"It's Impossible To Work Your Way Through College Nowadays"

Zero Hedge ^ | 04/21/2014 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

"It's impossible to work your way through college nowadays"...is the hard-to-swallow (but not entirely surprising) conclusion of Randal Olson's research into just how extreme national tuition costs have become in the US. As The Atlantic notes, the economic cards are stacked such that today’s average college student, without support from financial aid and family resources, would need to complete at least 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for his courses.

 

To better measure the cost of tuition, Olson links to a Reddit discussion of cost per "credit hours" -

MSU calculates tuition by the "credit hour," the term for the number of hours spent in a classroom per week. By this metric, which is used at many U.S. colleges and universities, a course that's worth three credit hours is a course that meets for three hours each week during the semester. If the semester is 15 weeks long, that adds up to 45 total hours of a student's time. The Reddit user quantified the rising cost of tuition by cost per credit hour:

 

This is interesting. A credit hour in 1979 at MSU was 24.50, adjusted for inflation that is 79.23 in today dollars. One credit hour today costs 428.75.

 

...

 

In 1979, when the minimum wage was $2.90, a hard-working student with a minimum-wage job could earn enough in one day (8.44 hours) to pay for one academic credit hour. If a standard course load for one semester consisted of maybe 12 credit hours, the semester's tuition could be covered by just over two weeks of full-time minimum wage work—or a month of part-time work. A summer spent scooping ice cream or flipping burgers could pay for an MSU education.

 

The cost of an MSU credit hour has multiplied since 1979. So has the federal minimum wage.

 

But today, it takes 60 hours of minimum-wage work to pay off a single credit hour, which was priced at $428.75 for the fall semester.

Olson, who's doing his graduate work at MSU, crunched the numbers further to create this graph:

 

 

Furthermore, Olson adds,

the average student in 1979 could work 182 hours (a part-time summer job) to pay for a year's tuition. In 2013, it took 991 hours (a full-time job for half the year) to accomplish the same.

And this is only considering the cost of tuition, which is hardly an accurate representation of what students actually spend for college.

As The Atlantic concludes...

Is it any surprise that so many students today are suckered into taking out non-dischargeable loans, in growing chunks, to pay for their bachelor's degrees?

...

It's more important than ever to make sure that, if you're not working 40+ hours a week at a minimum-wage job while in college, you'll be able to get a better-paying job after graduation.

[OldMissileer]

In 1982 I started as a Sophmore/Junior (credits from going to school while in the Air Force) at MSU and a Credit Hour cost $22.50 IIRC. When I graduated two and one half years later I was paying $55 per Credit Hour and also had to pay a $300 per term fee for being the the College of Engineering.

I had a full-time job and the GI Bill plus I worked another part-time job. I still had to borrow $1000 to make it through my Senior year so I had to pay that loan back after graduation.

[lurk]

Great, now we find out, now that three of our kids are graduating in 3 weeks, debt free, having worked their way through.

I would have liked to have found out it was impossible a few years ago.

[wonkowasright]

MSU...a single credit hour, which was priced at $428.75 for the fall semester.

Fortunately MSU isn't the only game in town. There are plenty of affordable colleges well below 428/credit hour.

[huldah1776]

higher education grabbing their piece of the redistribution pie.

[wonkowasright]

I’ll go so far as to say that state and federal governments might as well fund higher education for all scoring higher than X on SAT/ACT etc. at plain jane state colleges.

We are already going to pay that much for the defaults on all the guaranteed loans we’ve made that are being taken by folks earning degrees that will never earn enough to pay them back.

[wny]

Another aspect of this is effects of O-commiecare. Both my kids are in college and they worked 45 to 50 hours a week at their summer jobs (that they’ve had since high school and for 1 and 2 college summers already). This summer, they’re both being limited to 29 hours.

[Mears]

Congrats to your kids.

.

[oldenuff2no]

I just have to laugh at all of this.

Why does Chicago have a high homicide and murder rate? Because the liberals have been running it for decades.

Why are many huge American Cities facing bankruptcy? Because liberals and unions have been running them for decades.

Why is the cost of college so high today? Because the liberals have been running them for decades.

How is any of this so hard to understand? When liberals are in control what ever they are controlling fails miserably, every time.

[TomGuy]

Tuition doubled from the summer I started at the U of Ark to the fall 1966.

The summer tuition was $7.50 per credit hour. The fall tuition increased to $15.00 per credit.

By my senior year (1969) the state university I attended increased semester tuition from $100 to $150.

Those are small numbers now, but at the time, they were significant increases.

We didn’t have all the financial aid programs, etc., that are available today. There was one grant program that covered tuition, but all other fees, books, room & board had to be covered by two loan programs or work.

[TexasFreeper2009]

the cost of a local junior college or tech school is VERY affordable still and would be a FAR better investment for most people with a low IQ than a costly four year college degree.

[centurion316]

Those are the numbers that I remember when I attended the University of Arkansas at the same time. I had a ROTC scholarship that paid the tuition, books, fees and $50 a month. I worked as a houseboy at a sorority house that paid for lunch and dinner and when I was an officer in the fraternity, I got free room. Summer jobs paid for all my clothes and such.

[grania]

Going to a tech school for a year or taking a vocational progrem if one’s available can mean a real job skill which will pay for college. Besides that, it’s great backup if that college experience doesn’t work out or doesn’t lead to employment opportunities.

[MasterGunner01]

Given that most college degrees are worthless pieces of paper, get into a skilled trade and avoid the high cost of college and associated college loans.

[Alberta's Child]

It’s not impossible to work your way through college, especially if you’re willing to stretch your education out over 5-6 or more years while you’re doing it.

[Cyber Liberty]

I just got sticker shock. Price at Arizona State University is around $500 per credit hour. It was $32 last I looked, back in the ‘80’s.

[SES1066]

It is not in a College / University’s interest to decrease student’s cost and to wish it were so is to live in a fantasy world. Academia is a key participant in the progressive coalition that are the supporters of the liberal Democrats. Over the past several decades, college costs have CONSISTENTLY out-grown inflation costs in a time where the popular culture has all high school graduates aimed at post-secondary education. Add to this the government incentives in the form of Pell Grants and AOC Tax Credits and you end with a scenario where there is no downward pressure in education to reduce costs or attendance at the post-secondary level. Childhood is stretched to age 24-26 but an enormous back-end cost on the individual.

President Eisenhower became famous with the intelligentsia when he decried, in his farewell speech of 1960, the Military-Industrial Complex and its danger to the Nation. I would guess, were he to give such a speech today, it would be the Academia and Public Interest Group Complex that would concern him. Their interests are very selfish and not in line with the Nation’s welfare!

[Skooz]

When I went to college in the 1980s, I worked six days a week and it wasn’t anywhere near enough to pay for tuition, books and fees. I made up the difference with grants, scholarships, and student loans.

I sat down one day with a calculator and determined that I would have to make over $40 an hour to pay for college with my job alone. That included working full time over the summer. Even then, it would have been tight.

And this was 1988.

[texas booster]

This MSU is Michigan State University, for those who are wondering.

I paid $12 per credit hour at MSU in Wichita Falls TX in 1977.

Of course, I earned more than minimum wage since I made myself worth more to my employer.

Perhaps lots of things have changed, bot just the cost of college.

[jch10]

Yes, and many high schools have dual enrollment that would allow a year or two of technical courses....maybe even certification by high school graduation.