Posted on 11/05/2021 12:03:19 PM PDT by karpov
The most striking fact about American colleges and universities over the last fifty years is how rapidly the cost of attending has risen.
A good perspective on the college cost explosion is found in a November, 2017 study prepared for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. It states, “A student working full-time over the summer of 1971 would only need to earn $2.70 per hour, at a time when the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour, to earn enough to pay for a year at a public, four-year college. Today, that student would need to earn $38.63 an hour. If they wanted to attend a private college, they would need to earn $87.25 an hour to cover tuition, room and board.”
Getting a college education now costs far more than it used to, but are those costs justified? Could it be that the “product” colleges are offering is significantly better? Does that added cost benefit students?
A recent study entitled The Cost of Excess by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) sheds some light on those questions, focusing on how colleges spend their revenues.
After surveying cost data at a wide array of colleges and universities, 1,529 in all, the writers conclude, “Institutional spending continues to rise while contributing little to graduation rates. Moreover, investment in instructional staff—particularly tenured or tenure-track professors—has been overshadowed by increases in administrative staff, namely well-paid, professional employees.”
ACTA’s analysis shows that increased spending by colleges has been a strong trend no matter what the economic conditions in the country. In good times and bad, colleges continued to enroll more students and tuition climbed steadily higher. Federal student aid policy has had much to do with that.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Once government decided to ‘help’ with a college education three things happened.
1. The quality of Professors went down - waaaaay down.
2. Costs went sky-high.
3. Colleges and Government Bureaucrats became a self-serving tag team.
The “big education” cycle.
Make lots of money available for college.
Colleges raise prices to soak it up.
Colleges pay big money to lefty profs and admins.
Profs and admins donate to Democrats.
and repeat
Sorry, my “Affordable” was tongue-in-cheek, satire. Whenever the government gets involved, things get thoroughly fouled up. The worst is when the government says they are going to make something “affordable.” The price to the consumer ALWAYS soars after they do that. No exceptions.
As you say, nearly “free” money to pay for college means lots of people who should be nowhere near a college (no aptitude, poor grades, no ambition, no desire) went to college and got useless degrees that didn’t require much work. The government claiming that “everybody needs a college degree” made it even worse.
When there was no federal money in colleges, campuses were austere and rather spartan. The people who went to college found a way to pay for it and they got degrees in subjects that paid off.
What incentive do colleges have to control costs when the government will pick up the tab of their price increases? In a free market system I’d wager few would be willing to pay $40-50,000 for a college degree, especially one in gender studies or other malarkey.
Great postm
There are plenty of seats in colleges. The problem is so many people only want name brand colleges. The ‘elite’ colleges are approaching $80,000 and some people believe if you don’t go to one of those, you’ll be a failure. Which is not true. There are many schools that cost under $20,000. If applying strategically, out of pocket cost can be less than that with merit aid.
In the next few years there will be fewer kids graduating HS due to the Birth dearth starting in 2008. The name brand colleges won’t be affected, but the closing of small rural liberal arts colleges will increase. 5-10 already close down every year. The loss of white males going to college is already a problem. As a college becomes more than 60% female, fewer boys will apply there.
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