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We stopped sufficient investment in public, post secondary education. I attended SUNY Buffalo in the late 80s / early 90s. I found some old bills when cleanin

We stopped sufficient investment in public, post secondary education. I attended SUNY Buffalo in the late 80s / early 90s. I found some old bills when cleaning out my attic several years ago. Tuition was $1,350/yr. At that time, the minimum wage was $3.35/hr. So one could theoretically work a minimum wage job over the summer for 10 weeks and pay for tuition (403 hours). Today the tuition is $10,782 and the min. wage is $14.20. So a student today would need to work nearly 2x as long (760 hours) to pay for tuition. I'm not trying to single out the SUNY system. I think the problem is nationwide. I think a lot of this is driven by the fact that people are more mobile. When its your kids went to, and grandkids going to the school down the street, then you are more likely to support higher taxes to pay for it. But when you live in a different state from your grandkids, and your tax dollars will not benefit your family, you're much less likely to want to subsidize the education of other peoples grandkids.

vladgur 2y ago
I place less blame on taxpayers and more blame on exploding administration costs. On other hand, my alma matter - University of California system - cost $4500 per year in in-state tuition alone when I graduated in 2000 when minimum wage here was around $5 and it’s under $15000 today when minimum wage is $15.50 So it appears that people in California do support public education fairly consistently. This is one of the positive outcomes of crazy taxation regime we have here. I am of course ignoring the 800lb gorilla of college affordability - housing costs. Those are craZy here in Nimbyland
- giantg2 2y ago
  I think CA public funding "dropped" from 30ish% in the 70s to 15ish% more recently. However, enrollment and costs have gone way up. The only way to keep it up is to increase revenues, decrease cost, or cap enrollment. None of those have much support. So the increased cost goes to the student.
- riku_iki 2y ago
  Base on this figure, the main business lines of UC today are hospitals and sales: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png
  - vladgur 2y ago
    Great, at least our insane medical costs are contributing to something positive :( * this comment was sponsored by $7 aspirin pill and a $3000 knee brace(sold on Amazon for $400)
  - jasomill 2y ago
    "Sales and Services" in this context presumably include things like transportation, housing, and dining, often covered by the same funding sources as tuition and fees, that represent a significant portion of a student's total cost. For example, the cheapest on-campus meal plan at UC Berkeley is $6,260 per academic year[1] for 12 dining hall meals a week plus a $600/semester in credit for other food[2], and ($6,260 - $1,200)/(8 * 4 weeks) = $158.13/week for 1.7 meals a day seems steep for dorm food, especially if we also assume $600/semester is sufficient to cover the remaining 9 meals, given that $1,200/(8 * 4 * 9 meals) = $4.17/meal. On an annualized academic year basis, this is $6,260 - $4.17 * 8 * 4 * 7 * 3 = $3,457.76 less than the cost of the meal plan. And while dining out in Berkeley at $4/meal is unrealistic, living on $100/week of groceries as a non-student is not[3], so $3,000/year seems like a reasonable figure for the net food cost of an on-campus UC Berkeley academic year. [1] https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ [2] https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-campus/ https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-c... [3] Source: I can eat frugally but well on $10/day in Indianapolis, and both random Web sites and official government statistics both suggest bay area grocery prices are roughly 25% higher.
- drewg123 2y ago
  That's interesting. So UC was 2x as expensive in 2000 than SUNY was in 1990. That made me go dig up the fee schedule at https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/documents/Historical_Fee_Levels.pdf https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/doc... From that page, it looks like in 1990 the UC tuition was $864/semseter, and the min. wage was $3.80/hr. So it was roughly the same affordability as the SUNY system at that time (except for the gigantic UC student services fee that was more than tuition -- we didn't have that, and kept voting against D1 athletics to keep it that way). Going the other way, SUNY tuition was $3,400 and the min wage was $5.15 in 2000. That puts us 1/2 way to the rates we have today. So something clearly happened in the 1990s that raised tuition in multiple states. You can see that in the (SUNY) chart here (https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factbook/institutional-data/tuition-and-fees.html https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factb...) where there were 2 huge tuition increases (over 25% each) in the 1990s.
dsr_ 2y ago
There are things at which capitalism utterly fails to serve society. Education is one of them.

vladgur 2y ago

I place less blame on taxpayers and more blame on exploding administration costs. On other hand, my alma matter - University of California system - cost $4500 per year in in-state tuition alone when I graduated in 2000 when minimum wage here was around $5 and it’s under $15000 today when minimum wage is $15.50 So it appears that people in California do support public education fairly consistently. This is one of the positive outcomes of crazy taxation regime we have here. I am of course ignoring the 800lb gorilla of college affordability - housing costs. Those are craZy here in Nimbyland

giantg2 2y ago
I think CA public funding "dropped" from 30ish% in the 70s to 15ish% more recently. However, enrollment and costs have gone way up. The only way to keep it up is to increase revenues, decrease cost, or cap enrollment. None of those have much support. So the increased cost goes to the student.
riku_iki 2y ago
Base on this figure, the main business lines of UC today are hospitals and sales: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2023/4684/4684-fig1.png
- vladgur 2y ago
  Great, at least our insane medical costs are contributing to something positive :( * this comment was sponsored by $7 aspirin pill and a $3000 knee brace(sold on Amazon for $400)
- jasomill 2y ago
  "Sales and Services" in this context presumably include things like transportation, housing, and dining, often covered by the same funding sources as tuition and fees, that represent a significant portion of a student's total cost. For example, the cheapest on-campus meal plan at UC Berkeley is $6,260 per academic year[1] for 12 dining hall meals a week plus a $600/semester in credit for other food[2], and ($6,260 - $1,200)/(8 * 4 weeks) = $158.13/week for 1.7 meals a day seems steep for dorm food, especially if we also assume $600/semester is sufficient to cover the remaining 9 meals, given that $1,200/(8 * 4 * 9 meals) = $4.17/meal. On an annualized academic year basis, this is $6,260 - $4.17 * 8 * 4 * 7 * 3 = $3,457.76 less than the cost of the meal plan. And while dining out in Berkeley at $4/meal is unrealistic, living on $100/week of groceries as a non-student is not[3], so $3,000/year seems like a reasonable figure for the net food cost of an on-campus UC Berkeley academic year. [1] https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ https://housing.berkeley.edu/rates-contracts-policies/rates/ [2] https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-campus/ https://dining.berkeley.edu/meal-plans/2024-2025/living-on-c... [3] Source: I can eat frugally but well on $10/day in Indianapolis, and both random Web sites and official government statistics both suggest bay area grocery prices are roughly 25% higher.
drewg123 2y ago
That's interesting. So UC was 2x as expensive in 2000 than SUNY was in 1990. That made me go dig up the fee schedule at https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/documents/Historical_Fee_Levels.pdf https://www.ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/doc... From that page, it looks like in 1990 the UC tuition was $864/semseter, and the min. wage was $3.80/hr. So it was roughly the same affordability as the SUNY system at that time (except for the gigantic UC student services fee that was more than tuition -- we didn't have that, and kept voting against D1 athletics to keep it that way). Going the other way, SUNY tuition was $3,400 and the min wage was $5.15 in 2000. That puts us 1/2 way to the rates we have today. So something clearly happened in the 1990s that raised tuition in multiple states. You can see that in the (SUNY) chart here (https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factbook/institutional-data/tuition-and-fees.html https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factb...) where there were 2 huge tuition increases (over 25% each) in the 1990s.

dsr_ 2y ago

There are things at which capitalism utterly fails to serve society. Education is one of them.