Cell Phones and College Tuition (Why are cell phones getting cheaper and better but not college?)

American Thinker ^ | 10/10/2012 | Steve Baker

[SeekAndFind]

In 1978, my college tuition was about $1,200 per year. In 1985 my first cell phone also cost me $1,200, and its sole function was that it could make phone calls -- at about a buck per minute. (Motorola's first cell phone hit the market at $3,995!)

But something interesting happened to both products on the way to the year 2012...

Today, my daughter (and her parents) are staring down college tuitions in the range of $22,000 to $40,000 per year to prepare for her declared career interest. My new iPhone has moved in exactly the opposite direction -- purchased for only $199.

But that's not the whole story. My iPhone has a thousand times more computing power than my first $4,000 computer. It also shoots hi-def video much better than my first camera, which cost me more than $1,000. It will hold and play back over 1,000 songs and music videos. My first CD player cost me $400 and would hold only one compact disc (10-15 songs) and was not portable. My iPhone has replaced my wristwatch, my alarm clock, my stopwatch, my encyclopedias, my radios, my micro-recorder, my flashlight, my compass, my calculator, my DayTimer, my magazine and newspaper subscriptions, my cookbooks, my mapbooks, my GPS, my metronome, my tuner, and a dozen other pieces of outmoded technology -- and most of those items have been replaced with free apps. It tells me where the nearest Starbucks is and when my children are not where they're supposed to be; it unlocks my car when I forget my keys; and I can even mix the live audio sound of my band...from my friggin' phone, dude!

[dalereed]

the people thay hire to roast students brains into useless mush keep getting higher!!!

[Da Coyote]

If one removes the few percent of scientist/engineers from our colleges, and also removes the even fewer percent of lib arts profs who can do something else besides write and teach incoherent drivel, we are left with a vast hoard of talentless do-nothings who could not hold a position at McDs.

These tenured nothings consume vast quantities of your money...and pee it away.

Get rid of tenure, get rid of 90% of university departments, and watch what happens to costs.

[volunbeer]

The main reason for tuition increases was government intervention. When politicians tried to outspend one another on higher education and increased the availability of student loans the costs shot through the roof. The quality and value of that education decreased.

John Stossel did an excellent show about this and I would recommend it if you could find it on youtube.

[SeaHawkFan]

Yep, wgu.edu

[AppyPappy]

My club gives a $2500 scholarship every year and I don’t think race is even on the form. It’s more a matter of too many people chasing scholarships.

[rmlew]

It is not a fair analogy. There is not education equivalent to Moore's Law.
That said, the price of education should not go up more than twice the rate of inflation.