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This is... strange. The issue of a price would seem to me to be an issue of supply and demand. Yet, this article talks about a weirdly tangential topic. This ar

This is... strange. The issue of a price would seem to me to be an issue of supply and demand. Yet, this article talks about a weirdly tangential topic. This article seems to put forward the idea that the administration of colleges has become bloated and this has led to higher fees. But that's simply not the causal chain. No one in any administration is thinking "better put that tuition up, and accept the loss in candidates to justify this new diversity officer". Demand is through the roof - there are 20 candidates for every 1 place, and those candidates have almost unlimited access to loans. So the price is immaterial, if you get a place, you pay whatever they ask. So sure, there's going to be administrative bloat - because there's literally no limit to the purse strings. And this is exacerbated by university rankings which will literally list staff:student ratio as a metric. But none of this has anything to do with Quillette's racist agenda.

rhaway84773 4y ago
And yet education costs were exponentially lower until about 1-2 decades ago where they exploded. Despite demand being ridiculously high even in the past.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Reduced state funding is a significant component of rapidly rising higher ed costs in the US. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryan93 4y ago
    Doesn’t explain why a bostonU accounting degree costs 50k a year. Also doesnt answer why I should pay for someone else’s useless umass Boston econ or psych degree
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    The article cites a $6.6 billion reduction in state funding. There are 14 million students in US public universities. So this accounts for less than $500 per student. Not a significant factor to price increases.
- Arnt 4y ago
  Exponentially lower. What does that mean? Three orders of magnitude?
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    When I went to a California community college in the early 90s tuition was $6/unit capped at $60/semester. The same school is now $46/unit with no cap. Though, through the google, it looks like there’s some sort of two years of free tuition program so it’s probably a wash practically speaking.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
elefanten 4y ago
Quite a claim you conclude with. Can you elaborate?
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Just take a read through some of the articles on the site, it's all absurd right wing bollocks about critical race theory, often literally written by people like Noah Carl who got fired for publishing racist pseudo-science. There's a reason out of the 25,000 staff at the university of Michigan Quillette decided the 70 with "diversity" in their title were the problem.
krona 4y ago
> But none of this has anything to do with Quillette's racist agenda. So why bring it up?
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  That's what I'm bringing up - the economic issues are actually driving education cost, and it's not a coincidence that Quillette is banging on about the 71 diversity staff at an institution that employs 25,000 people instead. It's just a constant drip of subtle racist bilge that Quillette puts into all their articles.
lumost 4y ago
The problem is the bid/ask spread. Ultimately everyone would prefer cheaper education with the exception of college administrators. The last 40 years has seen interest rates steadily fall, allowing students to pay the cost of education further in the future. This in turn allowed students to bid more for education that they otherwise would have paid less for. If interest rates and inflation reverse their long term course, then there is no reason to believe that students will be able to afford their previous rates.
- landemva 4y ago
  > everyone would prefer cheaper education with the exception of college administrators. And the banksters who make the student loans which are difficult to discharge in bankruptcy. The price ramp started after the no bankruptcy provision was made law. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/283625-how-the-clinton-administration-made-it-harder-on-student https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/28362... Simply repeal this law which was a gift to the banksters in the 1990s.
  - ryan93 4y ago
    You must not be familiar with the American system.
    - landemva 4y ago
      I almost put "simply" in italics for you. Getting this through the lobbyists would be challenging. Letting us vote is just for show because the lobbyists have the access.
scott00 4y ago
Supply and demand is not driving the price of Harvard. As you point out, there are many more people willing to pay the current price than are admitted. This indicates that the market price is much higher than the current price. In other words, supply and demand factors would allow Harvard to raise prices substantially if they chose to, and something other than supply and demand is determining where within the range of zero and the equilibrium price the price is set. I don't have a strong opinion as to whether administrative costs are the driving factor, but it's certainly much more plausible than supply and demand.

rhaway84773 4y ago

And yet education costs were exponentially lower until about 1-2 decades ago where they exploded. Despite demand being ridiculously high even in the past.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Reduced state funding is a significant component of rapidly rising higher ed costs in the US. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ryan93 4y ago
  Doesn’t explain why a bostonU accounting degree costs 50k a year. Also doesnt answer why I should pay for someone else’s useless umass Boston econ or psych degree
- fallingknife 4y ago
  The article cites a $6.6 billion reduction in state funding. There are 14 million students in US public universities. So this accounts for less than $500 per student. Not a significant factor to price increases.
Arnt 4y ago
Exponentially lower. What does that mean? Three orders of magnitude?
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  When I went to a California community college in the early 90s tuition was $6/unit capped at $60/semester. The same school is now $46/unit with no cap. Though, through the google, it looks like there’s some sort of two years of free tuition program so it’s probably a wash practically speaking.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

elefanten 4y ago

Quite a claim you conclude with. Can you elaborate?

SilverBirch 4y ago
Just take a read through some of the articles on the site, it's all absurd right wing bollocks about critical race theory, often literally written by people like Noah Carl who got fired for publishing racist pseudo-science. There's a reason out of the 25,000 staff at the university of Michigan Quillette decided the 70 with "diversity" in their title were the problem.

krona 4y ago

> But none of this has anything to do with Quillette's racist agenda. So why bring it up?

SilverBirch 4y ago
That's what I'm bringing up - the economic issues are actually driving education cost, and it's not a coincidence that Quillette is banging on about the 71 diversity staff at an institution that employs 25,000 people instead. It's just a constant drip of subtle racist bilge that Quillette puts into all their articles.

lumost 4y ago

The problem is the bid/ask spread. Ultimately everyone would prefer cheaper education with the exception of college administrators. The last 40 years has seen interest rates steadily fall, allowing students to pay the cost of education further in the future. This in turn allowed students to bid more for education that they otherwise would have paid less for. If interest rates and inflation reverse their long term course, then there is no reason to believe that students will be able to afford their previous rates.

landemva 4y ago
> everyone would prefer cheaper education with the exception of college administrators. And the banksters who make the student loans which are difficult to discharge in bankruptcy. The price ramp started after the no bankruptcy provision was made law. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/283625-how-the-clinton-administration-made-it-harder-on-student https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/28362... Simply repeal this law which was a gift to the banksters in the 1990s.
- ryan93 4y ago
  You must not be familiar with the American system.
  - landemva 4y ago
    I almost put "simply" in italics for you. Getting this through the lobbyists would be challenging. Letting us vote is just for show because the lobbyists have the access.

scott00 4y ago

Supply and demand is not driving the price of Harvard. As you point out, there are many more people willing to pay the current price than are admitted. This indicates that the market price is much higher than the current price. In other words, supply and demand factors would allow Harvard to raise prices substantially if they chose to, and something other than supply and demand is determining where within the range of zero and the equilibrium price the price is set. I don't have a strong opinion as to whether administrative costs are the driving factor, but it's certainly much more plausible than supply and demand.