[BobL]

“If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.”

And today’s $25k price for cars also includes a lot of VERY EXPENSIVE mandates and options that either didn’t exist in the good old days or were not widespread. Take them out (which I mostly don’t advocate), and cars would cost closer to $10,000 today.

[RayChuang88]

However, a lot of those safety mandates may have saved my life: my beloved Honda Fit was destroyed in an accident when someone ran a red light and I collided with the other car at around 27 mph when I was making a left turn. The combination of a crush zone plus airbag meant I only had minor bruises on my left thumb and feet and essentially walked away from that crash.

But getting back on topic, I think state education budgets should get back to funding our colleges like it was until the middle 1970's. That way, we don't needed so ridiculous tuition costs even for in-state students (I've seen the cost of my niece going to UC Santa Cruz--ouch).

[DaveA37]

“$25k price for cars also includes a lot of VERY EXPENSIVE mandates”.........

$25,000 is a VERY LOW END car without a lot of “bells and whistles” in today’s market. I think the writer should have used the price of the average pickup truck which would be more comparative to the cost of college. Most pickup trucks WITH the bells and whistles and of course, the mandates, will run in the neighborhood of $35,000 to as high as $50,000 plus. Explain why those vehicles (pickups) demand such a high price?