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I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320

I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million. I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying full price. EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university.

chrisseaton 6y ago
Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?
- HaloZero 6y ago
  I don't think so? I did a lot of tax work for VITA and met a lot of parents. Mostly low income and low-middle income got full scholarships and grants but if you're middle class it highly depends on the institution. The larger schools with huge private endowment do cover a lot but a public school like any in the UC system? Nah. It's basically all loans which have to be paid back. *My knowledge is limited to California in the United States. I know there exists programs in Georgia and other places that do cover full rides but I think they are anomalous and not the rule.
- drfuchs 6y ago
  Typically, in the Ivy League / Stanford, a one-child family with annual income of over $150k to $200k (depending on the school) will pay full tuition. Really. And incomes of less than $65k-ish get you a free ride. Details vary.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    This happened with my family. It was especially bad because earning $150k total for a household near an expensive urban area leads to purchasing power basically the same as a family with $65k household income in suburbia or small towns. Without adjusting parents income for cost of living (factors the kids in question have no control over), it’s totally unfair. This has a lot to do with “last place aversion” - the people making $150k near SF having to pay full price for their kid (who probably worked their ass off) to barely scrape into Stanford are (rightly or wrongly) going to be totally NIMBY / selfish in terms of voting and policy when it comes to the $65k families from far away whose kids can pay much less than half for Stanford, say.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Maybe go to a cheaper school?
      - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
        Whether it’s right or not, prestige and notoriety of a college count for a huge amount in employment and earnings. Why should my family not get that chance if they worked just as hard to earn it?
        scarface74 6y ago
        Not really. Most studies show that what college you go to only matters for a few professions. Way back when I graduated, 3 years in, I was making just as much as people that went to prestigious schools for my same area (computer science) and I paid less for one year of college than they paid for four - and no debt. If I were graduating today and wanted to work in Big Tech, I would spend six months to a year preparing for white board interviews. Especially in tech. What college you go to only makes a slight difference and that’s only for your first job. Being able to do algorithms and data structures is the great equalizer for Big Tech. https://www.collegechoice.net/will-what-college-i-attend-matter-to-future-employers-or-grad-school-committees/ https://www.collegechoice.net/will-what-college-i-attend-mat... https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-elite-colleges-lead-to-higher-salaries-only-for-some-professions-1454295674 https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-elite-colleges-lead-to-highe...
        mlthoughts2018 6y ago
        It looks like you quickly copy/pasted some articles from a Google search, but unfortunately your linked articles don’t back up what you say, rather they only indicate it’s somewhat complicated. For example from the first link: > “ However, another expert, this one from The Atlantic, says that where you go to school does matter, and he also has a study that backs up his point of view. There are institutions, especially ivy league schools and those with name recognition, that can improve someone's earning and employment potential, especially in the cases of graduate work. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, both someone's grade point average and their school of choice are determining factors in their earnings.” which includes embedded links to The Atlantic and NCES research on it. You also are confusing the question of whether school choice at large is correlated to earnings vs whether specific schools produce graduates who earn more, which is a different statistical question. Consider from here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/09/14/how-much-more-ivy-league-grads-make-than-you/uWIMsFXQSdVqoiK7YHXxPK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/09/14/how-much-mor... > “ The median annual earnings for an Ivy League graduate 10 years out amount to well over $70,000 a year. For graduates of all other schools, the median is around $34,000. But things get really interesting at the top end of the income spectrum. The top 10 percent of Ivy League grads are earning $200,000 or more by the time their 10-year college reunion rolls around. The top earners of other schools, on the other hand, are making just a hair under $70,000.” It’s not too related but I also disagree hugely with you about algorithm hazing trivia in tech hiring. It’s not correlated with career success and it is used to play politics to do gatekeeping on the candidate pipeline (eg Steve Yegge’s classic on interview anti-loops). I’ve been a senior architect and engineering manager for a while. I have never noticed any correlation between people who whiz through algorithm interviews and people who are effective at achieving business outcomes and project success once in the role.
- jbullock35 6y ago
  It's not the case. It would be true to say that no one pays full price unless they have a lot of money. Harvard, not unrepresentative of other top U.S. schools in this regard, says that 55% of their students receive financial aid [1]. I infer that 45% are paying the full price of around $80,000 per year [2]. (Some of these 45% are doubtless funded partly by non-Harvard scholarships.) Playing with Harvard's "Net Price Calculator" [3] makes clear that non-millionaires, let alone non-billionaires, may be asked to pay full price. A lot depends on the number of children, the number in college, and accumulated wealth (excluding retirement accounts and home equity). Harvard students who receive federal financial aid pay (or their families pay) around $15,500 per year on average [4], which suggests that the distribution of payments may be bimodal: a lot of families pay $80,000 per year, and a lot pay a lot less. [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid [2] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works [3] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... [4] https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-University https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-Unive...
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    > non-millionaires, let alone non-billionaires, may be asked to pay full price. People with under $1 million in net worth are very unlikely to pay full price at the wealthiest US colleges. Unless they have huge income but no savings. By “millionaire” do you mean people who earn a million dollars of income per year? To take the Harvard example you linked to, a family with $500,000 in assets (not including equity in their primary home; for many families home equity is a majority of their net worth) and $120,000/year income will get about 2/3 of college costs paid by financial aid. A family with $1 million in non-primary-home-equity assets and a $150,000/year income will still get 1/4 of college costs from financial aid.
tester756 6y ago
What do they teach there for 320k? Seriously, I do pay like 4.5K USD after conversion for 7 semesters of CS at weekends - 4 days / month and I cannot imagine that
- kungato 6y ago
  My whole country pays 0 while the price if you repeat a year is 1200€
  - greenyoda 6y ago
    Those universities need a lot of money: professors don't work for free and buildings don't maintain themselves. You can be sure that you'll be paying for your college education out of your taxes for the rest of your working life. It would be interesting to analyze what free colleges cost the average taxpayer, and to compare that with what non-free colleges cost in the U.S. Do countries that offer free college education offer the public a way to find out the itemized expenses of publicly funded universities?
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      But an educated population is a net benefit for a society so you’d have to factor the societal benefits as well. In the US the professors appear to often work a lot closer to free than the administrators do anyway.
    - kungato 6y ago
      https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp some nice numbers here
perl4ever 6y ago
The place I went, quite a few years ago, now estimates undergraduate total costs (per year) of $25K, 60% of which is room and meals. That is, total tuition and fees is around $10K. I don't really see the point of pointing to total costs and saying "look how expensive college is". You need food and shelter anyway.

chrisseaton 6y ago

Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?

HaloZero 6y ago
I don't think so? I did a lot of tax work for VITA and met a lot of parents. Mostly low income and low-middle income got full scholarships and grants but if you're middle class it highly depends on the institution. The larger schools with huge private endowment do cover a lot but a public school like any in the UC system? Nah. It's basically all loans which have to be paid back. *My knowledge is limited to California in the United States. I know there exists programs in Georgia and other places that do cover full rides but I think they are anomalous and not the rule.
drfuchs 6y ago
Typically, in the Ivy League / Stanford, a one-child family with annual income of over $150k to $200k (depending on the school) will pay full tuition. Really. And incomes of less than $65k-ish get you a free ride. Details vary.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  This happened with my family. It was especially bad because earning $150k total for a household near an expensive urban area leads to purchasing power basically the same as a family with $65k household income in suburbia or small towns. Without adjusting parents income for cost of living (factors the kids in question have no control over), it’s totally unfair. This has a lot to do with “last place aversion” - the people making $150k near SF having to pay full price for their kid (who probably worked their ass off) to barely scrape into Stanford are (rightly or wrongly) going to be totally NIMBY / selfish in terms of voting and policy when it comes to the $65k families from far away whose kids can pay much less than half for Stanford, say.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Maybe go to a cheaper school?
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      Whether it’s right or not, prestige and notoriety of a college count for a huge amount in employment and earnings. Why should my family not get that chance if they worked just as hard to earn it?
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Not really. Most studies show that what college you go to only matters for a few professions. Way back when I graduated, 3 years in, I was making just as much as people that went to prestigious schools for my same area (computer science) and I paid less for one year of college than they paid for four - and no debt. If I were graduating today and wanted to work in Big Tech, I would spend six months to a year preparing for white board interviews. Especially in tech. What college you go to only makes a slight difference and that’s only for your first job. Being able to do algorithms and data structures is the great equalizer for Big Tech. https://www.collegechoice.net/will-what-college-i-attend-matter-to-future-employers-or-grad-school-committees/ https://www.collegechoice.net/will-what-college-i-attend-mat... https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-elite-colleges-lead-to-higher-salaries-only-for-some-professions-1454295674 https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-elite-colleges-lead-to-highe...
        mlthoughts2018 6y ago
        It looks like you quickly copy/pasted some articles from a Google search, but unfortunately your linked articles don’t back up what you say, rather they only indicate it’s somewhat complicated. For example from the first link: > “ However, another expert, this one from The Atlantic, says that where you go to school does matter, and he also has a study that backs up his point of view. There are institutions, especially ivy league schools and those with name recognition, that can improve someone's earning and employment potential, especially in the cases of graduate work. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, both someone's grade point average and their school of choice are determining factors in their earnings.” which includes embedded links to The Atlantic and NCES research on it. You also are confusing the question of whether school choice at large is correlated to earnings vs whether specific schools produce graduates who earn more, which is a different statistical question. Consider from here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/09/14/how-much-more-ivy-league-grads-make-than-you/uWIMsFXQSdVqoiK7YHXxPK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/09/14/how-much-mor... > “ The median annual earnings for an Ivy League graduate 10 years out amount to well over $70,000 a year. For graduates of all other schools, the median is around $34,000. But things get really interesting at the top end of the income spectrum. The top 10 percent of Ivy League grads are earning $200,000 or more by the time their 10-year college reunion rolls around. The top earners of other schools, on the other hand, are making just a hair under $70,000.” It’s not too related but I also disagree hugely with you about algorithm hazing trivia in tech hiring. It’s not correlated with career success and it is used to play politics to do gatekeeping on the candidate pipeline (eg Steve Yegge’s classic on interview anti-loops). I’ve been a senior architect and engineering manager for a while. I have never noticed any correlation between people who whiz through algorithm interviews and people who are effective at achieving business outcomes and project success once in the role.
jbullock35 6y ago
It's not the case. It would be true to say that no one pays full price unless they have a lot of money. Harvard, not unrepresentative of other top U.S. schools in this regard, says that 55% of their students receive financial aid [1]. I infer that 45% are paying the full price of around $80,000 per year [2]. (Some of these 45% are doubtless funded partly by non-Harvard scholarships.) Playing with Harvard's "Net Price Calculator" [3] makes clear that non-millionaires, let alone non-billionaires, may be asked to pay full price. A lot depends on the number of children, the number in college, and accumulated wealth (excluding retirement accounts and home equity). Harvard students who receive federal financial aid pay (or their families pay) around $15,500 per year on average [4], which suggests that the distribution of payments may be bimodal: a lot of families pay $80,000 per year, and a lot pay a lot less. [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid [2] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works [3] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... [4] https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-University https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-Unive...
- jacobolus 6y ago
  > non-millionaires, let alone non-billionaires, may be asked to pay full price. People with under $1 million in net worth are very unlikely to pay full price at the wealthiest US colleges. Unless they have huge income but no savings. By “millionaire” do you mean people who earn a million dollars of income per year? To take the Harvard example you linked to, a family with $500,000 in assets (not including equity in their primary home; for many families home equity is a majority of their net worth) and $120,000/year income will get about 2/3 of college costs paid by financial aid. A family with $1 million in non-primary-home-equity assets and a $150,000/year income will still get 1/4 of college costs from financial aid.

tester756 6y ago

What do they teach there for 320k? Seriously, I do pay like 4.5K USD after conversion for 7 semesters of CS at weekends - 4 days / month and I cannot imagine that

kungato 6y ago
My whole country pays 0 while the price if you repeat a year is 1200€
- greenyoda 6y ago
  Those universities need a lot of money: professors don't work for free and buildings don't maintain themselves. You can be sure that you'll be paying for your college education out of your taxes for the rest of your working life. It would be interesting to analyze what free colleges cost the average taxpayer, and to compare that with what non-free colleges cost in the U.S. Do countries that offer free college education offer the public a way to find out the itemized expenses of publicly funded universities?
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    But an educated population is a net benefit for a society so you’d have to factor the societal benefits as well. In the US the professors appear to often work a lot closer to free than the administrators do anyway.
  - kungato 6y ago
    https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp some nice numbers here

perl4ever 6y ago

The place I went, quite a few years ago, now estimates undergraduate total costs (per year) of $25K, 60% of which is room and meals. That is, total tuition and fees is around $10K. I don't really see the point of pointing to total costs and saying "look how expensive college is". You need food and shelter anyway.