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I went to one of the University of California campuses in the late '80s. Back then fees were about $500 per quarter my freshman year, and minimum wage was $3.3

by tsotha 13y ago

I went to one of the University of California campuses in the late '80s. Back then fees were about $500 per quarter my freshman year, and minimum wage was $3.35. I was able to cover all my fees and most of my living expenses by working summers at a job that paid about double the minimum (with lots of overtime). A job in the campus cafeteria during the school year covered the rest. I took out one $2500 student loan for a rainy day fund but never spent the money. There are a few things that have changed since back then: * College tuition has gone up faster than anything else in the economy. Anything. The UC system was a great deal at $1500/yr, but back then you could go to Stanford for $13k or so. The increase has been driven mostly by easy money from student loans, but also by administrative bloat related to government dictates. Books have become an extortion racket - $150 for a stack of unbound pages? * Almost 20 million illegal aliens have entered the country since I went to college, completely wiping out the low end of the job market. My 1986 summer job is now done by illegals in their late 20s, and they're making about $0.50 more per hour than I made 25 years ago. My old employer doesn't pay more because he doesn't have to. * The rise of unpaid internships. You work a summer for free so there's a chance you can get a job when you graduate. I think this is another consequence of easy loan money. If you offered me (or my classmates) an unpaid internship we would have declined - we needed to get paid so we could afford to go to school in the fall. Between the low wages and easy loan money today you can almost see the wheels turning - "What the hell. It's not like a job at Burger King will make a dent in my debt."

muzz 13y ago
College tuition sticker price has gone up a lot. The actual amount that students pay hasn't gone up as much. A half-decade ago, Stanford waived tuition for students from families of income less than $100k [1]. Median household income in the country is roughly $57k. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-stanford-tuition-idUSN2041220220080221 http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-stanf...
- mjmahone17 13y ago
  Stanford may now have more students on scholarship than off. But I know many of the Ivies have 40%+ of their students receiving no scholarship money, and it takes a family income of 150k+ (often more like 200k+) to not receive scholarship or loans. That means more than 40% of these schools' students come from families earning in the top 5% of household income (the 95th percentile is ~$190k). That is to say, the schools that offer the best aid, that have the potential to be the most affordable, aren't typically serving those who could most take advantage of the lower prices. Instead, private universities that do not guarantee to meet a student's need, state schools and for-profits tend to serve those students. Those are the schools where the sticker price is more likely to be the real price.
- AJ007 13y ago
  Its easy when you have a $17 billion endowment. Where is the citation for the amount students pay hasn't gone up? College tuition was already past the "this math doesn't make sense" mark when I was in school a decade ago. One of my room mates couldn't borrow anymore money and had to drop out half way through. $90 textbooks back then are $150 now. And so on.

by tsotha 13y ago

muzz 13y ago

College tuition sticker price has gone up a lot. The actual amount that students pay hasn't gone up as much. A half-decade ago, Stanford waived tuition for students from families of income less than $100k [1]. Median household income in the country is roughly $57k. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-stanford-tuition-idUSN2041220220080221 http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-stanf...

mjmahone17 13y ago
Stanford may now have more students on scholarship than off. But I know many of the Ivies have 40%+ of their students receiving no scholarship money, and it takes a family income of 150k+ (often more like 200k+) to not receive scholarship or loans. That means more than 40% of these schools' students come from families earning in the top 5% of household income (the 95th percentile is ~$190k). That is to say, the schools that offer the best aid, that have the potential to be the most affordable, aren't typically serving those who could most take advantage of the lower prices. Instead, private universities that do not guarantee to meet a student's need, state schools and for-profits tend to serve those students. Those are the schools where the sticker price is more likely to be the real price.
AJ007 13y ago
Its easy when you have a $17 billion endowment. Where is the citation for the amount students pay hasn't gone up? College tuition was already past the "this math doesn't make sense" mark when I was in school a decade ago. One of my room mates couldn't borrow anymore money and had to drop out half way through. $90 textbooks back then are $150 now. And so on.