Posted on 09/25/2012 2:11:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
(CBS MoneyWatch) For more than a decade, college tuition has been rising far beyond the rate of inflation at public colleges and universities. According to College Board figures, tuition and fees increased 5.4 percent annually above inflation in the decade since the 2001-2002 school year. Ouch.
A commentary that I saw from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this week goes a long way towards explaining why students at public universities are getting pounded by soaring tuition. The main culprits seem to be state governments that have been ratcheting back their financial support.
Shrinking financial support for public universities
Here are some facts about why college students at state schools, which is where the majority of Americans receive their college degrees, are feeling the pinch:
1. From 2000 to 2010, funding per pupil at state universities fell by 21 percent - from $8,257 to $6,532 in inflation adjusted dollars.
2. Since 2008, when the recession hit, total public funding for higher education has declined by 14.6 percent.
3. Higher-ed support from states has varied dramatically. For instance, in 2010, the percentage change in public funding per pupil ranged from a negative 18 percent to a positive 16.7 percent. In California and New York, public funding declined by 11.6 percent and 7.5 percent respectively. The big winner was North Dakota, flush with energy money, which boosted its commitment to higher education by 16.7 percent, followed by Texas at 6.6 percent.
4. In every year from 2001 to 2011, at least a third of states experienced funding cuts and in more than half of those years, two-thirds of states did.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
That’s happening as we speak. For example, MIT has thrown all of their courses and course guidelines on the net, so that anybody motivated could go through everything MIT teaches on a course, using all the internet sources and textbook materials and acquire a free MIT education, on the book level anyway.
It’s expected, as I understand the transformation, that the education will be free, but the qualifying will still cost something.
those accreditation boards are very left wing!
I know of an medical school that got dinged because it didn’t have the “right number” of black medical professors.
I think the truth is that every time the government gives families another $2,000 tax break for tuition, tuitions go up $2,000. Big Education is Big Business, and they don’t seem to me to be hurting.
easy.
Because the government keeps increasing how much it subsidizes it.
end all student aid and the price of college would drop like a rock. It’s called the free market!
and as usual government IS the problem and not the solution to it.
people have been able to buy old textbooks for practicly nothing and educate themselves for free for ages.
Yes, but the difference is that you will be able to study at a pace that you see fit and then go get formally qualified when you believe yourself ready to do so. Since the 1940’s, certainly, even if you knew everything about rocket science that could be known you still had to often sit through the classroom lectures.
Now much of that won’t be necessary.
you can always read at your own pace, and can test out of subjects that you can prove you have mastered without taking them.
Yes, you can master your subject any time. You can work 168 hours a week towards that, but you can’t just hang out a shingle and expect people to take you seriously without accreditation.
This is what is changing. You’ll be able to acquire accreditation without having to sit through hours of lectures to write hundreds of papers to do it. That’s the difference. Formal accreditation without a formal education.
Just like it used to be.
Duh. Do we really need to answer this, or can I get back to why what goes up must come down?
I actually took the time to send the guy a response. It said something to this effect: "I was informed by the financial aid office in [XXX] University that I do not qualify for any of those programs, so I've spent the last six years paying my own way through school. I have at least another year and a half to go. Rest assured that I will be voting for your opponent, since I really hope he cuts every penny of that sh!t."
Why do college tuition keeps rising because it’s giant organized crime syndicate.
The #1 problem of the government funded colleges and universities is that they have way too many administrators and non-teaching positions.
The simple solution would be to fire the admin and non-teaching positions....but those positions are protected by politicians in BOTH the GOP and DNC.....for themselves when they leave politics...or for their friends
That is where your ballooning college costs are occurring.
“Why college tuition keeps rising (Beyond the rate of inflation)”
Because of free Federal student loan money, and thus, just like the entire Federal Bloc, no accountability to anyone or anything.
The tuition goes up and then the amount that can be borrowed under the student loan program goes up so tuition goes up again. It’s the universities share for promoting liberalism and democrats.
Another great observation. Plus, these same profs in many cases are indoctrinating the students (new voters) in Liberalism.
Mitch Daniels, current Indiana governor, who has done a fine job of budget cutting in our state, will be the new President of Purdue University in January.
The liberals are already screaming bloody murder. It will be fun to watch him in that job.
The higher education bubble bursts when some state legislature does three things.
1) Gets a list of majors offered by his state’s universities, and compares it to a list of how many graduates with that major were placed in a job in that field within six months after graduation. Some majors will have very high job placement, many will have a big goose egg.
2) Then he will tell his colleagues that the purpose of the state subsidy to higher education is so that high school graduates can get better jobs than they could otherwise. So the state should discontinue supporting majors that do not result in good jobs based on those majors.
3) Then the legislature will vote that state aid will only go to support serious majors, and if students want to take frivolous majors, they will have to pay the FULL cost themselves.
The end result to this will be universities reduced in size by two thirds, with much lower tuition for “good” majors, and students no longer in debt for decades to get a degree in sub-Saharan basket weaving.
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