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America is a country that loves the free market country, yet no one seems to be talking about supply and demand to fix college prices. Double the number of lar

America is a country that loves the free market country, yet no one seems to be talking about supply and demand to fix college prices. Double the number of large quality state universities. Re-index public university tuition to what they were in 2000 + inflation. Mandate that funding comes with X number increase in tenured professors. Re-instate public funding for state universities to what it was in 2000 + inflation. A supply/demand imbalance is in effect, and bloat has taken hold on top of that. Yes building new 20k student universities takes time, but in 20 years these problems will be solved.

sokoloff 5y ago
Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. You could further reduce tuition and fees, but it costs a lot to be housed and fed (and to forgo earning a full-time income for 4 years). Could you realistically get room and board down below $8K/year with more spartan dormitories and meal plans? Maybe, but not by much I don't think. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college
- WWLink 5y ago
  Speaking from anecdotal experience, the university I went to put a lot of thought and money into things like being sustainable, producing zero waste, having high quality healthy food, etc. This is fantastic if you're looking at things from a long term perspective. On the other hand, if your goal is to churn as many bodies out as possible with degrees, it's a pretty big waste of money. We could ship in frozen tyson chicken from China or whatever and just deep fry it as dinner, and turn the dorms into pod hotels or something. Of course that goes from ideal to complete dystopia, but if that's your goal... lol.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  > Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. As Bronn of the Blackwater said, “it’s all [housing policy] in the end”.
dantheman 5y ago
The problem is student loans, if the students don't have the money the college will adapt to be less expensive.
- klipt 5y ago
  Europe has cheap high quality colleges, I believe part of the difference is European colleges exist mainly to teach, while American colleges are a mini city with expensive sports teams and stadiums, large bureaucracy with many layers of admin, fancy facilities not directly related to education, etc, all to attract students to pay high fees.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    Europe is not some magical place where everyone goes to college. Lots of people don't, and have no ability to go, because the billets are fixed by statute.
  - Someone1234 5y ago
    European style colleges exist in the US: They're community colleges. The problem in the US is that "community college" is seen as a lower grade qualification that people "settled" for, instead of an educational focused institutional with bare bones and no immoral mandatory tie-ins (e.g. first year mandatory high price accommodations/gyms/meal plans, etc). I understand community colleges have a lot of problems too (e.g. low educator pay and conditions). I'm just pointing out that everyone thinks that a European University is 1:1 with the city-colleges of the US, when in reality they're often nothing that fancy and pretty bare-bones.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Community college doesn't let you get a bachelors degree. You can't say that is equivalent to European universities that can take you all the way through a post-doc. You map them based on how far you can progress on the academic ladder, 2 year colleges aren't a big thing in Europe. In Europe being a university means it at least graduates phd's, and most students study at universities since they are so large.
yeetsfromhell 5y ago
I once read an essay by an administrator of a small college who was talking about some incentives for high tuition costs. The biggest for his school was that parents and prospective students expected any tuition to be high, and if it wasn't, people figured that to mean the quality of the education was lower compared to similarly sized colleges which charged a lot more but the education was basically identical. To keep the doors open, he substantially raised tuition and enrollment increased by a huge factor.
andrewjl 5y ago
> Double the number of large quality state universities. As far I can tell there aren't capacity issues to get accredited education at the undergrad level. The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students. Increasing the number of universities might worsen the problem due to the latter needing to redouble investments to attract students.
- DerSaidin 5y ago
  > The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students. Does the US have colleges that choose to attract students with lower prices instead?

sokoloff 5y ago

Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. You could further reduce tuition and fees, but it costs a lot to be housed and fed (and to forgo earning a full-time income for 4 years). Could you realistically get room and board down below $8K/year with more spartan dormitories and meal plans? Maybe, but not by much I don't think. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college

WWLink 5y ago
Speaking from anecdotal experience, the university I went to put a lot of thought and money into things like being sustainable, producing zero waste, having high quality healthy food, etc. This is fantastic if you're looking at things from a long term perspective. On the other hand, if your goal is to churn as many bodies out as possible with degrees, it's a pretty big waste of money. We could ship in frozen tyson chicken from China or whatever and just deep fry it as dinner, and turn the dorms into pod hotels or something. Of course that goes from ideal to complete dystopia, but if that's your goal... lol.
epicureanideal 5y ago
> Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. As Bronn of the Blackwater said, “it’s all [housing policy] in the end”.

dantheman 5y ago

The problem is student loans, if the students don't have the money the college will adapt to be less expensive.

klipt 5y ago
Europe has cheap high quality colleges, I believe part of the difference is European colleges exist mainly to teach, while American colleges are a mini city with expensive sports teams and stadiums, large bureaucracy with many layers of admin, fancy facilities not directly related to education, etc, all to attract students to pay high fees.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Europe is not some magical place where everyone goes to college. Lots of people don't, and have no ability to go, because the billets are fixed by statute.
- Someone1234 5y ago
  European style colleges exist in the US: They're community colleges. The problem in the US is that "community college" is seen as a lower grade qualification that people "settled" for, instead of an educational focused institutional with bare bones and no immoral mandatory tie-ins (e.g. first year mandatory high price accommodations/gyms/meal plans, etc). I understand community colleges have a lot of problems too (e.g. low educator pay and conditions). I'm just pointing out that everyone thinks that a European University is 1:1 with the city-colleges of the US, when in reality they're often nothing that fancy and pretty bare-bones.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Community college doesn't let you get a bachelors degree. You can't say that is equivalent to European universities that can take you all the way through a post-doc. You map them based on how far you can progress on the academic ladder, 2 year colleges aren't a big thing in Europe. In Europe being a university means it at least graduates phd's, and most students study at universities since they are so large.

yeetsfromhell 5y ago

I once read an essay by an administrator of a small college who was talking about some incentives for high tuition costs. The biggest for his school was that parents and prospective students expected any tuition to be high, and if it wasn't, people figured that to mean the quality of the education was lower compared to similarly sized colleges which charged a lot more but the education was basically identical. To keep the doors open, he substantially raised tuition and enrollment increased by a huge factor.

andrewjl 5y ago

> Double the number of large quality state universities. As far I can tell there aren't capacity issues to get accredited education at the undergrad level. The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students. Increasing the number of universities might worsen the problem due to the latter needing to redouble investments to attract students.

DerSaidin 5y ago
> The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students. Does the US have colleges that choose to attract students with lower prices instead?