We have our first child in college this year and that has been my question as well...why does college cost *so* much?
It doesn't have to. I was married to a full professor at a major university and did more than my share of teaching when I was working my way through graduate school. We formed some opinions on the subject; take them for what you paid for them.
There are millions of kids going to private colleges because they are attracted to the campus life or the drama program or the fancy television production studio or the archaeology department. But the fact is that the majority of kids don't have to go to private colleges and aren't going to benefit from rarefied programs because they aren't going to work in these fields after graduation. They're going to get normal jobs like the rest of us. Hence, studying something fascinating often just means four years of academic pleasure and self-exploration. The question the parents must ask themselves is: is it realistic for our kid to have fun studying all this cool but useless stuff for four years? Can we afford this pleasure? Or should he be doing something cheaper and more practical? Should he perhaps be going to a state school?
Because the thing is, there just aren't that many kids, on a percent basis, who really need to go to $32000-a-year private schools. Some kids are going to spend four years drinking and hooking up no matter where they go to school. Before a parent agrees to go neck-deep in debt to send her child to a private school, she should ask herself if he really needs to be in that exclusive, costly writing program in order to become a novelist, or if he's more likely to get an actual job if he goes to the computer science department at State. Is he really going to be an anthropologist, when there are no jobs around for anthropologists? If not, then why spend more than thirty grand a year on being in a private school's anthropology program?
We all have choices to make. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to send a child to a fancy private school. I'm saying that for most kids it's not necessary and they won't come out of it any more brilliant than if they went to a public university. My daughter is going to go to a private school because we can't find a public one that offers training in the area she will be going into. My son will be going to a state school. You have to make the best choice for your situation.