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Counting housing (a cost that's required regardless and often time more expensive since you need to live where the jobs are as opposed to where the college is)
by lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
Counting housing (a cost that's required regardless and often time more expensive since you need to live where the jobs are as opposed to where the college is) and opportunity cost (while not attempting to factor in the opportunity cost of not having a degree on the other end of the equation) is disingenuous to the extreme. Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] (excluding housing etc). A large cost for sure, but that's before any scholarships and assuming a top tier school and an out of state student.
The skills, networking, and opportunity to safely explore career options I think were worth that cost. YMMV.
[0]https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview
- com2kid 9y ago> Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] To be fair to the parent poster, ~30% of a public university's funding comes from taxes[0]. Add in tax breaks on the huge amounts of often urban land situated on prime real estate, and the overall cost to society is higher than just the tuition price. [0]http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/ http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/
- lordCarbonFiber 9y agoIf we start to factor in "costs to society" then you have to also consider RoI to society in the form of wider access to education. Both are diffuse and difficult to measure which is why, rightly imo, they're excluded from most amateur discussions. Considering the number of universities that are in the middle of nowhere, so much so that the idea of the "college town" is a thing, Im a little incredulous as to the real costs from that use of "prime real-estate" in a holistic sense.