[cpdiii]

Circa 1966 I was a roughneck during the summers on the drilling rigs. I made about 800 dollars a month. That is about 7200 dollars today. It was hot dirty and dangerous work. I worked 12 hour tours for 8 days and then 4 days off. In effect my work week 64 hours averaged through the month.

I was grateful for the job. With these earnings I could pay for two semesters of college, room and board. This is impossible today. The reason it is impossible is the vast amount of federal loans to students. The universities have no motive to keep costs low when they know the Federal Loans will subsidize their economic malfeasance.

Case in point is the administrative building was 1/3 of the chemistry building of perhaps 30 offices. Today the administrative building is a 3 story behemoth easily 10 times the size with a student population it serves about three times the size in 1966. I find the new ratio odd.

[ByteMercenary]

“The universities have no motive to keep costs low when they know the Federal Loans will subsidize their economic malfeasance.”

That is the heart of the problem. In the triangle that is a student, Big Education, and finance (FedGov, banks, etc) only BigEd has no market pressure to control costs. BigEd will not let a student start classes until all charges are paid up front, BigEd does not care where the money comes from, and BigEd has no vested interest in the product they turn out (educated student).

One possibility is to force BigEd to finance some significant percentage of the tuition and fees they charge, say 75%. If they are on the hook for a substantial chunk of the loan, they will be more interested in turning out a student that can earn enough to pay it back.

[alexander_busek]

Circa 1966 I was a roughneck during the summers on the drilling rigs. I made about 800 dollars a month. That is about 7200 dollars today.

Are you saying that 800 1966-dollars are (due to inflation) now equivalent (= purchasing power) to 7200 2023-dollars?

Or are you saying that the nominal salary for such work in 1966 was $800 / month, and is now $7200 / month?

Regards,

[SauronOfMordor]

The added money enables the hiring of administrators who add no value to actual education, but who can spend their days working on left-wing activism.