The Rising Cost of a College Education

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dogman_1234

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Oct 31, 2009
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I figure that since this has started to become a topic in the race that a discussion here at Tom's would be in order; however, no one has brought up this topic lately. Here it is.

The rising cost of education not only is detrimental to our nations integrity, but to our national security. It is apparent that the rise of education has been noticed ever since the 1980's, but was never a true issue as long as it was not a danger to the well being of the American people. That is, until financial instability came about later in the New Century. The cost of education has risen about 30-35% over the last 20 years. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 Needless to day that this is not a large change, but take this into account of different colleges and their institutions and compare them to their own history. Here is the state of Washington. A state known to have a very progressive look on education. Its main flagship schools are listed here:

http://www.wsu.edu/
http://www.washington.edu/
http://www.cwu.edu/
http://www.ewu.edu/

Provided is a state who has given rise to proper education for its people and desires to be a state leader of the Union. Now look here:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-washington-debt-clock.html

Ass you can see, they have a debt system that looks very uncomfortable. Could this have a direct link to the rising cost at let's say WSU?

Here is the debate:

-What is the general consensus to the rising cost of College?
-What factors have contributed to the rise?
-Is it the state, feds, or the institution itself?
-What if we end funding of colleges? Will that help lower prices? End subsidization?
-How can Congress act to help this issues, or is this a single state issue?
-What would you like to see happen to education (specifically college) in the near future?
-What Presidential Candidate has the best policy for college issues such as tuition hikes?
-Anything I missed? You have a question for me or the thread?

Discuss.

NOTE: Deviation off topic will end with a temporary closure and perps will be warned by Reynod. Second offense on this thread after reopening will be an automatic ban. Do not discuss this maliciously. I, dogman_1234, hereby swear to ask Rey to terminate this thread and or others at his (dogman_1234) pleasure. Follow all ToS. Thank You.
 
Just off the top of my head an argument I would make is:

College educated people make almost a million dollars more than a person who didnt get a degree over a lifetime.

So wouldn't it be in a societies best interest to spend the 50-100 grand to get every citizen educated at a college level?
 

Interesting argument. So, you say that rising costs are not an issue due to the fact that individuals make more money with a degree than without one? With that logic, college is the one of the best financial investments to make on an Americans life. Okay, what about the rise in tuition though? Should it be that high?
 

Basically a college, or University as it may be called formally, is an institution with the intent to sell a higher level of education discipline. Required, is a sales of service called educational vocation. You sell knowledge in a transaction via money. That is the basic economic principle behind it.

Now, the United States higher education system works by:

1) A University sets a price for needed sales to pay for resources, utilities, faculty and administration costs. Your basic expenditures. Next, a price is set by gurus who I am not familiar with. Some may say the colleges' administration sets prices, but many could refute that claim.

2) After a price of tuition is set, the US government comes by an audits the school and is supposed to give a certain amount to subsidize the cost of tuition.

3) After that, a final price is set. Here, may private investment, R&D, and other minor and major corporations sponsor the school or its program. Here is where you get some scholarships for those who excelled in High School.

4) Once benefits have been payed out by private firms, the State of the school will provide some basic scholarly aid to students via grants. This will help drop the price for individual students who excelled in High School. The State then takes the extra money and subsidized the tuition for their own residence. That is why here in the US, we have two forms of tuition: One for Instate, the other for out of state.

5) The federal government, not only subsidize, but also issues loans to persons of higher education. This one is of debate the most. A fixed rate is set by the (I think it is the Treasury Dept.) and Uncle Sam gets a cut in interest...even after taxes. One could get private loans, but are much more risky.

So, yes, the US people do borrow money after the gov't has subsidized ALL schools of audited records. Citizens are obligated to pay back all in full. Even the gov't has loan men who seek your family out if the event you die before all payments are met. Years will go by to see if you are really dead. NOTE: Even private banks do this.

The issue seems to be that the US gov't is the culprit for rising prices, others say it is the Administration across the country who are conspiring to make Uni a business. A basic 'get-rick-quick scheme' if I may say. Some blame the devalued dollar since the early 70's when tuition began to hit home.

All in all, everyone wants money, more money, and wants it now!
 
I know university used to be free. I just got my statement yesterday and it is about $35000. I am also wondering why it was free back then without all those private company sponsoring research and international students paying crazy money for their degree, but it cost me money now.
 
Education is a business, there is no incentive to make it cheaper. Why sell a car for 25,000$ when people will buy it for 30,000$?

But you cant argue with the results, people with higher education make on average a million extra dollars in their lifetime. This is a hell of a long term investment, what kind of stock could I invest in that I paid 50,000$ (Average for a 4 year school) for the opportunity to make a million $ over the next 50 years?

And the gov gets a piece of that through taxes, so having a population capable of making more money is both good for the person, and good for society.
 
It would be so much better for young people if they are not like 50000 in debt after they graduate so they can start saving money for a deposit for a house and car instead of paying the tuition fee.

House price is already high enough 350000 for a crap one and 380000-420000 for a decent one in my area. I don't see myself starting a family until mid 30s to early 40s because of the house price which is made worse by having debt after graduation.
 
Prices are cheaper out of the city (Adelaide) though pyree ... head up toward Brinkworth and a great house is half that.

Who wants to live in the city?

I am an hour away from Perth ... I have foxes on my lawn sometimes ... and Llamas across the road ... seriously ... well Alpackas actually ... but they look the same.

Magpies have adopted us ... they swoop the neighbours but eat out of my hand.

I still hate Collingwood and Port Adelaide though ... lol.
 
Sorry, on phone. Pressed submit but it become close.

No, I am not going anywhere. Where I am is 5 minutes to the beach, large Westfield shopping centre and a new Olympic standard aquatic centre. 10-15 minutes to MSY, Dominos pizza and airport, IKEA, Harbour Town and 15-20 minutes to city, Rundle Mall, Chinatown and the restaurants, etc.

You can probably triangulate my location.

Ok, I don't go to the beach or swim but I shop, eat and travel.
 
Too much to read. My neighbor is a college admissions person over the finances.

If you are a student getting a loan they review your status and determine if you are able to pay the tuition loan. If you are able to pay, you get in.

In order to offset the losses of students who stop paying, anyone who pays cash is instantly enrolled. Mainly, as she said, the students from India are the highest cash payers and therefore get enrolled easily.

A few years ago they had 6 campuses. Today, they have 93. For the school, it is all about how much money they can get. Never was the quality of the education brought up.

Higher education has become a greedy institute, yet heavily protected from paying taxes and other things. In my personal opinion, many colleges and universities are far more evil than the corporate world when it comes to money and producing quality products.
 
Plus, kids theses days get liberal arts degrees. Yeah, like Intel wants to hire a guy form a Philosophy school to argue logic and knows nothing about the world of the transistor.

We are rewarding athletics more, and we are punishing the sciences. I say give all aide to the school of science , then athletics can get the scraps. Don't have cash? Well, have corporations sponsor you like they do for the school of science!
 
Sorry, a little late to the thread:



It will result in the "you MUST go to college if you want a decent job" mantra of the 1960s to the present being seriously questioned. Most jobs do not require a college degree and most college degrees are a waste of time. 4+ years of partying is great and all if you can do it cheaply. But if you have to take out a mortgage at 2-3x mortgage rates to do it, it suddenly starts to be seen as the waste of time that it generally is.

-What factors have contributed to the rise?
Click to expand...

1. The "everybody must go to college" mantra. It is a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy as businesses are more than happy to now require a degree when no degree is actually needed, just because they can do so. There was a fairly recent national news story about a job listing for a garbage collector in California that stated that applicants must have a college degree. :ouch:

2. The government nationalizing the student loan market and loaning absolutely enormous sums of money to students in a "you don't pay anything for SEVERAL LONG YEARS" fashion. The interest rates are absolutely ridiculous on federal loans and you absolutely cannot get rid fo the debt, so the government wants to loan out as much money as they can.

3. Absolutely no restraint on college costs due to #1 and #2. Students are going to come no matter what you charge as they "have" to go to college, and besides, the feds will loan them the money. It is in the universities' best interest to charge as much as they can, and they certainly do so.

-Is it the state, feds, or the institution itself?
Click to expand...

It's the universities and the feds, see above.

-What if we end funding of colleges? Will that help lower prices? End subsidization?
Click to expand...

Many "public" colleges get very little money from the state so reducing state funding won't help. AFAICT my alma mater gets about 80 cents of every dollar they take in from tuition and fees.

-How can Congress act to help this issues, or is this a single state issue?
Click to expand...

De-nationalize student loans and prohibit the federal government from offering loans. This will make student loans for people going for useful degrees (and likely to pay the loans back in the future) less expensive than today, like they were before 2006 when the nationalization of student loans happened. It will also make student loans for useless crap more expensive and harder to get due to the high risk of default, stopping the endless money train that has driven up the cost of tuition.

-What would you like to see happen to education (specifically college) in the near future?
Click to expand...

- End of professor tenure. Nobody gets an iron-clad job for life, especially when I am paying some of their salary.
- College returning to the "you only go do it if you really need to, otherwise go to work/trade school/etc." that it used to be.
- Getting rid of all of the liberal indoctrination crap in college.
- Getting rid of useless majors like womyns' studies and basket weaving (oops, sorry, it's now called textiles management.)

-What Presidential Candidate has the best policy for college issues such as tuition hikes?
Click to expand...

Romney, since Obama has done nothing but exacerbate the problem. Romney hasn't said anything in particular about this issue that I am aware of. However he wants to repeal Obamacare and some of the text in Obamacare was a student loan interest rate hike (in a joke of an attempt to make Obamacare "budget neutral" so it never had to undergo pay-as-you-go reauthorization) so this will be a plus. Romney would also likely be in favor of de-nationalizing student loans if it ever came across his desk while Obama would certainly be against it.
 


Well if colleges start losing $$ then I'm sure it'll be "You MUST go to college or else be fined!" if Obama gets re-elected, requiring the IRS to hire 16,000 new tax agents to make sure everybody is doing their fair share of subsidizing college for all 😀...

 


I wouldn't say he would make sure that everybody needs to do their fair share of subsidizing, only the 1%. Well, actually the 53%. Or maybe it's 42% of the 87% or something like that. 😀
 
Wouldnt making college cheaper for all be better for us in the long run?

I know they used to tell us that student who had a degree of any kind made about 1 million more in their lifetimes vs students who went into the workplace after high school.

Thats more taxable dollars, more money coming into the economy, more money in average peoples pockets.

Is the problem just how do we make higher education more affordable?

Also FYI India graduates more Doctors in a year than there are Americans graduating from college with any degree.
 
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