
Tuition at the University of California (1970) - eaguyhn
https://thebackbench.blogspot.com/2007/08/tuition-at-university-of-california.html
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alexhutcheson
In-state tuition at the UC schools is now moderately above the median tuition
rates at comparable flagship state universities. However, it's worth pointing
out that the California State University system has done an amazing job
keeping tuition and fees low[1]. You can get a nationally ranked education
from San Diego State, Fresno State, Cal Poly Pomona, etc. for less than
$7,600/year in tuition and fees.

This is obviously still a lot of money, but it's far cheaper than comparable
options in most other states. Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico, Montana,
and Wyoming are the only other states that have similar options at that price.

[1] [https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/paying-for-
college/Document...](https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/paying-for-
college/Documents/19-20-coa.pdf)

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ltbarcly3
The increasing tuition of most college is the result of intentional fraud.
When the US Government computes your 'financial need', the two primary inputs
are your parents' income and the cost of tuition. If your parents' income is
low enough, then the government will give you a grant based on the cost of
tuition. Schools that have low tuition get a smaller check from the government
for the same student than schools that have high tuition. As a result, schools
push tuition higher and higher, then give grants to students to cover the high
costs that remain after the government grant.

For example, say school A charges $5000 per year. A low-income student is
accepted and maxes out their government grants, the school can get a check for
up to $5000.

School B charges $50,000 per year. For that same student, they can get $23k
per year (or something like that), plus the student now qualifies for
subsidized loans to pay for room and board. The school can then give that
student a scholarship for the remaining $27k.

For this student, the higher tuition school is much cheaper.

This isn't a theoretical exercise, this is exactly what Universities have been
doing for over 20 years.

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lordleft
There has to be some upper bound to the cost of education, right? Or will I
have to put aside a few million to send my kids to college twenty years from
now?

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wahern
A few years ago, shortly after the birth of our first child, our financial
advisor recommended $350k in case we wanted a private college. We're nowhere
near making that goal, nor do we have any particular preference for a private
school, but it's an interesting number nonetheless.

But I think the trend to keep an eye on isn't the price of an undergraduate
degree, but a graduate degree, as an undergraduate degree won't be nearly as
useful as today, which already isn't as useful as 20 years ago in many fields.
Indeed, both my wife and I have graduate degrees.

My wife came from a middle-class family that was college oriented. I came from
a working-class/poor environment. My mom sent me off to college with $200 and
a suitcase, and I subsequently paid for everything else, including housing and
tuition, myself. But I barely made it through; I just wasn't culturally or
academically equipped to do college. For example, my first week of school I
was preoccupied with finding a job, I always prioritized working over school
even when, financially, I didn't need to, and I didn't appreciate the value in
developing relationships with professors (that felt more like cheating,
reflecting not enough time spent studying). So what concerns me more than
college right now is primary and secondary school--preparing my kids so the
transition to college is seamless and natural. Fortunately, San Francisco has
many excellent public and private schools. The public school district has
language immersion programs in several different languages in addition to non-
immersion early language programs, as well as other enrichment programs; and
the parochial private schools in particular are relatively affordable--cheaper
than daycare, even. (Though daycare can be crushingly expensive--whether run
out of a garage or attached to a fancy private school, rates are similar--so I
guess that doesn't say much.)

So the price of college? Meh. That's poor people thinking. My goal is to put
my kids on a college trajectory and let that carry them through--hopefully to
graduate school. Of course we'll save as much as we can, but that's not
something I'm concerned about. In my hometown middle school and high school
counselors often _discouraged_ kids from college because the costs were
presumed insurmountable for most families. In truth 1) they were ridiculously
misinformed and misleading about the options and alternatives, and 2) setting
kids up for failure whether or not they ended up going to college. Nope...
worrying about cost right now is counterproductive.

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tropo
You can save for college, but then this gets deducted from your "need",
causing financial aid to be reduced. There isn't much incentive to save when
that just drives up the costs.

~~~
brewdad
True, but above a certain income threshold, one which many of the visitors to
this site exceed, you won't be getting any aid anyway. It sucks to be
"punished" for doing the "right" thing and planning your your kid's future but
what's the alternative, assuming a college education is the end goal?

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saagarjha
It's amusing to read this now when tuitions for the UCs have grown by a factor
of a hundred.

~~~
tombert
I have to wonder...where does this money go? Unless all my professor friends
are lying to me, it's not going to the professors' salaries. When I went to
school (Florida State University about ten years ago), the dorm was absolutely
dreadful, but that wasn't even part of the regular tuition, so it wasn't going
to increasing student living conditions.

~~~
barbecue_sauce
Administrators. Not to one super administrator that's soaking up all the
money, but to an array of administrators in various, emerging roles.

Anecdotal: When I went to undergrad, all of the student advisors were tenured
faculty members doing it as part of their job responsibilities. When I went to
grad school a few years later, the advisors were all full-time advisors, and
all the departments had instructional designers to consult when creating
courses.

~~~
jimbokun
If I were a student, I would prefer to be advised by an actual faculty member,
than by a "full-time adviser" divorced from everyday instruction
responsibilities.

~~~
kyleamazza
Not that I disagree, but I had the opportunity to have both cases, each at
separate schools. Having a (capable) full-time adviser meant that they were
well-versed in the requirements of the program, as well as how to navigate
administrative side of things, such as adding classes even if you don't fill
the prereqs, etc.

With a faculty member, I found that they were more focused on their actual
faculty/teaching duties, and had trouble with the more administrative side of
things.

This is also probably dependent on the quality of the school

~~~
impendia
I'm a math professor, asked to serve as an advisor frequently. I typically
advise math majors -- and I do a _fairly_ good job of it. Although I tend to
have difficulty with the administrative side of things, especially since our
degree requirements are a moving target.

That said, our faculty used to advise _incoming_ students as well. From what I
understand, our undergraduate director (tenured faculty) would do all the
advisement personally, during the summer, himself. One summer he was out of
town a lot and asked me to fill in for him for a day.

I was not very happy to be asked to show up during the summer. For one thing,
typically faculty are paid only during the academic year, unless it's from
grants (although I happened to be getting summer salary that year).

But also, the advisees were mostly freshman who weren't ready to take math-
major courses yet. They wanted general advice on how to navigate the system,
which gen-ed requirements to get out of the way, whether to take "University
101", and the like. Although I did my best, I felt quite out of my element.

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hackeraccount
I think University prices are like some weird mirror of airline ticket prices.
Time was that airlines sold tickets at a premium but the service was great.
Now you can get tickets at incredibly low prices but the service is at cattle
car level. People complain but at a fundemental level - that's what they want.

The airlines say "If you want 60's service then fly first class and pay 60's
level prices" And the response of virtually everyone is - No, thank you, I
just want to get to wherever I'm going as cheaply as humanly possible.

It seems like the same thing in reverse happened with University. Have you
seen or read about dorms in the 50's? Or all the ancillary things that went
with going to a university? It was all crap. And it's like everyone went "I
would like a very nice University experience. I want a nice dorm. I want a
beautiful campus. I want a sports team that wins and gym to go to. I want
administrators that will hold my hand." And the Universties resonse was "You
go it. If you want the cheap version go to community college"

Now by bent I'm classically liberal. If you asked me why prices have gone up
I'd tell you a tale of government action. Make student loans widly available.
Making student debt non-dischargable in bankruptcy. You may not but I find the
argument plausible.

What if that's not a root cause though? Because truelly none of that stuff
happens by chance. It's everyone who votes putting people in government. It's
everyone who votes saying- "These are my priorities" and then the people in
government saying "this is how we're going to meet those priorities" and both
walking away happy to some greater or lesser degree.

All of which indicates to me that free University for all isn't going to cut
it. If it's publically financed it won't in the long run be able to afford
what people seem to want to get out of University. If that's true then they'll
all run to a non-free private system and get the politicians to help them to
pay for it.

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cleandreams
Another great cost saving idea of Ronald Reagan was the closing of all the
mental hospitals, supposedly to be replaced by community clinics (which never
happened). The unrolling disaster of homeless with severe mental illness
continues, on and on and on. Thank you, Ronald Reagan. What a legacy.

~~~
larnmar
a) off topic, and (b) representative of a global trend that was going on at
the time, led by the psychiatric profession, rather than being any kind of
personal whim of who your president happened to be at the time. We in
Australia closed our mental asylums at the same time, with the same effect.

Blame Jack Nicholson if you want to blame someone; or rather the rash of 1970s
“aren’t asylums terrible?” asylum fiction.

~~~
retrac
Asylums _were_ terrible. It's a dynamic that's extremely prone to abuse. I do
think some people should probably be institutionalized involuntarily, but I
can see the argument where, even as a mentally ill homeless person, you at
least still have the freedom to physically escape someone who is abusing you.
That's not something to be deprived lightly.

And yes, it was very much a global phenomenon, largely predating the 1980s.

