College costs are actually going down

[tryan]

My cousin married a tenured grad professor ... his pulls 140k/year (and this was YEARS ago) teaching the same 3 courses he's taught for decades. Material rarely changed.

He's a scratch golfer .... lots of time on his hands. This is why college is not cheap.

[rodi]

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Originally Posted by anothercog My son will be attending UC Santa Barbara. The most expensive part of it is housing. I'm hoping he gets a job as an RA in his second year which will give him free room and board plus a small stipend.

UCSB is a gorgeous campus. But off campus housing is craaaazy. Kid down the street graduates from there in a week or two... he made the bad decision to move out of on-campus housing - and saw his housing costs increase dramatically because there is no affordable housing. When we looked at UCSB one of the things I read about how this can be mitigated is the 'guaranteed housing' if you never move out of on-campus housing. Residential halls for freshmen, then suites for Sophomores and up.

My younger son is up the road from there at CalPoly. He applied for but didn't get into the dorm for sophomore year. Off campus housing is expensive and hard to find in SLO. Almost as hard as Santa Barbara/Goleta.

[BklynGinger]

Could someone tell my son's school that tuition is going down? Apparently, they did not get this information 😀

[rodi]

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Originally Posted by FlaGator As long as we're being honest...... Yes, HS AP classes can take care of a lot of the first year or so of college. My oldest ended up as Soph after her first semester at University and was able to complete a Master's in four years. Definitely helps. For those who didn't, or couldn't take advantage of AP or Dual Enrollment (hope that's not just a Florida thing), I find the argument against during 4 full years on campus, and away from home to be less persuasive if the funds are available. IMO, one of the reasons to leave home and go to school is to start to prepare for independent adult life. Yes, there is a cost to do so, and it can be mitigated by HS AP classes, community college, etc. If kids have been prepared during HS beyond academics, I think there is no substitute for sending them away to an appropriate environment to go to school. I'm an older parent, and mine knew they had to get in, get it done, and graduate before I died .

Both my boys did AP and IB course work and entered college with a decent number of units under their belt. It didn't necessarily apply to their degree, but since the grades in AP and IB are weighted - it did help them get accepted. The only classes that applied towards degree requirements were ones that fit the gen-ed parts of the degree. Both boys have excess gen-ed humanities and liberal arts credits from the AP/IB stuff.

Older son has been on a circuitous path... Freshman year at CalPoly Pomona where he got an A in partying, and F's in everything else. (Pandemic was a factor in the 2nd semester...). So moving out for the life experience isn't always the best move. Looking back -we kind of knew he wasn't ready for college or living on his own... but we sent him anyway.

He moved home for COVID and got a job... He's now back up in Pomona living with friends... but attending the community college up there and working. He's on track to transfer to either UCSD or UCLA... He's an honors student in Math. It's taken 2 years of straight A's to pull his GPA back up. His friends are graduating with their bachelors degrees... he's on a different path than them... But the community college is dirt cheap and he's been working so he still has plenty of 529 money to finish his degree.

[lucky2030]

If you read the linked report from College Board, what they actually are saying is that CPI-adjusted college tuition went down the last two years. Nominal tuition still went up.

So, in 2 years of very high inflation, college tuition did not increase as much as the things driving inflation - used cars, services, airline and hotel prices.

[MC Rider]

The school I went to the first 2 years of college was about $5,000 a year, room and board iirc. Looked online it is now over $50k. OK, that was in the late 70's.

[ncbill]

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Originally Posted by anothercog How much does the military actually provide? With Private schools at $80k+/year and public at $30k+/year, does it cover today's tuition?

You can still get ROTC scholarships that cover tuition & fees for private schools.

That's what my recent graduate did.

Had he not received the above his plan was to move to another state & join that state's National Guard which would have waived tuition at that state's public schools.

States set their own rules on education benefits for Guard members so for that state he would have had to go through both Basic & Advanced camps before becoming eligible for tuition waivers, so he probably would have missed the fall semester & started in the spring.

[Gumby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tryan My cousin married a tenured grad professor ... his pulls 140k/year (and this was YEARS ago) teaching the same 3 courses he's taught for decades. Material rarely changed. He's a scratch golfer .... lots of time on his hands. This is why college is not cheap.

From what I read, colleges actually are moving to poorly paid, non-tenured adjunct faculty. The larger amount of the increase in cost is to pay for the ever expanding administrative staff. A quick look at the University of Connecticut website shows literally dozens of vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, associate vice presidents, directors, associate directors and other highly paid staffers, none of whom appear to teach at all. And I don't know if students and their parents are demanding it or not, but they also spend an awful lot of money on the latest and greatest facilities.

[MichaelB]

College have seen no improvements in productivity for the past half century, have added layers of additional cost, and also have added functions and extracurricular activities that are not academic. Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University has written extensively on this, here are a few of his blog posts at Marginal Revolution. It’s a bit wonky.

He attributes this to “Baumol cost disease”. Wages of professionals at the colleges have risen even though there has been no improvement in productivity because competitive professions, such as doctors and lawyers, have enjoyed increases in the price of labor.

In other words, college cost of labor rises because it can, and that flows immediately to the overall cost.

[braumeister]

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Originally Posted by MichaelB College have seen no improvements in productivity for the past half century, have added layers of additional cost, and also have added functions and extracurricular activities that are not academic.

And the ones I'm familiar with have gone on building sprees for the last few decades. Showy new buildings that are often only peripherally related to the teaching or research mission. That adds up in a hurry.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB College have seen no improvements in productivity for the past half century, have added layers of additional cost, and also have added functions and extracurricular activities that are not academic. Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University has written extensively on this, here are a few of his blog posts at Marginal Revolution. It’s a bit wonky. He attributes this to “Baumol cost disease”. Wages of professionals at the colleges have risen even though there has been no improvement in productivity because competitive professions, such as doctors and lawyers, have enjoyed increases in the price of labor. In other words, college cost of labor rises because it can, and that flows immediately to the overall cost.

IOW all those things the gummint did to insure that everyone (almost) can go to college, actually went to more layering of administration (and building edifices to former faculty.)

You can't fool mother nature. Supply and demand is a law for a reason. It's a natural law - not man made. Dump a bunch of money into universities (and call it loans and aid to students) and what happens? Universities spend it on what THEY want - not on what their customers need. I contend without any proof that university educations would cost half what they do now if the gummint had stayed out of it. It's probably true that a "few" fewer students would have been able to attend. But just a few. And I contend - again without proof - the students who were "shut out" simply gave up on trying to find a way to a higher education. It's out there. For some, it's a real learning-experience of head-banging-the-wall, but it was always possible for those with decent grades and a lot of drive. One thing for certain, folks that had to really w*rk hard for their education appreciate it. BUT YMMV.

[MichaelB]

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Originally Posted by braumeister And the ones I'm familiar with have gone on building sprees for the last few decades. Showy new buildings that are often only peripherally related to the teaching or research mission. That adds up in a hurry.

Very good point. It brings to mind our property tax when we lived in NY. They billed property tax for schools separately, and by law were required to submit for yearly voting a “do nothing” budget alternative. Our “do nothing” option still had 17% year over year growth, caused by 2 factors. One was pension contribution for teachers, the second new buildings costs. The expansion projects were all approved with matching state and federal funds for the first few years, and when the subsidy went away the following decade saw hefty yearly increases in school budget, even when no staff was added.

[all4j]

I only skimmed the article but I think it might be more accurate to say there is a shift beginning in who pays for college. I hear some smaller private schools & some public want more taxpayer dollars. Then there is the whole student loan thing. I got the impression the article was pushing an agenda more than providing data...maybe just me.

[Koolau]

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Originally Posted by MichaelB <SNIP> The expansion projects were all approved with matching state and federal funds for the first few years, and when the subsidy went away the following decade saw hefty yearly increases in school budget, even when no staff was added.

Yep. Nothing is more expensive than free Federal money. We're still trying to get our promised "free" Billion from the Feds for the construction of our Light Rail (that, so far has cost us well over 10 Billion - headed for 15 Billion before it's over.)

So to get a Fed input of a Billion, each and every citizen of the State (man, woman, child) will be on the hook for 10,000. But, by George, we'll get that free Fed money - one of these days. But I'm not bitter.