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And yet, college enrollment continues to trend upward. The price continues to climb, but it's clearly not unaffordable yet. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/

• nine_k 10y ago
  It's financed by debt. That is, it's probably already unaffordable because the debts are going to be crippling, but it's not felt yet. It's like you're already severely poisoned but are not yet feeling the effects, and more people around see you and consider the poison for themselves.
  • kmkemp 10y ago
    Agreed. It doesn't make any sense to conclude that a good isn't overpriced when (1) the government has created ways to subsidize its cost (2) created a means by which it can be paid for with debt (3) as a society, kids have been brainwashed to believe that college is the only path to prosperity The OP assertion only holds up in a free market.
  • cheald 10y ago
    Sounds like the solution might be to ease back on guaranteed student loans and tighten up available credit so it goes to qualified borrowers who are likely to be able to pay back what they borrow, rather than mandating that everyone who wants to goes to college without any consideration for ability to repay what they've borrowed. But then, that would result in decreasing enrollment rates and hysterics in the headlines about how kids can't afford education, and we can't have that. We've worked ourselves into a corner - by subsidizing education so heavily in pursuit of increased attendance rates, we've driven prices sky-high, and now can't cut those subsidies without hanging some people out to dry. We'll know that college is truly unaffordable - or at least the college premium reaches the point where it's not worth the cost - when enrollment rates start trending downwards. Until then, it's a giant ball of subsidies and relief programs and reforms and restructurings that work to maintain a system that is empirically affordable, even if it's extremely painful.
    • chipotle_coyote 10y ago
      by subsidizing education so heavily in pursuit of increased attendance rates, we've driven prices sky-high At least for me, the relationship you're implying between subsidies and educational costs needs some explanation. If, say, three-quarters of a college's students are having 25-50% of their fees subsidized, what about those subsidies forces the college to raise their fees disproportionately to their costs?
      • cheald 10y ago
        Nothing forces them to; basic economics tells us that their prices will rise to the point that consumers will bear, and that subsidy increases the price that consumers will bear. Recent research (http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13711.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13711.pdf) bears out subsidy as a cost driver, as well.
• SilasX 10y ago
  If -- as most parents expect -- you have to start saving 20 years in advance to pay for it, or accept charity, then yeah, I'd call that unaffordable.