Posted on 08/26/2022 1:27:44 PM PDT by grundle
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
August 26, 2022
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1980 and 2020, regular inflation has caused average prices to increase by 228%. However, during that same time period, college tuition has increased by 1,184%.
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And what are colleges doing with all this extra money?
Forbes wrote:
The College Amenities Arms Race
A free movie theater. A 25 person hot tub and spa with a lazy river and whirlpool. A leisure pool with biometric hand scanners for secure entry. A 50 foot climbing wall to make exercise interesting. And a top-of-the-line steak restaurant with free five course meals.
This isn’t a list of items from a resort brochure. They’re facilities you can find on a college campus. And with college construction costs rising, it could be the best four-year getaway you’ve ever had.
In “Country Club as College,” a paper published last year, University of Michigan researchers examined college financial consumption against enrollment.
“We found that the lower ability students and higher income students have a greater willingness to pay for these amenities,” says Brian Jacob, a researcher from the University of Michigan. “The more academic, high achieving students cared about intellectual achievement.”
In other words? Harvard University might not spend approximately $700 million to renovate their campus, but High Point University would. Under the leadership of President Nido Qubein, High Point’s campus has grown into a collegiate theme park, complete with plasma televisions in dorm rooms, a free movie theater, and steak restaurant. And their five-star, country club accommodations have made the percent admitted decline from 86.1% in 2002 to 64.2% in 2012.
The University of Iowa has an estimated $53 million campus recreation center, complete with an 18 foot diving well, bubble benches, and lazy river. Texas Tech University has a veritable water park in their backyard. California State University, Fullerton has a 30 foot rock wall. And California State University, Long Beach has a $70 million wellness center with hand scanners for secure entry.
So the real problem isn’t a lack of bailout money. The real problem is that colleges are spending money on frivolous luxuries that have nothing to do with education.
Bailing out student loans doesn’t address this problem.
On the contrary. The bailout only gives colleges an incentive to raise their tuition even more.
Wow is it too late to get a student loan (for a week in Vegas)?
A lot of them pay for Spring Break. I know, my dumb*ss daughter did that.
It’s true. The college towns (I’m most familiar with SEC schools) have become resorts. Luxury apartments going on for miles where once there were farms.
I put myself through college on the GI Bill. I still ended up with $16k in loans (in today’s dollars). I know, firsthand, as many do, that some of that loan money was used for a spring break trip and for other, ah-hem, non-educational expenses.
I paid back every dime. These deadbeats who are now claiming victim status and whining about not knowing how these loans would affect them are whiny, spoiled brats enabled by Democrat vote buyers.
Think about it. These kids are going to college. They are supposed to be smart, yet they’re too dumb to understand elemental economics? Is that what they are saying?
What about my mortgage? Can I too claim that I was ripped off by the predatory bank who lent me the money? Do I get to join in on this “forgiveness”? Why not? Why is my loan not equal in weight to their loan?
It is time to congratulate the Big Education lobbyists.
Well done!
;-)
Do the “students” need to have actually graduated to recieve the bailout or just vote democrat?
Even in the 90’s I remember many “students” that used loan money to pay for cars and living expenses. They took minimal classes and rarely finished. Back then tuition/fees were $1400 but they were giving out $20k in loans.
Pleasure Island, from Pinocchio, and just as deadly.
“Private” contractor money to the builders.
Think about it.
I used some of my student loans to buy components for a pretty sweet sound system.
Those loans have long been paid.
spring break $$!
I got one student loan back in 1980.
I used it to buy a bicycle for Transportation, though some might feel that a Cinelli Supercourse with Huret Jubilee components and tubular tires might be a little over the top for a ride-it-to-class bike. Yeah, a 17.5-pound steel bicycle.
Sure woulda have been nice if Uncle Sugar had made someone else pay for that!
These things are like an arms race for recruiting students that keeps going higher and higher.
That’s serious old school.
Geez! They don’t want to get an education, apply it in the real world and work their way up to real money…they want it ALL now.
These things are like an arms race for recruiting students that keeps going higher and higher.
I can attest to that.
You think rock climbing walls and hot tubs are bad? Look at the "Diversion Equity and Inclusion" staff.
And this is just at two schools. I'd bet most every major state university has a similar staff.
They bought into the LIE that a college degree is the pathway to success.
And never stopped to consider that many majors are 100% worthless and are only a pathway to debt.
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