6 ms·

Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015)

17 points by Futurebot 10y ago

apsec112 10y ago
Despite starting by talking about "college tuition" in general, this article looks at public colleges only. It doesn't even try to explain the tuition increases at private colleges, which if anything have been larger.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  75% of students attend public universities, so the case they cover is the modal case.
- phhlho 10y ago
  It would be interesting to see more information breaking down the increases there to compare to the causes at public universities. I saw an article the other day that stated that private colleges have also been increasing their financial aid or scholarships per student. Maybe that eliminates any of the difference in price changes between the two.
- mathattack 10y ago
  The public funding argument doesn't exist at private colleges. If private colleges want to charge through the roof, so be it. (Although perhaps we shouldn't be guaranteeing the loans if they're a luxury good)
wrong_variable 10y ago
Getting an education has never been cheaper in 2016 then any other time in history. What you are paying for is validating your knowledge when you go to college. I hope we start the argument by first getting the basic facts right.
brudgers 10y ago
The conclusions about financial aid are specious to me. Increases in Stafford Loan limits shuffle the deck chairs. Students and their families just borrow less from other sources, e.g. loans without subsidized interest deferrals. Never mind that treating loans as financial aid is somewhat dubious in the first place -- otherwise we would count credit cards we're the universities sitting in the application pipeline. A similar dog wagging tail is equating the expansion of athletic staff as adding essential personnel. People who are not teaching or researching are administrative in a world where TV sport contract revenue is not a core university function.
drewg123 10y ago
"public higher education in this country no longer exists." I graduated from a SUNY school in 1992. My tuition was $675 per semester. Fees were minimal. Especially if you lived at home and commuted, or had an apartment. The minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. You could work all summer and pay for your tuition and books, and work a part-time job during the semester to pay for your living expenses. I paid for college myself (with help from merit scholarships) and graduated from college debt free. That's nearly impossible these days. I just looked, and my school now costs $4690/semester in tuition and fees. That's an increase of almost 7x. We really need to increase public funding for education.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  Why the downvotes for this?
- buckbova 10y ago
  Didn't downvote you, but I think your conclusion doesn't match your anecdote. "We really need to increase public funding for education." Shouldn't the conclusion be to lower costs and not increase funding if it's increased 7 fold in a short period?
  - swadfghjkl 10y ago
    I agree. The universities shouldn't be wildly raising their tuition & fees annually.
    - michaelbuddy 10y ago
      And they do that because Gov't is willing to give people who have never had a job, no credit, who can't even rent a car, multiple annual loans for $35,000 Absolutely ridiculous, predatory and anti-capitalist.
  - drewg123 10y ago
    The tuition has increased as the costs have been shifted from the state tax revenue (public funding) to the students. I almost wonder if this might be part of the reason for the rising costs. Since there is no option to escape from college debt free these days, the difference in costs appears minimal, as it comes down to a small monthly difference in a far-off student loan payment. I'll bet this makes students much less likely to protest tuition increases, as it is all essentially far-off funny money, and doesn't impact their bottom line. I remember participating in massive protests of a new (small) bus fee when I was in school. The fee was imposed in contradiction to a promise of free inter-campus transport made when a second campus was built 20 years prior. I doubt such a small fee increase would result in such massive protests these days. For me, that fee was the difference between ramen and real food for a few weeks.
w8rbt 10y ago
Some great programs are reasonably priced. One example that HN readers may find interesting is Georgia Tech's online graduate CS program. For roughly $7,000, you can get a CS degree from a top 10 school. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/ http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/
- Avshalom 10y ago
  That's for a masters degree though and while 170 per credit hour is quite cheap it would still mean a 21000+ bachelors at that price (just for tuition) which after all is said and done means ~6000 a year. Now for reference 11$/hr (which is actually very good for the sort of entry level retail job your average highschool student is going to get) at 40 hrs/wk (which entry level jobs never actually give you) translates to about 16-17k a year so to pay for school at that price you have to be able to live on 10k a year for all your housing/food/insurance needs. Which is easy in some places and won't even get you half a couch in other places. Also it's damn hard to work 40 hrs a week and attend college because courses are scheduled at near random through out the day and very few employers are that flexible.
- azemetre 10y ago
  How do employers view this program? Are they starting to come around toward online degrees or are they still looked down upon?
  - w8rbt 10y ago
    Intel and Google are hiring GT graduates from this program.
woodandsteel 10y ago
A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political movement. For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding books of the conservative movement, <God and Man at Yale> by William F. Buckley, focused on exactly this point. Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so they have been shrinking tax support for universities. And when universities respond by becoming big businesses in partnerships with profit-making corporations and neglecting teaching, the conservatives think this is just fine. In the meantime, countries we are competing with like China continue to support public education as a way of beating us in free market competition. Conservatives never seem to make the connection.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  You're telling us that if everyone suddenly had to pay their entire education out of pocket (because the "conservatives" presumably cut all tax benefits) that it would cause a rise in tuition costs? Free/easy money causes the price of assets to rise, as our Fed is demonstrating. Why would it be the opposite with education?
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    By taxes, I meant tax money that the state uses to subsidize public universities. The easy money of student loans is a federal program, not the state governments. And conservatives like it because then the big financial corporations that make student loans can make lots of money. And the more expensive education is, the more money they can make. So yes, conservatives think it is just great when higher education gets more expensive.
    - woodandsteel 10y ago
      Let me explain this in a more organized manner. To start, conservatives have three basic values: democracy, the free market, and religion. The oppose marxism because it is totalitarian, socialist, and atheist. The opposed the old universities because they believed they were marxist. They like it that the new universities have become more expensive because that keeps people out of universities, or when they are in they enroll in business-oriented programs rather than the humanities, which are rather anti-business. They like it that universities have abandoned education in favor of entrepreneurship. And they like the student loan program because it helps universities be like businesses, and makes lots of money for financial corporations. Do you really disagree this is what conservatives think and feel?
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Access to free and easy money causes the price of assets to rise, and a college diploma is a great asset. Universities have been doing the same thing all businesses do: charge as much as the market will bear.
- Futurebot 10y ago
  The article debunks this: "The claim that increased student aid causes tuition to rise was originated by William Bennett, the secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 New York Times opinion piece.19 Numerous academic studies since have tested the Bennett hypothesis, and though a few have found some link between rising aid and tuition in at most one sector of higher education,20 the vast majority have “…found not a shred of evidence of an empirical relationship,” as David Warren wrote in the Washington Post.21 As Warren notes, three major federal reports in the last fifteen years have each surveyed the existing academic literature, and each concluded that no such relationship exists. The most recent, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2011, took advantage of a unique “natural experiment” to test the Bennett hypothesis: the substantial increases in Stafford Loan limits between 2007 and 2009.22 In 2007, the yearly loan limits, adjusted for inflation, ranged from $2,925 for freshmen to $6,125 for upper classmen. By 2009, they had risen to $5,750 and $7,825, respectively. All told, the yearly borrowing limit for all undergraduates increased by an average of $2,340. However, average tuition at public 4-year universities rose by just $540 over the same two years, in line with recent historical averages, leading the GAO to reject the possibility of a relationship between the two. Additionally, these increases in borrowing limits were the first since 1993, meaning that the inflation-adjusted value of the limit had declined for more than a decade during which tuitions rose steadily. All told, both the empirical evidence and academic consensus deem the Bennett hypothesis false."
woodandsteel 10y ago
I have been following the conservative movement for 50 years and for that whole time it has been vocally hostile toward universities. That is a fact. >What is a 'financial corporation'? Is there a non-financial corporation that exists? A financial corporation is one that makes its money from services involving money, such as loans or managing pension funds. I find it very hard to believe you didn't know that. >How have universities abandoned education to favor entrepreneurship? They put the focus on hiring non-teaching staff, earning money from patents, and forming profit-making partnerships with corporations, and neglect teaching, such as substituting low-paid adjuncts for regular staff. I find I hard to believe you didn't know those changes have been going on. >How were universities previously not like businesses For centuries, since their founding, universities saw themselves as engaged in a service to society, like churches or charities, and university presidents earned a modest middle class living. It is only within recent decades that they decided to maximize cash flow. You really didn't know that? >how do student loans - which have existed for quite some time - make them be 'be like businesses'? Students become like customers. The goal is to get as much money from them, and loans make this easier. > If the axes for conservatism are democracy, the free market and religion, where do people who only care about 1 or 2 of those items fall? They attack the universities for only 1 or 2 reasons. >Since college enrollment is rising significantly, how is it keeping people out of universities? Conservatives have conflicting goals here. Because they think universities are hotbeds of marxism, they want to keep students out. Because they see them as recently becoming hotbeds of entrepreneurialship, they want to support them. Besides, conservatives, fortunately, are not the only factor at work. I take it you are a conservative. Why don't you say what you think of universities today, like how they are good or bad?

17 points by Futurebot 10y ago

Despite starting by talking about "college tuition" in general, this article looks at public colleges only. It doesn't even try to explain the tuition increases at private colleges, which if anything have been larger.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
75% of students attend public universities, so the case they cover is the modal case.
phhlho 10y ago
It would be interesting to see more information breaking down the increases there to compare to the causes at public universities. I saw an article the other day that stated that private colleges have also been increasing their financial aid or scholarships per student. Maybe that eliminates any of the difference in price changes between the two.
mathattack 10y ago
The public funding argument doesn't exist at private colleges. If private colleges want to charge through the roof, so be it. (Although perhaps we shouldn't be guaranteeing the loans if they're a luxury good)

wrong_variable 10y ago

Getting an education has never been cheaper in 2016 then any other time in history. What you are paying for is validating your knowledge when you go to college. I hope we start the argument by first getting the basic facts right.

brudgers 10y ago

The conclusions about financial aid are specious to me. Increases in Stafford Loan limits shuffle the deck chairs. Students and their families just borrow less from other sources, e.g. loans without subsidized interest deferrals. Never mind that treating loans as financial aid is somewhat dubious in the first place -- otherwise we would count credit cards we're the universities sitting in the application pipeline. A similar dog wagging tail is equating the expansion of athletic staff as adding essential personnel. People who are not teaching or researching are administrative in a world where TV sport contract revenue is not a core university function.

drewg123 10y ago

"public higher education in this country no longer exists." I graduated from a SUNY school in 1992. My tuition was $675 per semester. Fees were minimal. Especially if you lived at home and commuted, or had an apartment. The minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. You could work all summer and pay for your tuition and books, and work a part-time job during the semester to pay for your living expenses. I paid for college myself (with help from merit scholarships) and graduated from college debt free. That's nearly impossible these days. I just looked, and my school now costs $4690/semester in tuition and fees. That's an increase of almost 7x. We really need to increase public funding for education.

maxxxxx 10y ago
Why the downvotes for this?
buckbova 10y ago
Didn't downvote you, but I think your conclusion doesn't match your anecdote. "We really need to increase public funding for education." Shouldn't the conclusion be to lower costs and not increase funding if it's increased 7 fold in a short period?
- swadfghjkl 10y ago
  I agree. The universities shouldn't be wildly raising their tuition & fees annually.
  - michaelbuddy 10y ago
    And they do that because Gov't is willing to give people who have never had a job, no credit, who can't even rent a car, multiple annual loans for $35,000 Absolutely ridiculous, predatory and anti-capitalist.
- drewg123 10y ago
  The tuition has increased as the costs have been shifted from the state tax revenue (public funding) to the students. I almost wonder if this might be part of the reason for the rising costs. Since there is no option to escape from college debt free these days, the difference in costs appears minimal, as it comes down to a small monthly difference in a far-off student loan payment. I'll bet this makes students much less likely to protest tuition increases, as it is all essentially far-off funny money, and doesn't impact their bottom line. I remember participating in massive protests of a new (small) bus fee when I was in school. The fee was imposed in contradiction to a promise of free inter-campus transport made when a second campus was built 20 years prior. I doubt such a small fee increase would result in such massive protests these days. For me, that fee was the difference between ramen and real food for a few weeks.

w8rbt 10y ago

Some great programs are reasonably priced. One example that HN readers may find interesting is Georgia Tech's online graduate CS program. For roughly $7,000, you can get a CS degree from a top 10 school. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/ http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/

Avshalom 10y ago
That's for a masters degree though and while 170 per credit hour is quite cheap it would still mean a 21000+ bachelors at that price (just for tuition) which after all is said and done means ~6000 a year. Now for reference 11$/hr (which is actually very good for the sort of entry level retail job your average highschool student is going to get) at 40 hrs/wk (which entry level jobs never actually give you) translates to about 16-17k a year so to pay for school at that price you have to be able to live on 10k a year for all your housing/food/insurance needs. Which is easy in some places and won't even get you half a couch in other places. Also it's damn hard to work 40 hrs a week and attend college because courses are scheduled at near random through out the day and very few employers are that flexible.
azemetre 10y ago
How do employers view this program? Are they starting to come around toward online degrees or are they still looked down upon?
- w8rbt 10y ago
  Intel and Google are hiring GT graduates from this program.

woodandsteel 10y ago

A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political movement. For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding books of the conservative movement, <God and Man at Yale> by William F. Buckley, focused on exactly this point. Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so they have been shrinking tax support for universities. And when universities respond by becoming big businesses in partnerships with profit-making corporations and neglecting teaching, the conservatives think this is just fine. In the meantime, countries we are competing with like China continue to support public education as a way of beating us in free market competition. Conservatives never seem to make the connection.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
You're telling us that if everyone suddenly had to pay their entire education out of pocket (because the "conservatives" presumably cut all tax benefits) that it would cause a rise in tuition costs? Free/easy money causes the price of assets to rise, as our Fed is demonstrating. Why would it be the opposite with education?
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  By taxes, I meant tax money that the state uses to subsidize public universities. The easy money of student loans is a federal program, not the state governments. And conservatives like it because then the big financial corporations that make student loans can make lots of money. And the more expensive education is, the more money they can make. So yes, conservatives think it is just great when higher education gets more expensive.
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    Let me explain this in a more organized manner. To start, conservatives have three basic values: democracy, the free market, and religion. The oppose marxism because it is totalitarian, socialist, and atheist. The opposed the old universities because they believed they were marxist. They like it that the new universities have become more expensive because that keeps people out of universities, or when they are in they enroll in business-oriented programs rather than the humanities, which are rather anti-business. They like it that universities have abandoned education in favor of entrepreneurship. And they like the student loan program because it helps universities be like businesses, and makes lots of money for financial corporations. Do you really disagree this is what conservatives think and feel?

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

Access to free and easy money causes the price of assets to rise, and a college diploma is a great asset. Universities have been doing the same thing all businesses do: charge as much as the market will bear.

Futurebot 10y ago
The article debunks this: "The claim that increased student aid causes tuition to rise was originated by William Bennett, the secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 New York Times opinion piece.19 Numerous academic studies since have tested the Bennett hypothesis, and though a few have found some link between rising aid and tuition in at most one sector of higher education,20 the vast majority have “…found not a shred of evidence of an empirical relationship,” as David Warren wrote in the Washington Post.21 As Warren notes, three major federal reports in the last fifteen years have each surveyed the existing academic literature, and each concluded that no such relationship exists. The most recent, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2011, took advantage of a unique “natural experiment” to test the Bennett hypothesis: the substantial increases in Stafford Loan limits between 2007 and 2009.22 In 2007, the yearly loan limits, adjusted for inflation, ranged from $2,925 for freshmen to $6,125 for upper classmen. By 2009, they had risen to $5,750 and $7,825, respectively. All told, the yearly borrowing limit for all undergraduates increased by an average of $2,340. However, average tuition at public 4-year universities rose by just $540 over the same two years, in line with recent historical averages, leading the GAO to reject the possibility of a relationship between the two. Additionally, these increases in borrowing limits were the first since 1993, meaning that the inflation-adjusted value of the limit had declined for more than a decade during which tuitions rose steadily. All told, both the empirical evidence and academic consensus deem the Bennett hypothesis false."

woodandsteel 10y ago

I have been following the conservative movement for 50 years and for that whole time it has been vocally hostile toward universities. That is a fact. >What is a 'financial corporation'? Is there a non-financial corporation that exists? A financial corporation is one that makes its money from services involving money, such as loans or managing pension funds. I find it very hard to believe you didn't know that. >How have universities abandoned education to favor entrepreneurship? They put the focus on hiring non-teaching staff, earning money from patents, and forming profit-making partnerships with corporations, and neglect teaching, such as substituting low-paid adjuncts for regular staff. I find I hard to believe you didn't know those changes have been going on. >How were universities previously not like businesses For centuries, since their founding, universities saw themselves as engaged in a service to society, like churches or charities, and university presidents earned a modest middle class living. It is only within recent decades that they decided to maximize cash flow. You really didn't know that? >how do student loans - which have existed for quite some time - make them be 'be like businesses'? Students become like customers. The goal is to get as much money from them, and loans make this easier. > If the axes for conservatism are democracy, the free market and religion, where do people who only care about 1 or 2 of those items fall? They attack the universities for only 1 or 2 reasons. >Since college enrollment is rising significantly, how is it keeping people out of universities? Conservatives have conflicting goals here. Because they think universities are hotbeds of marxism, they want to keep students out. Because they see them as recently becoming hotbeds of entrepreneurialship, they want to support them. Besides, conservatives, fortunately, are not the only factor at work. I take it you are a conservative. Why don't you say what you think of universities today, like how they are good or bad?