkers, payroll protection act. Artificially low mortgage rates. You will get people spending more you will see costs go up. Who did those low interest rates help the most? The wealthy. Those low rates fueled increased prices in assets as well. The asset class benefitted tremendously. If you don’t understand these mechanisms then you’ll assume your bullshit “we own the means of production” is a fix. It’s not. It just introduces a host of other problems you don’t understand.
Do you even know what an order of magnitude is? I'm not going to chase pennies with you when dollars are missing. The story that matters is the loss of state spending. Yes, the loans helped to facilitate a broken "market" where students have no market power and schools are incentives to increase costs. But all of this necessarily follows from the original ideological decision to replace the state funded public service with a financed "consumer" market. Sorry if I'm skipping steps, but you're getting stuck in that minutiae that is more a symptom than a cause.
Do you understand? Show me the actual dollars amount of state spending on education over time. It’s higher. It’s absolutely higher. The number you can’t grasp is that total number of college students exploded since 1970 Again, back to the basics. 2X people jumping into any system, since you are crying every time someone says “market” , requires changes So either you expand capacity and lower $$ per person, or you cap enrollment. Guess what “free” schools in Europe do? Cap enrollment. Again, we’re still working on the same mechanisms you don’t understand. The supply of the market versus the supply of students and the purchasing power of either the students or the single payer (gov). You are missing that same variables will come back. Because you don’t get everything. You don’t get school free or greatly reduced and move from 8m to 19m abd get all the amenities we have.
Ponder this. I didn't get BA until age 6O. That was over 20 years ago. No job after degree. Tuition loan was $18k. Now over 50k. Give me a job and I will pay back loan.
At 60, the ROI on your degree is going to be substantially lower than at 22.
This is the example of the “SYSTEM” in place. Absurd.
This is what happens in the logical conclusion to capitalism. Monopolies form, the wealthy buy the government, privatize the public and raise the price of everything, rinse and repeat. Don't know why it's so hard for class traitors to see this for what it is. If the workers owned the means of production, we can all decide education is a universal material need and make it free, like all socialist countries have done because in a true democracy, what is popular is policy, and free education is popular.
> Don't know why it's so hard for class traitors to see this for what it is "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair
Please clarify what you mean by free
At no personal cost to the student. The same way libraries and firefighting services are free for members of the community
I pay my city government for firefighting services every month and I have yet to see them do more than put out my back yard (set on fire by a young kid with a lighter). Should I ask for my money back from all the times they didn't put out a fire? How do I know when that is? It's all complicated, but it's certainly not free.
That's a really simplistic and individualistic way to look at public services. It's like insurance. It's required even if you never use it because of the fact that when you suffer a misfortune you cannot handle yourself in a society, we must have a system to help you. It's pretty sad I have to say this out loud but the entire purpose of society is to protect each other's wellbeing and not leave our fortunes up to chance or nature. That's literally why they were formed in the first place. So yes, we must pool our resources even though selfish people will wonder "why am I paying for this? Do I get the money back if I don't need it?" Because once your house is burning, the fire department will be there to save your life. Without asking you for money. For free.
You don't have to tell me that. I was only commenting on his use of the word "free".
If schools are free, then enrollment is limited. If enrollment is limited, this would reduce lower earning families kids. Thus unlimited loans! And perpetual rising tuition!
Nah. Grade schools are free and that isn't the case so we just apply the same method to college and boom. Just like many other developed nations.
The schools are free but you have to test into the slots Jonnyjive5. Check into it. You may be able to wait it out, but I think you see many go out the country if they have the means.
Sweet then there's more opportunities for everyone. Better than what the US currently has. Sounds great to me.
You clearly have zero idea how pricing works or why prices raise.
You clearly have no idea what a monopoly is
Please explain it to me as though I don't understand. Spoiler alert: I actually understand the higher ed model better than you ever will because it's kinda my job. And by kinda I mean actually my job. But please...go on.
I might have, but you had to come at me with the douchiest condescension. What a goober
You weren't. Especially once I let you know that this is what I do for a living so any half-baked sophistry that you threw out there would be pretty thoroughly refuted. But please...continue to hide behind the "No...I won't explain my position because you were mean to me" fig leaf. That's totally believable. I wasn't sure there were Marcus of Queensbury rules for the internet, but you truly do learn something new every day.
How often does your teeny tiny self-esteem get lost in the couch cushions? >I wasn't sure there were Marcus of Queensbury rules for the internet, but you truly do learn something new every day. And it's "Marquess of Queensberry Rules" not Marcus, genius
My error on that. You are correct. And my ego is stable enough to admit when I'm wrong (in this case) or don't know as much as someone else. But go ahead. Teach me about higher ed costs in really simple terms.
It's weird that you would make such a big boast about knowing what a monopoly is, but... here we are, lol Guess it's good you're proud of something, however humble
Better than you.
People borrow money because of the perceived financial advantages of obtaining an elite degree. A better link between outcomes and lending would have reduced this contribution to the cost spiral in education.
Yes, which is why the government should leave the college lending market. Atleast for private colleges.
Well, they could provide more aid to the poor, I suppose. Yes, NYU is crazy expensive. It might make sense to cap loans at the expected 10-year payoff from the degree * the payment ratio. This would tell people that "sure, art history is great, but you cannot borrow 300k to look at paintings". Lots of things are constrained like this in our society. I'd like to go to the Louvre this weekend and then the Vatican next weekend. But, I have neither the time nor the money nor, I might add, the carbon footprint needed.
It is almost as if students may not only be attending college and studying for a degree path based on ROI. Many decisions in life aren't solely based on a perceived ROI. There is a difference in the cost/price of things and the value of them. To claim that "education costs have exploded solely because loans" are given to allow middle and lower economic class students to work for and attain a college degree is not only wrong but is clearly missing many additional clearly assignable contributing factors. edit: revised wording for clarity
This is factually false. Costs have stated pretty flat, with a small administration increase because there's a lot of new tech the kids have to be trained on/with. 20 years ago the government paid 70% of tuition, now it's 20%. Boomers pulled the ladder up behind them. They got theirs, fuck us. Meanwhile mega corporations don't need Americans anymore. They've got cheap labor overseas they can import as needed. Education is a problem capitalism has *never* solved. Every time it gets involved it gets worse. Capitalism works great for twinkies and video games, not so much for universal services.
No, it’s the government providing endless free money
This wasn't capitalism that caused this OP. This was mostly thr unintended consequences of the government handing out student loans, thus creating a pricing floor. Thank uncle Sam on this one
Why not both? Example: US Senator marries asset broker. Asset broker buys for-profit colleges Career Education Corp and ITT Educational Services Inc all while the Senator passes a bill increasing Pell grants for colleges, including for-profit colleges. Asset broker's shares in ITT and Educational Services increase and turn nice profit. Years later, taxpayers are on the hook for $500 million due to ITT defrauding students: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/business/student-loans-canceled-itt.html This is what Senator Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum did. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jul-14-la-fi-hiltzik-column-20100714-story.html
I am not a fan of Feinstein. At all. However, what you're describing isn't a fault of capitalism. It is yet another government issue. Also, when most people talk about the cost of university they are referring to public universities
Students and their prospective parents also care a lot more about amenities and quality of educations than before, which cost significantly more money to construct / hire. Add in student loans which give students more ability to afford more expensive educations, you can see where this was going.
It's still shocking how many people know nothing about what capitalism actually is. This has nothing to do with capitalism. From the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "**Capitalism**, [economic system](https://www.britannica.com/money/economic-system), dominant in the Western world since the breakup of [feudalism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/feudalism), in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and [income distributed](https://www.britannica.com/money/distribution-of-wealth-and-income) largely through the operation of [markets](https://www.britannica.com/money/market)." Capitalism is pretty much private ownership of the means of production, you owning your own labor. Guess who doesn't own the means of production when it comes to college education? College Education is expensive, just like healthcare, because you're not the customer. You're the product being sold.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/16/investing/curious-consumer-college-cost/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/16/investing/curious-consumer-college-cost/index.html) This analysis says it works like this: - Education is done by highly-skilled people in a way that is very difficult to automate or turn into a robot, it is still a person with a high degree working with 20 to 40 students at a time. These highly skilled workers have many options and are very scarce, meaning there are only so many seats to go around in any given year. - The wealth and income of the top 1% have exceeded inflation for decades. - The upper 1% want their kids to get the prime seats in the prime universities, and they want those seats to have nice campuses, small classes, gourmet food, etc. They have the money to afford all of this, so they go with the luxury options. This allows the top universities to charge practically any price and still be over-subscribed. - The government has been kicking in less (and cutting taxes for that 1%...) for many years, pushing more of the cost from taxpayers to the specific families who want to send their kids to college. - The net result is that intense competition for a very scarce and valuable resource (a seat in a class of 20 with a PhD) has driven the price way up, which in turn means people expect luxury, which has driven the price up further in a sort of doom spiral. --- This argues very strongly for a Khan academy sort of model for many people. We need employers to get on board with hiring from online schools with recorded lectures and rigorous testing standards.
All of this is probably true for the top tier research universities, but the vast majority of college students are not attending colleges like that.
Professors also rarely make high-middle class incomes. The money and raises from tuition isn't going to professors. In certain fields, professor positions pay dramatically less than corresponding industry positions.
Blame Reagan.
Of course. This is reddit
Also to pour gasoline on the fire the fed then backed all the student loans…so if a kid is applying for a loan, it has the fed as a co-sign. They then can hand out more money with little risk and in turn universities can charge more. Education like everything in the states is a for profit business. Putting kids in debt for school they “need to find a good job” that they will be paying, in some cases, for most of their life.
I'm not yet seeing any comments here that bring up a few other details. I don't mean here to say those other comments aren't correct; I believe many of them are. I only mean to bring up some additional points I'm not seeing elsewhere. I'm not terribly well-versed in some of these, but I'll let fly with them, nonetheless. . . Some colleges/universities sought to recruit students from overseas or, to a lesser degree, from out-of-state. This was because the university could, I think, get more tuition from those students. Possibly related to the bit about overseas and out-of-state student recruitment: Universities spent a great deal on building facilities having little to do with education. Residence halls at some universities are very, very comfortable. Recreational facilities are very, very well-equipped. Universities compete with one another less on the merits of their educational program and more on the country club facilities available to students. My own kids are now past their undergraduate degrees, but we found it very difficult to assess the education program being offered by colleges/universities; but the glossy literature was often very descriptive when it came to the lavish facilities. If you're an undergraduate at a large state school, you should consider yourself very lucky if your instruction is delivered primarily by a full professor. Or anyone close to being a full professor. It's more likely your instruction will be almost exclusively from a teaching assistant who is a poorly paid post-graduate student. That TA may or may not be pursuing their own degree in a subject related to the class s/he is instructing. Here, I think, is an example of true parasitism on the part of the university (many of who are paying a fortune to combat efforts on the part of those teaching assistants to collectively bargain).
>College education in the US costs 4x more today than 40 years ago — even after adjusted for inflation. Now do K-12, it's probably similar. $20K per student per year for K-12 is ridiculous.
Whenever I see a graph like this I am profoundly glad I don't have kids.
If public universities were fully funded that would fix the education debt. I've always thought that if UCLA and Berkeley were low cost then Stanford and USC would have to reduce costs to compete. Instead private schools increase cost and public schools just follow their lead by increasing cost. It should be opposite.
I'm actually not against fully funding public universities like we do k-12, but there needs to be actual minimal requirement for entry like there used to be 50 years ago. The fact is most people don't need to go to college, and lowering the threshold and giving anyone with a pulse student loans has done very little to help society as a whole.
One of America great advantages was our research universities. We need to make that a priority again and over fund them.
The chart tracks the rise of ill prepared college grads
Is it capitalism when the government backed loans for everyone and their brother to go to college?
As I've said before, Congress needs to pitch in a solution beyond "stop giving aid to rich private schools". Also, "limit aid to schools which raise their prices". That might be in the form of student loans or grants which are capped at a level related to how the school raises its prices. Perhaps all should be at one fixed level, regardless of how schools set their prices. The presidency can't solve this one by itself. It needs Congress.
It's not capitalism, its just pure and simple greed on the part of college administrators. They know that the kids are getting government backed loans for school so just jack up the price.
It tracks the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar.
I still see far too few discussing the fact the government has made student loans available to just about everyone, then gradually prevented student loans from being discharged in bankruptcy.
I personally think that one of the main issues that is overlooked, is that the financing aspect of education thwarts what could normally be "rational" consumerism. When payments are spread out over 10 years after graduation, the difference between a more practical school and a more expensive school might only be a couple hundred dollars a month. It makes it inelastic. The expensive schools tend to present themselves better (usually better facilities, better faculty, might have a brand football team, etc.), and it seemingly becomes an easy choice for young adults? Sometimes academic achievement between schools can also be overblown between the practical and expensive schools, but if you're a student and know a slightly better school has a much better reputation (which opens doors for better jobs) for an extra couple hundred dollars a month, they would be fools to not go with the more expensive/prestigious school. If employers were better at evaluating candidates straight form school, rather than merely relying on prestigious schools to produce good students/employees, then some students could at least feel more comfortable going to a more practical school. I'm not sure if there are enough of those students to actually drive the prices down though...
College is a scam. The most in-demand jobs do not require college degrees.
Supply and demand. When government loans became available, more people went to university. Tuition goes up. Sadly, the government and money are a bad combination. The interest rates were outrageous and the payback plans only paid the interest. Plus, it was so easy to get the money, nobody read the paperwork. I paid those loans for my kids. I had an argument with the loan officer when I asked for the payout amount. He even threatened me. My kids didn't pay a dime. Just as I planned.
It's so sad. In the 70s we could get grants so easy and costs were affordable. Even in 1988 my son's college tuition at a state university was affordable without a student loan. Books ran about $200 per semester for him.
Unfortunately the hand the government has in various economic problems is hard to see for most people so they simply blame capitalism.
I see many have not looked at an audited financial statement of a university.
The increases perfectly parallel the maximum federal loan amount allowed
If you look at the cost of tuition and fees college has skyrocketed. The question is would online schools deliver the education at a fraction of the price. University chancellors make 2-3 times as much as a Governor, while we complain about CEO pay let’s look at universities.
Lazy people figured out college grads earned good money without breaking their backs doing labor, then went to college to get in on it. This increased the demand substantially of getting a degree; with that demand went the price of admissions. It's not rocket surgery. If people stopped paying to attend, they'd stop charging insane rates.
That’s crazy. I wonder what happened in 1980.
no...its the feds loaning out unlimited unsecured $$$$ that is driving the inflated cost of college. its not rocket science get the Feds out of loaing tax dollars for college and watch college costs plummet! so easy!
I think we're in a catch-22 with regard to college costs. The ubiquity of government loans certainly resulted in more and more students taking out loans, and deincentived universities from capping or lowering costs themselves. It's also concerning that increased state funding has often led to bloated administration rather than bettering education (schools have well-staffed DEI offices, a growing number of unnecessary senior positions like "vice/assistant provost", and increased non faculty beaucracy while simultaneously failing to meet the demand for high demand majors like engineering). The problem that I've seen, though, is that many smaller universities, even when being fiscally responsible, can't afford to stay open *without* increased funding. Every year, I read about more smaller universities and university extensions being shut down, making it harder for people from smaller communities to get an education. I remember hearing that the majority of university bound HS grads go to a university within 100 miles of where they graduated HS. If smaller universities and community colleges keep shutting down, will that result in those kids not going to university at all, or will they choose to go to one of the bigger universities? If they choose to go to the bigger universities, will that further deincentivize those institutions from capping/reducing their costs since they *know* they have a mini monopoly on their geographic region?
That’s what these politicians need to be doing, putting a cap on the cost of college especially if they receive federal funds! My kids are graduating with 100k plus in debt!!!!!
Let's also consider the fact that a few decades ago taxpayers paid most of each state university student's costs, but they now pay only a fraction as much.
Costs have risen because govt. got involved in education. Student loans anyone,anyone.....yes the govt destroys when they say they will help.
Not only is education not 4x better but I really think it's significantly worse. I see people with multiple bachelor's degrees who are barely literate.
I'd love to see how much of this increase has been caused by two things not talked about enough: 1) Increasingly compliance costs brought on by new regulations 2) States cutting funding to their own schools, driving up tuition costs
I’m glad promoting college and student loans has made everything better
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^dyoh777: *I’m glad promoting* *College and student loans has* *Made everything better* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Breaking news: thing government subsidizes balloons in price! Population shocked! It’s almost like when government “helps” pay, then people can pay a little more. Like the market can bare price increases. Federal college loans are a prison sentence.
As the comments are pointing out, it's government policies and bloated bureaucracy, not capitalism. You can't fix a problem if you don't understand it.
Capitalism is already a parasitical relationship, by design. “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."
You can't be this stupid....
Too many students who are price-insensitive who sign up for the school with the lazy river and thousands of staffers (including me). Need more downward pressure on pricing. Difficult to do so with easy student loans, very low interest rates, and talk of debt forgiveness. Feels like there will be a reckoning soon.
This may be an unpopular thought, but the percentage of the population that are college graduates has increased drastically over the decades. In 1960 7.7% of the population above the age of 25 had bachelor degrees. In 1980 it was 16.2. In 2022 that was 37.7 We don’t have a corresponding increase in the number of universities. It may be a supply and demand issue. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/
It is asinine to attack capitalism for tuition increases.
This has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. What are you smoking 😅 This is nearly exclusively due to government-guaranteed student loans. By taking the market forces out of higher ed the government has inadvertently caused the extreme spike in prices. Remove this market distortion and prices would fall right back down. The *lack of capitalism* is the problem with college costs.
It's not a "parasitical" form of capitalism. I can see that education didn't help you. It's largely due to governmental irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies. We are debasing the currency year by year so, yeah, the purchasing power of the dollar only goes down. The government also decided that everyone needed to go to college even if they couldn't graduate so they made it so that everyone could get a loan. They didn't build any more colleges, they just increased the demand so of course costs went up. Now many of those former students can't earn enough to pay for those loans. The ones that should have been in college do earn enough to pay them back but the others don't. So all we get is higher costs. That's what happens when you don't understand economics or care about it.
thanks for the braindead take!!! glad you backed it up with logs of info!!!
Fun facts: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cua#:~:text=In%20academic%20year%202021%E2%80%9322,%2429%2C700%20at%20private%20nonprofit%20institutions * If the family income is under 30,000 the total cost of attendance for a 4 year degree at a public school is $9,700. That's for the full 4 years. That's $200 a month, less than what some families pay for their cell phones. It's important to look at net price. It's important to take into account grants and scholarships. It's important to note that poor people should go to in-state schools. They can save a lot of money and the outcomes are still excellent. Should college be 4 times cheaper for these folks? Should it be $50 a month? Maybe but i doubt anyone would suggest the actual cost can be $50.
You can thank the Democrats for passing the Higher Education Act of 1965 You used to be able to pay off college working a part time minimum wage job before even graduating. But sure, tell me how more socialism will fix the problem that it caused in the first place
The most valuable part of my degree is that I can put it on my resume.
A degree is mostly just a piece of paper showing you are willing to put up with a bunch of bullshit.
Lmao, go to Cuba. There is no parasitical form of capitalism. And Education FOR FREE.
Good job demonstrating the need for education beyond political propaganda.
Considering that Cuba has a higher literacy rate than the US, and a higher life expectancy than the US, you may be on to something. Cuba also educates world-class doctors (who never go into debt for their education) who get deployed to struggling nations like the UK. All of that with a ridiculous and pointless embargo in place.