[pepsionice]

University of Penn costs: undergrad school of engineer for 1920: $300 a semester for all classes taken, and room/board was $400. Books: $30.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: University of Penn costs: undergrad school of engineer for 1920: $300 a semester for all classes taken, and room/board was $400. Books: $30.

That adds up to $730 a semester in 1920. Now let’s calculate for inflation based on the inflation calculator here:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=730&year1=1920&year2=2014

That amounts to $8,666.30

I’ll take it for that price.

[Cowboy Bob]

I graduated university in 1980. The cost was $3,500 for tuition, room, board and books. I WAC an out of state student. I believe in-state students paid $1,000 per year.

[Yo-Yo]

University of Penn costs: undergrad school of engineer for 1920: $300 a semester for all classes taken, and room/board was $400. Books: $30.

That doesn't take into account the subsidies from the State Government.

I work at a large Midwestern public university, and have sat in on this discussion several times. The *cost* for providing an undergraduate education has risen right about at the rate of inflation for the past 25 years, but *tuition* rates charged to students have risen at twice the inflation or more, because of the dropping subsidy from the state government.

Here's a graphic from Michigan State University that illustrates the issue:

[353FMG]

At those rates in 1920, I doubt that many could afford such an education.

My ChemE degree from an in-state, non-ivy league university cost me $75 per quarter in the early sixties. It went up to $120 per quarter for in-state students later on. $30 for used books was about right and a good slide rule was $20.