College tuition 23 yr ago vs today.

[NickB79]

While cleaning out a closet, I found an old tuition bill of mine from St. Cloud State University in a box this weekend from 1999. $3100 for a semester, INCLUDING my dorm room and meal plan. Adjusted for inflation, that's $5000 today, or $10,000 per year.

What's SCSU go for today? $20,000 per year for tuition, room and board. Can someone explain to me how kids these days aren't being anything but royally screwed over? Seriously, this fills me with rage. I'd love ve to send my daughter there in 8 years, but damn.

https://www.stcloudstate.edu/srfs/finances/cost-of-attendance.aspx

[jmbar2]

1. To make things worse

Freshman and sophomore are being taught by adjuncts who don't make a liveable wage.

Where is the money going?!

[FakeNoose]

13. The money goes to the bloated, overpaid admin staffs in every American college and university

Some are worse than others, but they're all way overpaid. There are way too many of them, and the professors and instructors have all had to suffer (in lost salary and benefits) to make way for the admins.

If we need a revolution in this country, it should be to overthrow this awful trend in university management that benefits nobody. It certainly doesn't benefit the students or their parents. If doctorates can no longer earn a living wage, if they can no longer get tenured in American universities, why would anyone even WANT a doctorate?

It's a house of cards.

[misanthrope]

16. Because when you believe everything should be "run like a business"

this is the result. Profit reigns supreme, not service. Money flows upward and middle management gets bloated.

[Old Crank]

25. The school

I worked at and got a Masters didn't have a lot of bloat. My department doubled the number of faculty and teh admin staff stayed the same. What happened was the support staff gave professors dropped. The PC came in and most professors did their own papers for publication instead of leaning on staff which freed them to handle the other work loads that expanded.

[cab67]

28. This is a common claim.

But it’s generally not the overriding factor many people believe.

Some coaches and presidents are WAY overpaid, but not all of a coach’s salary comes from the university system.

At public universities, a steady decline in state appropriations is the main problem. At my institution, tuition now accounts for a huge part of the budget - far more so than what the state gives us. That wasn’t the case 30 or 40 years ago.

I’m in one of the committees that oversees my college’s budget. It’s been eye-opening.

[FakeNoose]

47. Yes the college sports departments are also a bloat

I've been donating to the University of Notre Dame for most of my life, it's certainly the truth.

[cab67]

69. we're not really talking about the same things

Notre Dame is a private university. It's finances are wholly different from those of most public universities. State appropriations aren't an issue there. And I stand by what I said: at public universities, the single biggest problem - way bigger than administrative bloat or even athletic programs - has been the decline of state appropriations. (The OP was discussing a public university.) I say this as someone who's been involved in the process.

And big-name athletic programs often operate on separate budgets. (This is true at both public and private universities.) The claim that they're budget-neutral to a university is untrue, but much of their operation is funded by ticket sales, licensing, and donations. Sports programs that aren't on the national arena don't cost as much. So yes - there are costs involved to a university, but not like a lot of people think.

(Actually, the single biggest budgetary item at many universities isn't the football program. It's the hospital and med school. They, too, bring in their own revenue - but their expense can be so massive that it almost doesn't matter.)

Another point to consider is that many administrators are themselves faculty members. They still teach while filling their role as dean, provost, or whatever. Not all, of course, but many.

Seriously - at public universities at least, administrative bloat just isn't the main budgetary problem. It's state appropriations.

[TomSlick]

40. Exactly.

The Army calls it the tooth to tail ratio. Colleges and Universities have large, overpaid admin staff - the tail. The costs of the tail have cut into budgets for the professors and instructors - the teeth. Primarily, the costs of the tail have caused tuition to skyrocket.

If you are a university president, your importance is measured by the size of your staff and not the success of your students.

[Joe Nation]

43. Clearly, you have never worked in Higher Education

To buy into the same Right-wing argument I hear relentlessly screamed from the deepest depths of cuckoo-land is just discouraging. My wife and I worked in High Education for decades and calling the the staff bloated and overpaid is the epitome of foolishness. I remember at one stretch, not even getting a 1% annual raise for seven years straight and that was on top of some very low wages and it was across the board.

The cost of education has risen because the states no longer fund the public institutions they once included in their annual state budgets. I know of no public university that isn't cutting their budgets, their staff, their faculty, their administrations year-after-year while trying to hold costs down. Universities are ghost towns these days. Very little staff, very few faculty, and students on the decline.

I don't know a single person getting rich working for a university. Most of new PhD (and there are damn few these days willing to work for such low wages) are lucky to start off in the high 30's or low 40's after 20 years of education. The business schools pay their faculty huge amounts I agree. The rest of the university departments are struggling to even have a face at a reception desk these days.

Bloated staff! That's a joke right?

[MichMan]

50. Every time I drive through a major college campus, I see huge building projects going on non stop

and most are sitting on billions in tax free endowments

[FakeNoose]

52. It's not a right-wing argument, my friend

Please get your facts straight. I march in solidarity with the instructors, professors and teaching staffs. I hope they unionize, but that's another story.

Please consider the fact that you are agreeing with my comment anyway.
You said:

Most of new PhD (and there are damn few these days willing to work for such low wages) are lucky to start off in the high 30's or low 40's after 20 years of education. The business schools pay their faculty huge amounts I agree. The rest of the university departments are struggling to even have a face at a reception desk these days.

I said:

If doctorates can no longer earn a living wage, if they can no longer get tenured in American universities, why would anyone even WANT a doctorate? It's a house of cards.

[Joe Nation]

59. You are cherry picking my post.

Tenure isn't the problem. It is almost automatic. The problem is the low wages, lack of resources, lack of staff, infrastructure decay, and annual budget cuts. I know a lot of folks in Higher Education. My wife is an HLC peer reviewer that accredits universities. I think I know the state of Higher Education across a broad spectrum of states and institutions. Where does your knowledge come from?

[SYFROYH]

67. I will add the universities have to spend a lot of money on assessment for accreditation.

And it doesnt get talked about much.

The DOE set requirements for accreditation agencies and universities have to keep doing better.

[llmart]

77. I'm going to have to disagree with you.

I worked at a public university at a level (provost and president's offices) where I was privy to all confidential information. At that level, the administration was absolutely overpaid and overstaffed. Plus, new positions were always being created even though they were completely unnecessary positions, and those positions were almost always staffed with someone from the corporate world. The Board of Trustees would create a position for one of their "buddies" (the good ole' boy network at play here), set a huge annual salary for that position. They'd go through some sort of dog and pony show for the public about how they were interviewing across the country, ask for input from us, then hire exactly who they wanted anyway. One time it was an ex-board member who got a cushy job, though he was not re-elected for his board post.

I do, however, agree with the poster who said it's also because the state no longer funded universities. This is why voting in local elections and having a democratic governor and state house is important. Too many people don't understand the importance of how their state government affects their lives. They only vote in the federal elections.

By the way, our public university professors were all union, so at least they had the ability to negotiate for the percentage of adjuncts the university could hire and other issues.

[cab67]

78. This is going to vary from institution to institution.

Some staffing decisions at my university are out of the hands of the president or provost. They happen at the level of the state Board of Regents.

At my institution, very few administrators are occupied with people from the corporate world. Our most recent past-president was, but fortunately, he wasn't really destructive - only useless. (The process that led to his appointment was a national scandal and led to censure by the AAUP, but our new president was hired in a much more transparent manner and her background is straight-up academic.)

[llmart]

79. I'm fully aware of how the staffing decisions are made at that level.

What I tried to say is that the board created the position, set the salary and then hired an ex-board member to fill that position. The staff was allowed to sit in the interviews, even ask questions of the candidates if we so pleased. I remember walking out of the interviews telling a coworker that so-and-so was going to get the job anyway despite what we told them, and he did get the job. It paid $300K per year. He then immediately demanded a cushy office with all new furniture, even though the furniture was perfectly nice.

Same sort of scenario when presidents were hired. There was a house on campus that the president could live in. We had three presidents who lived there during my time there which was about six years and twice the university paid to renovate the house to the tune of a million dollars each time.

[cab67]

86. Hiring doesn't really work that way here.

That's a large part of the reason the presidential hire in 2015 was so scandalous- it violated every principle used in previous presidential searches.

Over the past few years, we haven't done many external hires for administrative positions - they're mostly internal. And even when external, they've been predominantly people from academic backgrounds.

That was my point- some universities still work more or less the way you describe, but many others don't.

[Act_of_Reparation]

60. I am administrative staff at a Univerity.

I've been there seven years and make $53,000.00 per year. I can't make anymore because I'm at the salary cap for my position.

How much, pray tell, do you think I should get paid? Seeing as, you know, I'm "way overpaid" and all.

[FakeNoose]

61. I don't know, maybe you could become a football coach?

[Act_of_Reparation]

68. And what is it you do for a living?

[NNadir]

34. At Rutgers, football.

Last edited Mon Dec 27, 2021, 07:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Both of my sons were accepted at Rutgers, one went there and now works there.

My youngest son and I attended the "accepted students" event at Rutgers, where the speakers told everyone how honored they should be to be accepted to Rutgers Engineering.

Rutgers was the only school among the eight to which he applied (he was accepted at all of them) which offered zero dollars in financial aid.

The school to which he went offered him $50,000/year. While he went there, he ended up traveling the world on grants and awards.

Phil Murphy ran his first campaign by noting that New Jersey is losing its star STEM students to other states. I very much doubt that my son's career will be in New Jersey.

Rutgers, however, does have a fabulous football stadium, and is very proud of being in the "Big Ten" among schools providing candidates for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disorder which many pro footballers use to excuse extreme violence outside of the "sport." It's been a big time money loser, although the coach, Greg Schiano, is paid each year the equivalent 40 full ride scholarships ($4,000,000) to have students bash each others brains in.

But they wouldn't cover $15,000/year for an engineering student.

We live in an absurd culture.

[FakeNoose]

55. Well stated my friend

It is absurd, and I wish sports could be taken out of the academic equation. Totally removed.
But we know that's not going to happen.

[uponit7771]

73. +1

[cab67]

76. Do you know how the Rutgers stadium was funded?

Honest question here. At most universities, big-ticket athletic facilities are funded in part by the athletic programs themselves, which don't entirely run on the same budget as the universities. They might also benefit from big-name donors (individual or corporate) who want the facility named after them.

I don't know how Rutgers' stadium was funded, but that might be playing a role.

The underlying problem here isn't the stadia per se. It's that most universities see big increases in alumni donations if their football and basketball programs do well. It's also that major donors are sometimes willing to fund an athletic training center, but not a student services center or academic building. Even at public universities, there's increasing reliance on the endowment to fill budgetary holes, and if they get more alumni money if their basketball team goes far in the NCAA tournament, they'll see improvements to athletic facilities, along with recruitment of star coaches and athletes, as an investment.

I'm not defending the practice at all - just explaining it.

This is something my colleagues abroad just can't understand. Why would an alum be more excited if their alma mater's football team ends up in a bowl game than if one of its professors just won a Nobel? I don't blame them, because they're right - American priorities are messed up when it comes to education.

I've encountered this first-hand. Last year, as I was at the gas station, someone pulled up to the pump next to mine. He saw my alumni decals (I got my BS at my current institution, which is also a Big "10" school) and asked if I followed our football team. Not really, I replied; I sometimes check to see if they won or lost, and I'm happy if they win, but it's not something I pay much attention to.

"Oh," he said. There was a pause. "But do you think their new offensive coordinator will make a difference?"

I didn't even know we had one. Nor, frankly, did I care. This person saw the decal and assumed my primary allegiance was with the football team and not its academic prowess, and he just couldn't wrap his head around it.

There are all kinds of problems caused by the outsized profile of big-ticket NCAA sports, but it's not simple thing.

[Wicked Blue]

93. Rutgers has gone steadily downhill since I started there in 1969

Hi NNadir,

Here's a little history on RU.

Back when Edward Bloustein became president, ( I believe in 1974) he announced he wanted "Big Time Football" at Rutgers, and got the board of governors to put a lot of money into it, including a new stadium.

Bloustein worked hard to get rid of the Oxford-style plan of small individual colleges in favor of one big College of Arts and Sciences. Students and faculty, myself included, bitterly fought his plan but lost. Consolidation eliminated Douglass College (women only), Livingston College (my college, the first co-educational one at Rutgers - New Brunswick), Rutgers College (men only) and Cook College (agricultural). Those small colleges made it possible to have smaller classes and closer student-faculty interactions, and far better instruction than the current system of enormous classes where students rarely if ever speak to the professor or assistant professor teaching it. I suspect some of the money Bloustein "saved" by getting rid of faculty from the various colleges was put into his new stadium and athletic programs.

My daughter attended what was left of Livingston College, "Livingston Campus", from 2002-2004 and felt lost there because of the huge impersonal structure. When I attended Livingston, we had very small classes of 10 to 15 students in some cases, and got to know the faculty members and our subjects rather well. We could ask questions, argue issues and much more. We could get individual attention if needed.

Bloustein also introduced the hiring of "superstar" professors at unheard-of salaries to bring prestige to the university. These rarely if ever actually taught classes. They were to concentrate on research and publishing for the fame and glory of Rutgers. The elimination of the individual colleges probably paid for this as well. There was great resentment among the rest of the faculty and the student body over it. Students certainly received no benefit from it.

I graduated in 1975 with a BA in English after working my way through the last 4 years and attending classes part-time. I lived mostly in Franklin Township, near the university, until 1990. Rutgers was part of my Middlesex County beat as a reporter for The Star-Ledger from 1979 to 1990. I was familiar with much of what went on at Rutgers from 1969 to 1990.

I would not send a son or daughter of mine to Rutgers as it is today. When I was in high school applying to colleges, Rutgers was a place to aspire to attend. It was considered a near-Ivy League university, and its English department at the time was said to be second only to that of UC-Berkeley. Rutgers often was called the "Berkeley of the East."

Wasting money on elite athletics in my opinion is one of the biggest disservices to university students today. Universities also squander money on non-teaching, elite faculty and on the ever-growing number of useless administrators and assistant administrators and associate assistant administrators plaguing the administration. The steady rate of cuts in state funding, which began with Reagan in California and spread to the rest of the nation, did even more damage.

And these are some of the reasons university educations are so insanely expensive and near-worthless today.

[cab67]

94. I agree. And I don't agree.

The hire-superstar-faculty thing was big in the 1970's and 1980's. It started to wind down in the 1990's as universities learned the hard way that top-name professors hired at a high salary can be head-hunted by wealthier universities for higher salaries.

That happened at my institution (U. Iowa) in the 1980's, when I was an undergraduate. Someone somewhere decided UI was going to become a leader in laser research. So they approached some national leaders in the field. They also had a building designed by Frank Gehry (which I think is remarkably ugly, and I don't care how talented Gehry is) for their work. None of the big-name professors ever came - they either leveraged their offers for higher salaries where they were or got better offers from more prestigious institutions. The Gehry eyesore was used for a long time to store the crew team's boats.

The same thing happens in sports. A mediocre team will throw a bunch of money at big-name stars, hoping to win the World Series or Superbowl or whatever, and they do, but the stars would have moved on to teams with larger contracts the following year.

This sort of thing still happens at universities, but not so often anymore, at least at public universities. Its most recent manifestation was in interdepartmental "cluster hires" intended to build "synergistic centers," but even here, most of the hires were junior-level, and it eventually became clear that "synergy" rarely emerged from within the clusters. Otherwise, public universities have learned their lesson and will push for a big-name hire only if there are reasons to think that person will show up and stay a while. Oherwise, it's not worth the effort. And we can't afford those kinds of salaries anymore.

So I agree with you on that point: targeted celebrity hiring can backfire badly.

Where I disagree is with your assertion that research faculty who don't teach don't do anything for students.

Let me preface this by saying - I think all faculty should teach. I've always believed that. I dislike the practice of faculty buying out of their teaching with grant funds. Students should have opportunities to take classes from top-line intellects.

But those who don't teach are still providing a service for students. They often provide research opportunities for students, for example, including undergraduates. In fact, some kinds of grant require some sort of undergraduate engagement. They can also attract some of the best graduate students, who will not only move on to great things, but work with undergraduates (either as a TA or a partner in research).

Again - I think they should teach. But even if they don't, they still benefit the university.

[NNadir]

96. My oldest son graduated from the Mason Gross School of Art, which shares a building with...

...the Bloustein School of Public Policy.

The interaction between the two schools is amusing. You couldn't put two more unrelated schools in the same space if you tried. The Bloustein folks don't like the dirty artists using "their" elevator according to my son.

The Mason Gross School of Arts gave my son excellent training in his field in my view, but they do have a superstar faculty member, Kara Walker. She apparently shows up occasionally to give a lecture. It is a little silly to say she's "faculty." I think she has some graduate students, I don't know. I think my son may have seen her once or twice.

My other son, now a Masters level Materials Science Engineer got, we all agree, a much better education than he would have gotten if he had gone to Rutgers. It's sad, in a way, but it's reality. We're happy. He wouldn't have had the opportunities he had if he went to Rutgers.

Thank you for that excellent historical perspective. I appreciate it very much.

[Wicked Blue]

97. Mason Gross School of the Arts has a history of superstar faculty

to the best of my knowledge. I never had anything to do with it.

University President Mason Gross, the school's namesake, was a very wise and great man.

When we occupied Old Queens, the former administration building, in 1970 to protest the Vietnam War, many NJ politicians and newspapers demanded that Gross send in law enforcement and arrest every last one of us, preferably after beating our commie pinko bodies into pulp.

Gross did not want to create a bloodbath or exacerbate student anger to the point of out-and-out violence and endless rioting, as happened in other places.

Instead, he publicly declared the student occupiers to be his guests, and asked to meet with us personally to find out what we wanted. It was a peaceful, collegial and fruitful meeting. He allowed the Summer Mobilization Against the War to have office and meeting space, and the free use of telephones and materials to communicate and coordinate with other colleges involved in the anti-war movement. He also helped arrange that those staying over the summer to do anti-war work could stay in willing fraternity houses at little or no cost.

We set up a speakers bureau to arrange anti-war speakers for churches, community groups and other colleges. (I spoke briefly at Temple U. and at a church or two) We held a well-attended tea party for our mothers to show them what we were doing to help end the war. We wrote position papers and letters to the editors of newspapers, contacted elected officials and much more. It was a fairly productive and civilized outreach effort.

How much saner than calling in the cops, capturing 50 to 100 occupiers and leaving us with permanent arrest records and possible bodily injuries, risking angering and radicalizing a much larger proportion of the student body and faculty, and probably resulting in much physical destruction of university property, as happened at UC-Berkeley and other places.

[Bettie]

2. My kids are at a state university

the cheapest of the three available.

They are getting a good education, but it still runs about 20k per year with housing and meal plan.

[TheBlackAdder]

90. My one sister brought up how she was able to pay for college, until I schooled her.

Last edited Tue Dec 28, 2021, 01:46 PM - Edit history (1)

.

She was a graduate of Rutgers in 1976, when tuition was around $125 per credit hour or $375 for a standard class.

I remember her complaining about paying her tuition loans until the early 80s, when there started a shift in income and people were being paid more. The purchasing power of people made a marked increase, so those loans became easier to pay down. So the people who really make out are those in this curve, the ones who went to university in the mid-70s to early-80s (people who are now in their 60s). Many income sectors made significant jumps in the 80s to mid-90s, while tuition was in the early spike region, so those people also benefited from this paradigm to a slightly lesser degree (people who are in their mid-40s to late-50s range).

Meanwhile, the part-time credit hours started to rise to $200/hr, $300/hr to its now averaging of $404/hr (for non-business/nursing). But what sucks is that the fees jack up a single class from $1,212 to well over $1,500. At Rutgers, full-time is considered 12 credit hours, which means taking 4 classes would cost over $520 a credit hour. You only break even with part-timers if you take 16 credits or more. So, if you are a working stiff and take classes, you get financially reamed if you take 4 classes.

Full-time: ($6,268 FT tuition + 1,299 student fee + 154 school fee + 995 off-site campus fee + 181 Technology fee + 11 public research group (voluntary)).

You get boned jumping from 11 credits to 12 credits just with fees: If you take 11 credits, the off-site campus fee is $286, 12 credits or more $995, so that alone jumps over $600 for that extra credit. The Student Fee jumps from $263 to $1,299 for that extra credit too. The school fee jumps from $78 to $154 too.

https://finance.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/2021-2022%20NB%20Undergraduate%20Schools.pdf

We examined the published tuition at the colleges and universities where all current members of the 115th Congress attended, both the 435 House members and 100 Introduction

Senators, to answer this question. What we found was striking, but not surprising: current students face college costs that dwarf those paid by the very elected officials tasked with tackling the problem.

On average, tuition for one year was $3,794 (an average of $8,487 in today’s dollars) for members of the House of Representatives, when they went to college. Today, students attending the same mix of colleges would see tuition bills averaging over $24,000 per year, an increase of over $15,000. Likewise, the average Senator saw a sticker price of $3,423 when they went off to school ($9,480 today), but would face a much steeper price of nearly $29,000 per year if they attended the same
schools now

https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/DEMOS_DFC_Yearbook_FA_Optimized_0.pdf

.

[samplegirl]

3. Horrible

We are paying a student loan still from my husband
Losing his job and having to return to school just in order to get the job he has now.

[Casady1]

4. Lower state funding

I believe is the main culprit.

[Caliman73]

17. Yes. The percentages were being reversed in the 1990's

It used to be, at least for State schools, that some kind of State aid would pay 80% of the costs with a 20% tuition for the family. In California, Reagan started the transition but by the time I left school in the 90's the switch was complete and State would fund 20% and the family was on the hook for 80%.

[ShazzieB]

24. This is exactly what happened.

State governments (like all governments) are always looking for things to cut, because the idea of the government spending money on things that are good for the citizenry is the devil, doncha know?

Federal, state, and local governments cutting anything and everything they can think of to cut is why college is so expensive, and it's also why everything from public schools to public transportation to affordable housing to the social safety net are in such bad shape. And if repukes have their way, all of that will eventually be privatized, which will suck for everyone except the 1%, but of course, they don't care.

[MichMan]

37. You would think tuition costs would be lower in blue state colleges compared to red states.

due to lack of funding and prioritizing education, but I don't see much difference.

I understand why college funding was cut in red states, but why was it also cut in blue states ?

[cab67]

80. cutting is one part of the equation.

So is increased operating cost.

Flagship public universities may include professional schools (e.g. medical school, engineering programs) that can be horrifically expensive to operate.

Classrooms these days cost way more to set up and operate than before the days of instructional technology. The offices needed to maintain a university's digital infrastructure started to really balloon in the 1990's, and frankly, they're still understaffed.

Although I've been somewhat dismissive of the "it's administrative bloat!" claim, salaries do play a role. If a university wants to hire the best faculty, they're going to be competing with other institutions offering decent salaries. Some universities - mine, for example, which has low average salaries compared with other Big "10" institutions - really can't compete, meaning we have a harder time recruiting top faculty and have a comparatively high attrition rate as some of my colleagues are recruited away.

(The flip side is the increase in non-tenure-track faculty at many universities. They teach more for less money. )

[zaj]

26. 💯

[Retired Engineer Bob]

35. This is it

First semester tuition for the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1988 was $750. Lived with my grandparents, took the city bus to school.

Just looked, it is now $9,254 per semester. It was nice to graduate with no student loans. Kids now face the equivalent of a mortgage payment before ever getting off the ground.

Oh well, I guess I benefited from lower state income taxes for the last 30+ years, so all is well. I just hope the deadbeat kids graduating now pay enough in so I can collect my social security.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

5. It's a financial tool for growth from banks ! you can't get rid of student loans through bankruptcy

Borrowing rates have gone from 1 to 2 percent interest to 10 to 12 percent.

Who is making money off these loans and why are arcane rules in place for borrowers ?

It took my wife, 17 years to pay off her law school loans and she went to a state school, go ducks, class of 1999 Her law partner who retired 3 years ago went to law school in the 70's paid his law school tuition with his crappy part time job.

This is not sustainable !

[Hoyt]

6. Glad we have them, but all the state grants, Pell grants, fed loans, scholarships,

Hope scholarships in Georgia, etc., are the main reason cost has escalated, along with population growth.

Would like to see 4 years at a community college guaranteed for all that want it.

[Doc Sportello]

22. Incorrect

Declining state government aid to colleges is the main reason tuition has skyrocketed. I worked at a large public university in the Big 10 and they saw state funding go from over 50 percent to less than 20 percent in 25 years. That is the theme throughout this country, as the RW made defunding public education a priority from schools to colleges. Pell grants, etc. haven't been able to keep up, so students and parents have to borrow more. Let's put the blame where it lies; not on the victims but on those economic elitists and victim blamers who have caused this problem. And community colleges aren't the answer. Numerous studies have shown they are just a way of reducing expectations for those hoping to better themselves.

[Hoyt]

48. Sorry, there is plenty of money and loans available, that increases cost unless

oversight clamps down on cost increases or borrowers say not paying that.

Not everyone can go to a big state university, hence need for community colleges funded by state.


“A new paper by economist Beth Akers of the Manhattan Institute (my former employer) asks why college tuition is so high and still rising. The proximate causes of tuition inflation are familiar: administrative bloat, overbuilding of campus amenities, a model dependent on high-wage labor, and the easy availability of subsidized student loans.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2020/08/31/a-new-study-investigates-why-college-tuition-is-so-expensive/?sh=2a93252017a0

Google “why does college cost so much? Almost every response includes easy availability of loans and subsidies.

[Doc Sportello]

87. Sorry but your Reaganomic take doesn't counter the facts

The fact is, as I wrote, that state funding for education has decreased significantly in the last quarter century:
"over the past two decades and particularly since the Great Recession, spending across levels of government converged as state investments declined, particularly in general purpose support for institutions, and federal ones grew, largely driven by increases in the need-based Pell Grant financial aid program."
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding

And quoting from the right wing Manhattan Institute (founded by Reagan CIA director William Casey and a driving force in the supply side, or voodoo, economics BS) doesn't help your cause. The main reason why higher education is in this mess is not bureaucracy - sounds just like the RW who blame government for crises created by the "free Marketers" - as you claim but politically motivated economic elites. Perhaps you should Google the Manhattan Institute, but maybe you already know and admire the people who gave us Reaganomics and so much pain for so many.

[Hoyt]

95. Jeeez, as your article says -- state subsidies declined and FEDERAL increased, as did availability

of loans.

Your own citation says:

The fact is, as I wrote, that state funding for education has decreased significantly in the last quarter century:
"over the past two decades and particularly since the Great Recession, spending across levels of government converged as state investments declined, particularly in general purpose support for institutions, and federal ones grew, largely driven by increases in the need-based Pell Grant financial aid program."
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding

[Doc Sportello]

98. Jeez, that doesn't say anything about HOW MUCH of an offset or where they came from

They didn't cover the offset from losing more than half of state funding to the university. I know that for a fact at my university, and am sure it was the case at other large universities. Income from tuition DOES NOT even come close to covering the total expense of a university. You blame the university and the people there with the same canard the RW has been using to attack public institutions for years: a bloated bureaucracy. I look at the numbers and know the biggest dropoff is in state funding and raising tuition doesn't cover the difference.

I worked at a research facility. Much of our federal dollars were for DARPA and other grants that only a small portion of which went to the university as a whole. So income from the federal government does not come close to closing the gap. Others came from large companies that paid a fraction of the costs of research dollars, and DID NOT come close to paying the students who worked on them the cost of their education. Despite your trying to portray the article as a gotcha, it isn't. You're just assuming there is an equal gain from federal dollars and higher tuition offsetting the loss of state dollars. Untrue. Jeez indeed.

I am for affordable public education and taxing corporations and the richest to pay their share to pay for it. Not put all the financial burden on parents and students, and blaming the universities as you advocate. And no, community colleges don't solve the problem.

And again, why are you using RW sources like the Manhattan Institute to bolster what has always been an attack line of theirs?

[Hoyt]

99. Doc, fact is liberal and RW "sources" agree that the availablitiy of grants and loans contribute

to excessive tuition increases.

"For example, a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggested that colleges were raising their sticker prices because the federal government was giving students more loans."

https://thescholarshipsystem.com/blog-for-students-families/the-real-reasons-why-college-tuition-is-so-high-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Your "colleges are innocent" view is myopic.

[Doc Sportello]

103. Projection at its most glaring

Your take is not only myopic but based on right wing canards and information, while totally ignoring the many counter examples I gave. Again, STUDENT LOANS and TUITION DO NOT come close to covering the cost of running a college. Never said colleges were innocent. I said and gave plenty of examples of why tuition has gone up. College bureaucracies are NOT the main culprit. I know the numbers and from experience. You simply pluck any website that supports the view you share regardless of the fact it is from a RW point of view and side with the economic elites of blaming the victims. Now THAT is myopia.

[Torchlight]

7. In the early eighties, I could work a full time summer job

and a part time semester job and make enough to go to college, live on-campus, and make car payments on a first new car (though I did drive to my parent's place four or five meals a week)

Granted, it was a state college, but still-- I'd bet folding money that, all things being equal, it couldn't happen in the here and now given the stratospheric costs.

[empedocles]

8. My Georgetown Law:

$64,548
The 2021 tuition & fees of Georgetown University Law Center is $64,548. The acceptance rate of the school is 19.54% and yield is 27.20%. The average LSAT scores submitted by enrolled students is 168 and the average GPA is 3.78.
Acceptance Rate: 19.54%
Admitted: 2,026
Applicants: 10,366
Enrolled: 551
Georgetown University Law Center | UnivS…

www.univstats.com/law-schools/georgetown-university

Rents in the area are sky high, and students need to eat, etc.

[Wicked Blue]

9. In 1969

my tuition at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, was $200 per semester plus a $65 activity fee. I think room and board was another $250.

My father earned about $12,000 a year at the time, making me ineligible for financial aid.
Beginning in junior year I paid by myself, although I went part time, while working part time.
I managed to graduate without any debt, although it took 6 years to finish.

The cost of college tuition everywhere started going up even before I graduated, but in the past few decades it has become outrageous.

A COLLEGE EDUCATION COSTS TOO DAMN MUCH. IT SHOULD BE FREE.

[Hekate]

15. That was my experience, 1965 on. Dad had that one really good year that disqualified me from...

… work-study and other forms of financial aid, and nobody ever told me I should try again.

But state university was cheap enough that by working 20 hours a week I made it through in 6 years with enough money left over to fly back home. No debt — none.

I can’t believe what this country has done to aspirational young people since then. In my mind it is a species of crime.

[nitpicker]

20. At George Mason University

When I first attended in 1975, commuters spent about $400 a semester plus about $100 for books.

They relied heavily on retired feds teaching to supplement incomes ((or in one notable case, adding to savings)).

THEN they decided to upgrade, starting with building student apartments, then luring in big-name teachers.

So that by 1983, it cost about $800 a semester ((plus any student living fees)) to attend GMU.

NOW they require freshmen to live in their dorms, at an annual cost of over $6K for triple/quad occupancy.

I managed to work-study my way through school, then got federal jobs to get through graduate school.

But what hope does the average student do but to spend 2 years at Northern Virginia Community College so that they and their parents can afford two years at GMU?

[HUAJIAO]

10. My undergrad tuition in 1961-65 was $2000/year. It is now $48,500/year !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I had a $300 scholarship. :&gt )

[CurtEastPoint]

23. My dad got a 4800 grant for me and it paid for 4 years undergrad at UNC-CH in 68-72. I did work

on campus for spending money but it covered it all. Of course, that was over 50 years ago!

[ProfessorGAC]

45. Started College '73-'74

Went to a private school in the Chicago market.
Taking 18 hours per semester, a 2 hour interim class (winter break time & I was a commuter), and 2 classes per summer carried a total cost of $3,000 per year. (Including summer term) Of course, no R&B was involved.
With that class load, I only needed 3 years, so aroune $9k, and my parents had $6k set aside and I got around $400 per semester in scholarships. So we only paid about $600 more over 3 years.
Today tuition only is almost $35k per year. Nearly 12x the cost in 48 years. About 5.31% per year
I admit that increase is smaller than I expected, although it is easily above the average inflation rate over that time.
Since I didn't have room & board I don't know what to compare today's $48 per year to.

[HUAJIAO]

49. The $48,000/year at Ithaca College now, which is where I went to undergrad, is just tuition!!

And Cornell, on the other hill, well, that's a whole 'nother story.

[ProfessorGAC]

57. Geez, My School Seems A Bargain

Their degrees in physical sciences are still very highly regarded, as well as their BSN & BizAd programs.
And, they have no football program to suck up money, although they have plenty of athletic programs.

[Hekate]

11. State funding collapsed, I know that. And taxes pay for state funding...

… and voters were convinced taxes for any reason at all were eeeeeevil.

Those are the two things that stick out the most for me.

[BlueIdaho]

100. As an educator for over 31 years

That has been what I have seen in my home state. Each year the state has shed more and more if it’s responsibility for educating its citizens leaving more of the tab to be picked up by students and family. Add to that the reduction in funding from federal government programs and you have today’s sticker shock sized tuition and fees.

You can thank republicans and their short sighted anti-tax rhetoric for a system that now keeps the rich, rich and the poor, poor.

[Sympthsical]

12. 50% increase in mine. That's accounting for inflation.

And I'm talking about the 00s here.

50% jump since 2000. It's almost impressive.

I looked at enrollment. It did not get significantly bigger.

I should note this is a private, Catholic university.

[Raftergirl]

14. The last year's COA (2015) we paid

at my son’s college was $65k/yr. COA for 2021-2022 is now $76k/yr.

He was fortunate we could pay it and he was able to graduate without any loans.

As far as I am concerned it was an excellent ROI as he earns well into the six figures, already owns his own home and has been able to invest a lot outside of his retirement accounts, while still in his 20’s.

[Efilroft Sul]

18. Scholarships don't seem to have kept pace with rising costs, either.

My son will be a college freshman next year, and he's competing for $10,000 scholarships that pay out $2500 for each of the four standard years to earn a Bachelor's. These are some of the more generous scholarships for which he's eligible; others are like $1000 here, $500 there, maybe $5000 for four years.

[Raftergirl]

19. If you earn $125k/ yr or less

in NYS, tuition is free at every SUNY. You do have to commit to stay in NY and work for 4 years.

Room and board is not covered, but there are so many SUNY’s one is almost always in commuting distance.

[Mosby]

21. I was paying about $1500/semester in 1994

In state ASU.

[Diablo del sol]

65. My last year at ASU, 1985, tuition was either $410 or $450

Almost certain it was $410, started at $325 in '81.

So you were on the front end of the increases. I think my older brother and sister were not much less than my first year. (15 and 8 years earlier)

My daughters were 4 years apart, 2011 and 2015 HS grads. Most schools went up 20 to 25% in the four years.

[uponit7771]

74. +1

[roamer65]

27. My first semester at U of M (Michigan) was $1000.

1983.

[TrollBuster9090]

29. I started University in 1981, tuition fees were...

$66 per course. At five courses per semester, that was $330 per semester, or $660 for the academic year. A one bedroom apartment was $250 per month, and a dorm room was $80 per month, including meals. People would then go tree planting or fish farming for the summer, and earn $20,000 over the summer.

Tuition fees were low, and financial/ class mobility was HIGH. The sons and daughters of janitors and fast food workers were going to university to become doctors and lawyers, because it was affordable. It was a true meritocracy.

The following year was the beginning government austerity, and the tuition fees tripled in one semester. It's been a steep climb ever since. To the point where, these days, the only people who can afford to go to university to become doctors and lawyers and architects are the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, and architects. By charging ridiculously high tuition fees, we're creating a PERMANENT, HEREDITARY professional class system. .

It's a disgrace.

[Wicked Blue]

36. You can blame Reagan for that "austerity"

That POS wanted to destroy education in any form.

[MichMan]

38. Reagan has been out of office for over 30 years now.

There has been plenty of time to undo anything he ever did if government and the people so desired

[Arazi]

30. But gawd forbid Biden try to offer college loan forgiveness to these folks

[oregonjen]

31. What about funding for sports?

My alma mater has a wonderful new sports facility, ONLY FOR THE ATHLETES. The buildings for the arts get left in the dust. It ticks me off that it costs so much for an education and the funding is not distributed evenly. Yeah, I get monetary donations need to go where the donation specifies, but geez, I’m sick of sports being the dominating receiver of funds.

[dchill]

32. "...royally screwed over?"

How about "fascistically screwed over?"

[arlyellowdog]

33. College loan forgiveness will lose votes

I’m in Virginia. God knows what is moving onto the governor’s mansion, but I know why he’s moving in. We Democrats didn’t think through our positions. Forgiving the loans of some people (some even want $50,000) while others worked theirs off, will piss off voters. Make college more affordable, but drop the damn give away. And, yes, I held numerous jobs, along with my kids, to pay off millennial loans. I’d still vote Democratic, but my son vows he’d never vote Democratic again if the loans of people lucky enough to be born after him (or who didn’t work harder to get theirs aid off) are paid off.

[MichMan]

39. Need to reduce the costs of college, not let them charge whatever they want and forgiving the loans.

They charge exorbitant amounts to support a bloated and wasteful system. Go drive through a major university sometime, and look at all the building projects they have going all the time. Don't want to even get into all the billions in their endowments they are sitting on that isn't taxed.

Why? Because they can. Regardless of how much costs have increased, students kept borrowing whatever they charged, so no reason to not keep doing it.

Loan forgiveness rewards the colleges for this largesse, and if anything, will give them the green light to raise the costs even higher still.

[Arazi]

46. Anecdotes don't equal data. Student loan forgiveness is overwhelmingly popular

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/22/more-than-60percent-of-voters-support-some-student-loan-debt-forgiveness.html

Biden forgiving even $10k of student loans is supported by a large majority of Americans.

Guess he'll just have to deal with losing your son's vote

[MichMan]

53. When I graduated in 1988, I owed 10K

That equates to $23,500 in today's dollars.

According to data, the average amount owed for student loans for graduating seniors is $29k. While a little bigger, not as bad as one would think.

[link:https://universityhq.org/paying-for-college/student-loans/average-loan-debt/#:~:text=Student%20loan%20debt%20is%20currently%20the%20highest%20it,saw%20an%20average%20student%20loan%20debt%20of%20%2428%2C650.|

[AngryOldDem]

54. It absolutely is.

This debt is crushing younger people. Do we think that won’t show up in the overall health of the economy at some point?

This is a no-brainer.

[arlyellowdog]

70. I canvass. Biden has data.

[Arazi]

82. I canvas too. I repeat, anecdotes don't mean shit. Data is more meaningful

[smirkymonkey]

75. Here's a modest proposal, and I don't understand why this isn't more popular.

How about forgiving the INTEREST on the student loans, because that is what is really crushing people. People like me have long since paid off what we have borrowed, yet we are still paying off the bone-crushing interest to the government because of [reasons] which I don't feel like going into right now and which i don't believe are fair.

Don't we all agree that most people could get on board with that? Forgive the remainder of the debt for those who have already paid off their principal?

[Arazi]

84. I think that's been proposed too

The interest is an enormous issue all on it's own.

I believe Biden has a lot of options on the table and his delay in implementing any of them is hurting him.

[JanMichael]

41. Mine was even lower in 1990. About $1500/semester at a Florida state college.

Not FSU.

[Dave says]

42. My freshman tuition was $4300

Today it's just over $60,000. That does not include room, board, or books.

[Pas-de-Calais]

44. Graduated with Double BS Majors in 1981 and a MBA/Masters in 1999

My respective bills were

$3000

And

$20k

[AngryOldDem]

51. I paid for my college tuition, every last cent.

Graduated in ‘83 from a private university. Parents did not fill out any financial aid forms for me (long, sad, enraging story) so I got a part-time job and worked. For my books, I did freelance writing.

Paid for it all — including two years of living on campus.

Looking back, it was hard. I did not have the usual college experience because I was working, studying, or sleeping. I wouldn’t recommend it. But that is beside the point…no way in hell could I do that today.

I hear you, though. My ROI has not been worth it.

[MichMan]

56. The federal government took over the loan program in 2010 as part of the ACA to offset health costs

As I recall, the interest revenue was included to offset the cost of the ACA to get it under a trillion dollars.

[NowISeetheLight]

62. Western Governors University

I went back to school in my 40s to finish a BS. $3100 a semester for as many courses as I could complete. It took me a few years but I did it and I didn’t take on a ton of debt. Western Governors is a fully accredited and regionally certified university that is affordable. I recommend them every time I see someone talk about going back to school.

I contrast that to my AS Criminal Justice degree. Borrowed the max for two years to help cover living expenses. Ended up with around $45k in debt which ballooned after years of deferments for being a student and IBR to over $130k over the years. 8.5% interest and I couldn’t refinance it. When I hit 100% P&T with the VA and got SSDI it also wiped out my loans. It was such a huge relief.

[DFW]

63. In 1970-1974

I remember bringing a check from my dad to my college. It was for about $6000 each semester. I just looked at the tuition for the college of my younger daughter in 1999-2000 (she didn't enter until 2003). It was already $22,625 per year (room and board included). By the time she graduated (2007), it was about $50,000 a year. It is now $60,000 a year. It has quite a large student body, so a LOT of them must be getting some kind of financial aid.

I don't know if it is feasible to restructure that to $20,000 for everyone so that except for the few to whom $60,000 is pocket change, but I suspect not. Those to whom even $20,000 is unattainable don't care if it's $20,000 or $20,000,000. If they can't afford it, they can't afford it. My parents died in 2000 and 2002, and what cash they left me and my siblings, divided by three, was just enough to pay for the US educations of my two daughters. One of them was best in her class ("dad, what does the English word 'valedictorian' mean, and why do I have to give a speech in English?" ), and the other is now considered probably the top female attorney in her field in Europe, so it was well worth it--for me. But what about normal mortals? How are they EVER expected to get out from under that yoke?

I don't feel that the high school I graduated from or the University I graduated from made any particular effort to make me feel welcome, or took any great pains to facilitate my way through there, so the only alumni fund I contribute to is the one that really mattered to me: one that lets high school students study for a year in one of four locations: France, Spain, Italy and China. Each year, they accept a few dozen high school kids, many of which are on full scholarship, for this program. It is a life-changer. The kids live with local families in each country (this is how I learned to speak Catalan). THIS was more important to me than ANYthing I ever learned in high school OR college. I consider it a vital opportunity. My best contact from those teenage days in Catalunya is a guy from New York City who was on a full scholarship. He went on to build parts of the Space Shuttle. He didn't need Spanish to do that, but he did get the experience of being on his own, and gaining the confidence to try things he didn't know how to do.

German high schools encourage this for ALL high school students that have a certain GPA level. The German government steps in to help finance it, too. The German government, being from a country bordering on nine different countries, ALL a day's drive from the capital city, understands only too well that it is vital that its youth understand and accept "foreign" cultures. If only our own government would "get it" as well, I bet that 75% of our foreign relations troubles would vanish in a half a generation.

[Septua]

64. When I went to a small college...

..tuition, room and board was $480 per semester...I'll let you figure out when.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

66. Lower outside funding and much greater service & technology demands on colleges.

When I went to college they needed a classroom with chairs and a whiteboard. Tech costs for hardware are getting more manageable lately but just a few years ago they were ridiculous. Staffing costs to support the tech are still big.
The dorms were two beds in a cinderblock-walled room. Bath down the hall. Now: check the brochures. Seriously, 'brochures.' The old dorms are being leveled to make way for much fancier digs with tons of perks.
If you had physical disabilities or learning disabilities-- largely wasn't the college's problem. No longer. Now there's greater staffing and funding for that.
You can't just 'adjust for inflation.'

[NowISeetheLight]

71. 27% Instruction, 21% Academic Support, .....

Public University Spending graphs in this article are interesting.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=75

[betsuni]

72. I think my mother went to St. Cloud University, late 1940s.

[greenjar_01]

83. That was pretty inexpensive even for 1999, though

Most state schools would run you $10,000-$15,000 a year for tuition + room and board, even going back to early 90s.

[madville]

85. I went to community college in the 90's

It was $80 a credit so a 12 credit semester was about $1100 with some misc fees. Used books were another hundred or two but then easily resold. High school students could attend their junior and senior years tuition free at the community college under dual enrollment as long as they maintained a C average. My younger brother and cousin both did this, when they graduated high school they also received a 2-year AA degree from the community college.

My brother also attended the state university tuition free under the lottery-funded scholarship at the time, just had to maintain a 3.0 or 3.5 gpa, can’t remember.

I got my degree at no cost later using my GI Bill from the military.

[mathematic]

88. Nobody pays sticker price unless their family has $

In economics this is called price discrimination and it just means that they figured out a way to charge more to people that can pay more. Harvard tuition a million dollars? Somebody will pay it everybody else get a 990k or more "scholarship". The end result is that universities get to collect the maximum value from all their customers.

[Raftergirl]

101. Except the large amount of institutional aid aka grants is really only

substantial at the very top schools (like top 20-25) and these schools all have extremely low acceptance rates. You have to be able to get accepted to reap the rewards.

Then there are a whole bunch of lesser ranked schools who go big on merit aid - usually in the range of $10k-20k/yr to attract high caliber students who wouldn’t qualify for institution aid at the top schools but whose parents like the discount they will get at the these schools because paying full COA is just too expensive. So, instead of paying $70k/yr it only costs them $50k.

When my kid was applying he got lots of merit aid at schools ranked slightly below (the lowest was $15k/yr the highest was $30k/yr) so, at that time it would have been on avg about $30k-$40k/yr COA at those schools instead of the $60-$65k a year we paid. His college did not offer any merit aid, only institutional grants. The average institutional grant at my son’s college when he attended was $40k/yr and now is $47k/yr and the Ivies give even more - even to people who are not exactly poor ($150k/yr income.) But they also look at your assets, including equity in your home - except for funds in retirement accounts, iirc. They make you fill out the CSS in addition to FAFSA. We submitted the CSS to several schools but our assets were to high for us to qualify for IA.


Merit aid is another way for those colleges that offer it to attract higher caliber student, which improves the colleges USNWR ranking. The rich whose kids are not smart enough for the higher ranked schools are the ones who pay full COA at the schools who give merit aid.

[Emile]

89. Manchester College (Indiana) in 1998 was around $25,000 per year.

I have no idea what it cost today?

[Emile]

91. Quick google search shows today's cost for Manchester is

Annual Prices

The annual list price to attend Manchester University on a full time basis for 2018/2019 is $45,954 for all students regardless of their residency. This fee is comprised of $32,366 for tuition, $9,842 room and board, $1,000 for books and supplies and $1,258 for other fees.

[BannonsLiver]

92. As usual most DUers get it wrong.

It’s not perpetual DU boogeyman college football that is responsible, it’s state funding cut backs and yes, BLOATED ADMINISTRATION costs. Unless you are a university President or VP this does NOT apply to you, so chill out. My large state school has 28 VP’s all making in excess of $150k per annum. If people don’t think that is a problem they are part of the problem.

[Ron Green]

102. But Gasoline's $2.49 a Gallon!!

It’s better to drive a lot than to have a college degree.