College Tuition Costs Soar: Chart of the Day

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-18/college-tuition-costs-soar-chart-of-the-day.html

The cost of higher education has jumped more than 13-fold in records dating to 1978, illustrating bloated tuition costs even as enrollment slows and graduates struggle to land jobs.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows that tuition expenses have ballooned 1,225 percent in the 36-year period, compared with a 634 percent rise in medical costs and a 279 percent increase in the consumer price index.




Some for-profit schools such as Corinthian Colleges Inc. have collapsed amid enhanced federal scrutiny, and three of the nine worst performers in the Russell 3000 index (RAY) are education companies. Yet university degrees are hardly on sale. The student loan debt burden threatens to overwhelm younger Americans, who already are finding a tougher labor market compared with their older counterparts.

“Some schools are effectively limiting cost increases by bigger tuition discounting, but on the whole college presidents have not adjusted to a fundamental shift in attitudes toward the value of a high-cost education,” said Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington. “Colleges are too slow to reinvent themselves,” particularly as enrollments are waning, said Vedder, who is a Bloomberg View contributor.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[Michigander_Life]

2. Colleges are pricing themselves out of relevancy

The system will change or we will change it.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

18. It's already being changed

1) More kids now do their first two-years of undergrad at community/junior college to cut costs. They then transfer to the brand-name state school.

2) More kids are engaging in distance learning or other alternative forms of college that don't require setting foot on a campus

3) Due to the ACA, most schools now separate out health care costs since students often remain on parental plans until age 26

4) In many cases, private schools are a better bargain than public schools for families with incomes under $75K. Many offer grants that meet most, if not all, demonstrated financial need.


Do you have a smart kid? Does your smart kid have really good test scores and a solid GPA? Do you live outside of Alabama? You might want to consider this:

http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html

[Arugula Latte]

21. We are looking at community colleges for our oldest.

I always thought he'd go to a four-year college, but it is just ridiculously expensive.

[raccoon]

3. One reason that state-supported colleges' costs have gone up is the state doesn't give as much

money to the colleges as they used to.

That is true in SC, and I'm sure it's true in at least some other states.

[ladjf]

5. You are correct about the loss of state financial support. nt

Last edited Tue Aug 19, 2014, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)

[Boreal]

27. Yet salaries have gone way up

I got to digging into this, last year, and looked at the salaries at the University of Michigan and I was floored.

[ladjf]

34. I got a doctorate from Michigan for $500.00 tuition per semester in 1964 and I was an

"out of state" student. nt

[Romulox]

4. Today's colleges provide bad value for money. More subsidies and bigger loans aren't the answer. nt

[Bettie]

6. It is sad, college will be much harder for my kids

When I started UW Madison in the fall of 1984, my in-state tuition was under 600 dollars a semester.

By the time I graduated it had more than tripled.

Now, it is terrifyingly high and that is a state school. I shudder to think what private schools charge these days.

[closeupready]

16. Hey, fellow Badger! Though I paid out-of-state tuition

for two years 86-88 (having transferred after two years at another Big Ten school).

By the way, appropo of not this topic, but the Ferguson/racism theme, were you a Daily Cardinal reader during your college days?

[Bettie]

17. Yes indeed, I was

Daily Cardinal was a regular bit of material for me.

[closeupready]

19. Do you remember

that Fiji party scandal, and the Daily Cardinal ran a rather shocking editorial cartoon - I can't recall the exact details, but I think there was criticism of one of the campus administrators in failing to act promptly (in the Daily Cardinal's view) in imposing sanctions on the house involved in holding the party? This was maybe Spring 1987?

[Bettie]

25. Vague recollction of it

Was that the slave auction thing? I do remember that.

As I recall, they did not act promptly at all in dealing with the whole thing.

Wow, that was a long time ago!

[woo me with science]

7. Creating generations of indentured wage slaves. nt

[xchrom]

8. +1

[KurtNYC]

9. College is held up as the great equalizer, the way for those discriminated against to get better job

This chart shows who values college the most, and least and seems to show part of the cost of discrimination and who pays it:

[marmar]

10. The amount of student loan debt my younger cousins have accumulated .....

..... is frightening.

[Sancho]

11. State governments have been trying to move higher education (and public schools) to private/profits.

They have cut back like crazy. Here in FL, over the last few decades the percent cost from tuition has steadily gone up while the funding from the state has steadily gone down.

What's really crazy is that colleges used to depend on foundations and donations to keep running. Now, if your school has a pot of money greater than it costs to run the place - then the state cuts your budget!!! There's no way to get ahead.

[mn9driver]

12. Well, at least CEO pay has almost kept pace.

It's up 937 percent over the same period.

Average workers, not so much. 10.2 percent for the rest of us.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5484622

[plcdude]

13. I teach

at a public state university and I can tell you that we are not seeing pay increases every year and the ones that we get every two or three years are around 3%. A major reason for higher tuition is that the public university/college is in name only. Public money from the States has dwindled as conservative dominated State legislatures cut taxes. This is an old report but as you can see we have lost one third of our funding on average since the turn of the century.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-alarming-drop-in-state-support-for-universities/
For more recent data check out the Chronicle here http://chronicle.com/article/25-Years-of-Declining-State/144973/

[Paper Roses]

14. In the 1980's, when our kids were in college, we struggled to pay. Compared to todays costs,

the money we paid was minimal. My late husband and I never made much money and one of my kids got a partial scholarship but it was still hard to find dollars to pay tuition and fees. We ate a lot of sandwiches and never went anywhere because we knew we'd soon get 'next semester' bills.

I worry so much for families who now face the 'loan shark' costs of an education. I read somewhere on DU this AM that student loans were sold to a second party at a few cents on the dollar. I cannot find the post but it is interesting. I believe it was something like 15 cents.
Makes me want to scream.

Our children and grandchildren should go to technical school and learn skills that will always pay big dollars. Have you called a plumber or electrician lately?

We are a disgrace in so many ways. I'm not talking about each of us, I mean the system.
No health care worth a damn, education too expensive to pay, miserable job options, no opportunity for seniors to find a decent job, everything costs too much to buy and falls apart as our dollars go overseas.

Always money available for the big war machines. This bugs the heck out of me.

I'm old and disgusted.

[riderinthestorm]

23. It was in the New York Times. I read that too. Here's the link

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/magazine/bad-paper-debt-collector.html?ref=magazine&_r=1

A fascinating read for anyone interested in this dark underbelly of finance....

[blackspade]

15. Despicable.

[Elwood P Dowd]

20. I worked my way through college in the 1960s.

My parents were lower middle class barely out of poverty. They paid the $360.00 a year for tuition, and I worked 20-30 hours a week during the school year and full time in the summer to pay for everything else. My reward for all that was a fucking draft notice and two years in the US Army when I finally graduated. All of my jobs were minimum wage or slightly higher, and adjusted for REAL WORLD inflation (not the current CPI calculations) the minimum wage back then equals about $10.00 to $11.00 an hour today. Sounds like with today's minimum wage rate and the insane costs for tuition, working your way through college in four years is just about impossible.

[riderinthestorm]

24. It is impossible. In-state tuition and fees this year at U of Illinois is $32,000 per year

Many new college grads don't make that much working full time let alone part time.

My youngest daughter is starting college this fall at Ireland's top university, Trinity. Between living expenses, tuition etc she should finish her entire degree for less than $50,000 total.

The costs in the US are astronomical. We're destroying our best and brightest with this crippling debt. Its crazy.

[BainsBane]

28. Woah

That is really high. Here it is just over $10k, and that's bad enough.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

31. What you do now is this...

You work full time and try to get an AA or certificate online and at night classes from the local JC/CC while working. Then you transfer to the state school, and finance two years of school and hope a) you can be done in 2 years and b) that you can keep it under $50K.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Another major sign for a country in decline and its sick, evil priorities

[HooptieWagon]

26. Hell, even the textbook prices are ridiculous.

Often, books are required that end up being little-used. Profs require books they've authored. Books could easily be printed on demand or made available online for very little cost. Somebody is making a killing on texts. Kickbacks?

[Elwood P Dowd]

29. A friend has a grandson that just started college this week.

She said the costs of his freaking books alone for Fall semester were close to $1,000.00. Yikes!!!

[Algernon Moncrieff]

30. That's pretty typical these days

You can get some help with used books, but that only goes so far - especially if your prof. wrote one of the texts.

[HooptieWagon]

32. Yep.

Sometimes you can sell the books, but they change editions rather frequent to spur sales of new books, so the older editions are worthless. What's really a pisser is when they change editions in the middle of a 2 semester class that uses the same book... then you have to buy it twice. I swear its a fucking racket, and somebody is taking kickbacks.

[riderinthestorm]

33. Just over $700 for my daughter this semester.

That's a mix of renting, used and one class that required all new.



I was actually happy it was "so" cheap...