College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive in One Generation

[NobleSavage]

Your tax and tuition dollars at work. Money well spent? Yes, they are beautiful, but at what cost? Most of these are public universities, but there are a few private mixed in (students qualify for aid and grants even at private universities).

Memorial Union, Oregon State University

Thanks for saving me the time of digging up pictures. I've gone back to visit two universities I attended (18 & 15 years ago) and was shocked by the opulence. I've heard similar stories from most of the people my age.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Your tax and tuition dollars at work. Money well spent? Yes, they are beautiful, but at what cost? Most of these are public universities, but there are a few private mixed in (students qualify for aid and grants even at private universities).

Memorial Union, Oregon State University

Think how many more beautiful buildings and waterfalls we could have if state legislatures would quit telling universities to reign in spending? Education is not the mission. The mission is to be fabulous!

Many of these buildings were built with donations through the private sector and grants from the legislatures.

 

[DLH]

 

[laughing dog]

No, it doesn't explain your non-sequitur.

Huh? It would simply be the DOE acting as a market participant.

By setting a price ceiling?

How is it setting a price ceiling? When you go out to purchase a good or service, there is a limit to how much you will spend for that good or service. The government can do the same thing. A university can still charge whatever it wants, so long as a student (sans DOE) is willing to pay.

You really should pay attention to what you post. What you wrote was "....the DOE require that to qualify as an institution available to receive DOE funding - by way of student grants, loans, or otherwise - the institution cannot charge more than $X a credit hour." The DOE could simply say it will pay up to $X per credit and let the market deal with it. That is more consistent to your current response. There is no need to say institutions need to charge no more than $X per credit to qualify.

 

[Underseer]

Blame Reagan and movement conservatism according to this guy.

Today’s student aid crisis has its roots in the 1980s. In 1981, the Reagan administration, with a coalition of congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats, pushed through Congress a combination of tax- and budget-cutting measures.

No federal program suffered deeper cuts than student aid. Spending on higher education was slashed by some 25 percent between 1980 and 1985.

... These various perspectives coalesced around a shared view: students were “tax eaters … [and] a drain and drag on the American economy.” Student aid “isn’t a proper obligation of the taxpayer,” Reagan’s OMB Director David Stockman told Congress.

Reagan administration Education Secretary Terrel Bell would later write in his memoir that students needing aid were part of the problem, not very different from other “undeserving” Americans, no different than the “welfare queen,” the out-of-work father drawing unemployment insurance, the poor families on Medicaid, the elderly in need of Medicare or even farmers relying on subsidies.

Sounds like undeserved conservative bashing to me.

So if Republicans gut spending on student aid, then it's "bashing" to point out that massive cuts to spending on student aid makes it harder to get through school?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Think how many more beautiful buildings and waterfalls we could have if state legislatures would quit telling universities to reign in spending? Education is not the mission. The mission is to be fabulous!

Many of these buildings were built with donations through the private sector and grants from the legislatures.

I suppose the University is supposed to rot.

I'd like to see the money stats though, instead of pics. Some here seem to think that Room and Board are part of Tuition costs.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Part of it also is "colleges" and "universities" that take federal loan funds and educate students with useless skills. These students hit the job market and are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage, aren't really prepared, and end up defaulting on their debt. A tremendous waste of education dollars.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Part of it also is "colleges" and "universities" that take federal loan funds and educate students with useless skills. These students hit the job market and are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage, aren't really prepared, and end up defaulting on their debt. A tremendous waste of education dollars.

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Seems like college was a good well rounded education for those that went. Now days, you need to go to college to have a chance at a job as blue collar jobs don't exist anywhere at the level they used to. So, is it time for certain majors to be able to be finished in 2 years in order to acquire less debt? Is it time to put the Associates Degree on steroids for a high intensity, but short duration technical degree in Business, Arts, etc...?

 

[ksen]

I'd like to see the money stats though, instead of pics. Some here seem to think that Room and Board are part of Tuition costs.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_334.10.asp

Only goes back to 2005-2006 school year. I haven't been able to find older data yet.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Part of it also is "colleges" and "universities" that take federal loan funds and educate students with useless skills. These students hit the job market and are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage, aren't really prepared, and end up defaulting on their debt. A tremendous waste of education dollars.

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Seems like college was a good well rounded education for those that went. Now days, you need to go to college to have a chance at a job as blue collar jobs don't exist anywhere at the level they used to. So, is it time for certain majors to be able to be finished in 2 years in order to acquire less debt? Is it time to put the Associates Degree on steroids for a high intensity, but short duration technical degree in Business, Arts, etc...?

QFT!!!

 

[braces_for_impact]

Part of it also is "colleges" and "universities" that take federal loan funds and educate students with useless skills. These students hit the job market and are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage, aren't really prepared, and end up defaulting on their debt. A tremendous waste of education dollars.

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Seems like college was a good well rounded education for those that went. Now days, you need to go to college to have a chance at a job as blue collar jobs don't exist anywhere at the level they used to. So, is it time for certain majors to be able to be finished in 2 years in order to acquire less debt? Is it time to put the Associates Degree on steroids for a high intensity, but short duration technical degree in Business, Arts, etc...?

Excellent point. Also, to put it bluntly, there are a lot of jobs out there requiring degrees that simply aren't necessary to perform the job.

 

[NobleSavage]

Part of it also is "colleges" and "universities" that take federal loan funds and educate students with useless skills. These students hit the job market and are lucky to make a few dollars over minimum wage, aren't really prepared, and end up defaulting on their debt. A tremendous waste of education dollars.

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover. The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover.

As much as required by engineering? I don't think so.

The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

Ah accounting... if engineering was like accounting, we'd all live in the open.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One gripe on those pictures:

The big indoor pool had a whole bunch of seats besides it--that says to me it's really an athletic facility that's put to dual use. Given the climate it pretty much has to be indoor--I don't see that it's fancier than it needs to be in order to get the job done.

 

[J842P]

Yes and yes and no. There is a saturation of certain degrees. How many communications majors should a college plop out every year. Accounting major? Heh... welcome to the unemployment line. Of course, we can't all be engineering and science majors.

Begs the question, does an accounting major need to go to school for 4 years?

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover. The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

Yeah, accountants get a lot of hate but it's a valuable skill. Most of it is straightforward stuff, but someone has to know and understand it.

 

[ronburgundy]

The pics are completely meaningless and tell us absolutely nothing relevant the causes of tuition increases.

First, most of them don't show anything particularly "opulent" unless your expecting a new building to look like a barn. Most of the "glimmer" is very superficial and no evidence is presented that it is excessively costly. Second, most actually "opulent" buildings are typically funded by philanthropists who require the opulence to give their money and get their name on it. Third, many such buildings have multiple purposes, including use for private events, conventions, conferences, and concerts, will are all a source of revenue. Aesthetic appeal is a major factor in whether such facilities can draw such revenue generating business. That included exercise facilities that often sell memberships to members of the public.
Forth, aesthetic appeal attracts both high quality students and world class researchers, that latter whom bring with them outside sources of research funding which is revenue for the University.

 

[KeepTalking]

One gripe on those pictures:

The big indoor pool had a whole bunch of seats besides it--that says to me it's really an athletic facility that's put to dual use. Given the climate it pretty much has to be indoor--I don't see that it's fancier than it needs to be in order to get the job done.

That's not the only gripe. They are certainly nice pictures of some amazing architecture, but they have fuck all to do with this thread. The very first one is from a building that is almost 100 years old. Many of the others were built in the 60's, 70's and 80's. A good portion of them were built using mainly private donations for those specific buildings. There are a couple of standouts that were widely criticized for their cost and how they were paid for, and even one or two that were built in the last 20 years, but those are the exceptions. At least the post admits some are from private institutions, so I won't gripe about those.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover. The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

Yeah, accountants get a lot of hate but it's a valuable skill. Most of it is straightforward stuff, but someone has to know and understand it.

But do you need four years in college for the degree?

 

[ksen]

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover. The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

Yeah, accountants get a lot of hate but it's a valuable skill. Most of it is straightforward stuff, but someone has to know and understand it.

But do you need four years in college for the degree?

Do you need four years in college for any degree?

 

[dismal]

Don't bag on the accountants. They do fairly well. It's business management and marketing that are the goof off degrees. 4 years? You think you can get a good feel for Federal taxes, how to put together financial statements, and do an audit based on FASB rules, in less time? That is a lot of stuff to cover. The trend has been to require an extra year.

The best-paid 10 percent earned roughly $113,740, while the lowest-paid made approximately $40,37

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/accountant

That $100K figure is employees. If you have some social skills and can attract new clients a decent firm you will be put on the partner track and you can do a lot better than that.

Yeah, accountants get a lot of hate but it's a valuable skill. Most of it is straightforward stuff, but someone has to know and understand it.

But do you need four years in college for the degree?

Do you need four years in college for any degree?

I bet you can get an online degree in a few weeks if you really apply yourself.