

A bachelor’s degree could cost $10,000 total. Here’s how - vellum
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/26/a-bachelors-degree-could-cost-10000-total-heres-how/?print=1

======
gph
How I plan on getting a bachelor's degree for ~15k.

1\. Go to a community college in a county that you are a resident for your
two-year associates. The money I'm getting from Pell grants is paying my
18-credit hours per semester tuition right now (Roughly $120 per credit hour
tuition). Books on top of that are costing me about 300 a semester (buy cheap
old editions as much as possible). I've gotten scholarship money to cover
that, and I'll also get Tax credit money.

2\. Transfer to an in-state 4-year public university. Tuition rates will
double for me during this transition, but YMMV (I'm in Maryland FYI). The hike
in tuition will cost me about 7k a year for two years. Hence ~15k out of
pocket for a degree.

Moral of the story: If you really want a premier education where you will be
learning from those on the forefront of research, by all means spend 100k at
an elite private college. If you want to be part of academia or research
projects this is probably the route you have to take.

If instead you know what career you are going into and you have a desire to
learn those skills on your own, then go the cheap route and just get the piece
of paper to prove to HR you are worthy of a job.

*Obviously some careers might not fit this model, but I'd guess most people throwing money away at private universities could go this route with the same basic outcome.

~~~
pwthornton
The only issues I see with this is the peer effect, where students play to
their playing field. Intelligent and motivated students placing themselves
around less intelligent and less motivated students will often find themselves
doing worse too, even up to not graduating. I myself know I am susceptible to
this and try to push myself be being around other talented people. Not saying
that there aren't intelligent and talented people in community college, but it
may have an impact on your performance.

The other issue is missing out on extracurriculars. I learned a lot on my
student news organization and got to experiment with building websites and
trying out new special features (this was back when news orgs were a lot more
cautious on the Web). It helped me get my first few jobs. It also helped me
make a lot of connections (same with just going to the same school for four
straight years).

If you go through with this plan, join some organizations as a junior at your
four-year institution and get to know people outside of class. Connections
matter a lot. Also, join professional organizations and go to conferences. You
don't have to start doing that while a student, but it can't hurt either.

Luckily you're in Maryland where we aren't cutting higher education left and
right. College Park is one of the better state schools, and it's pretty
affordable still.

~~~
gph
Good points, I suppose I was looking at it from my POV. Even before I started
going to college I've loved learning on my own and developed an enjoyment of
computers, so it doesn't matter much to me motivationally who my classmates
are. Not to sound cocky, but the Intro classes I'm going through are already
below my knowledge level (except some of the Math). By the time I'm hitting
the higher level courses I'll be at the 4-year university.

I guess it depends on the community college, but I imagine most of the larger
ones in major metro areas have extracurriculars that somewhat rival large
universities. Here in Baltimore Co. there are a lot of clubs and the student
newspaper is a pretty decent production[1].

Still I get what you mean about connections, especially in some of the more
social disciplines like business. But for me (Comp Sci) it wouldn't be worth
the extra 60k+, and I actually already have some connections into the field
through family. Nepotism works for me :D

[1][http://blog.ccbcmd.edu/connection/](http://blog.ccbcmd.edu/connection/)

------
tokenadult
From the article:

"So why not do it?

"Kamenetz's plan doesn't lack for details. An as-yet unpublished appendix lays
out exactly where spending at Cohort Colleges and Adult Online Us would go,
down to the instructor salary level. But it also would uproot thousands of
workers in the higher ed sector and radically change the careers of those who
remained. Kamenetz acknowledges the concern, but thinks reform is too
important to not do something drastic.

"'I recognize the political pain involved, but the purpose of public higher ed
is to educate people, not to employ them,' she e-mails. 'One of the travesties
of the current system is the percentage of classes taught by low-paid
adjuncts. I envision a system that might have fewer jobs, but they're better
jobs.'"

And my comment on that is that this always requires political courage. To make
a large government appropriations plan (and higher education is often the
second or third largest budget category in a state budget) work, you have to
keep your eye on the people who are supposed to be served by the program. But
the people who are employed by the program will almost always be more
organized to lobby for their benefit before the state legislature, especially
because they can use purported benefits to students as a fig leaf for demands
for more administrators and less checking of the effectiveness of how higher
education is delivered.

Most of the suggestions in the article seem sound. They also sound rather
radical compared to what is usually proposed to improve the bang for the buck
of colleges in the United States. It will be interesting to see how much
uptake there is of any of these ideas.

------
ballard
Or $0, if the sheepskin, corrected homework and grades won't matter. Audit
classes at the large institution of your choice means just sitting in on
whatever lectures you like. In big lecture halls, even with attendance, it's
really quite simple to go unnoticed. Interactive classes JD/MBA might get
dicey, but otherwise the worst that can happen is you get thrown out. BFD.

Also, Coursera, Udacity, OCW, Kahn and iTunes

Pluses of going legit:

    
    
      - dorm life is a unique experience unlike any other, worth it just for that
      - parties
      - according to Thomas J. Stanley, college is by far the best place to meet a quality spouse
      - monetize pizza [0]
      - pedigree if it's a big name or hipster elite school
      - paid internships
      - hustle yourself into a paid ugrad research assistant gig
      - connections
      - meet potential cofounders
    

Hazards:

    
    
      - alcohol spending
      - textbook costs (buy used and sell them back)
      - dorm food -> "freshman 30"
      - all-nighters
      - unpaid internships
      - min wage jobs on campus
    

[0] [http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/economy/better-slice-
hsi...](http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/economy/better-slice-hsieh-traces-
genesis-business-operations-pizza)

~~~
L_Rahman
I've found that the smallest classes at my school have also been the most
rewarding.

Sure you could sit in every day on my morning Thermo lecture and go unnoticed,
but I've learned very little in that class that I couldn't already get out of
an excellent textbook.

On the other hand Pharmacokinetics meets once a week in the professor's
office. He also happens to be one of the leaders of the field. For two hours a
week we get to discuss complex pharmacokinetic practices, ask open ended
questions and, as he would say "learn how to learn". Museum Display Theory
also meets once a week off campus with the head curator of the city art museum
and today we discussed Foucault's Panopticon as it relates to museum curation.

These are things worth paying for, or as in my case, working hard enough to
get financial aid for.

~~~
ballard
For sure. Most people get ripped off on general electives at big brand
schools.

Caltech has/had pretty awesome staff/student ratio.

~~~
L_Rahman
> meet potential cofounders

So true. The people I'm planning to do my startup are battle tested. We've
pulled all nighters, dealt with high stress situations, and come out of it as
friends. We know each others work habits, strengths and weaknesses.

All of that is going to be really important when we'll have just graduated
with probably no funding.

------
lnanek2
Kind of a non-sensical article that conflicts with itself:

1\. spend less on admins and have massive class sizes 2\. spend less on
sports, food, dorms, and other perks 5\. cut most of the majors

vs.

3\. oh, wait, another school reduced costs by spending more on personal
instruction and having micro size classes because students actually graduated
with less trouble - let's do that too! 4\. offering more variety in learning
methods actually proved successful, not less, so do that too!

------
jlgaddis
This -- and other similar -- ideas are great and certainly feasible.

Unfortunately, it'll never happen because there's simply too much money
involved in the academic world. The people running the educational
institutions, the people running the corporate world, and the people running
government are all good friends and none of them want to do anything to screw
over the other.

~~~
gojomo
Sure, they can deprive the idea of state funding, and discriminate against it
in credential-centric systems.

But ultimately, if you can manage a nearly-as-good (or in some cases, better)
education, for $10K true out-of-pocket cost rather than $200K+, then
eventually a lot more people will complete, and be loyal to, the $10K system
than the legacy $200K+ one.

------
lostlogin
This is what it cost me in New Zealand - with the fairly notable exception of
the taxes I now pay to help others though their degrees.

~~~
beagle3
May I ask how much your taxes are?

People in NYC or California making $200K/year often pay >40% (getting close to
50% if you are in the $300K/year range) of their salary in taxes (33-35%
federal, 8-13% state, and then there's sale tax. And estate tax) and get no
reasonable-cost tuition nor reasonable-cost healthcare.

Every time this discussion comes up, US people are quick to quote federal tax
rates but when I compared actual rates in NYC and CA, it seems like americans
pay comparable taxes, and get nothing in return.

How does NZ fair in this respect? What's the real tax like (remember sales tax
/ vat), and what do you get for it?

~~~
mappu
Income tax is around 30-35% depending on income. There's a 15% GST applied at
point of purchase, so you don't really notice it, and if you're a business it
can be claimed back.

The NZ Government provides free student allowance (a few hundred dollars per
week living allowance for your first 4? years of tertiary education, means-
tested against your parents' income, not paid back) as well as interest-free
student loans (for as long as you stay within the country).

~~~
lostlogin
I agree with all this. Just one addition - fuel is taxed quite a lot and in
many places here a car is a necessity as public transport is poor. Its a bit
over $2 per litre. Edit: Property taxes are about $2k per year on an average
house in Auckland. An average house is about $500k in Auckland as the New
Zealand love of property makes the market rather expensive when compared to
income. I'm using NZ dollars.

------
OldSchool
$10K Isn't too far off from what tuition for my EE degree cost in the late
80's. Even adjusted for real inflation it shouldn't be a penny more than $20K,
possibly as low as about $15K today. That was of course at a state school.

The somewhat counter-intuitive answer is that _easy money_ has increased the
price of education, in this case _easy borrowing._

The same phenomenon is responsible for almost all bubbles in modern history.
Interest rates dropped and qualification criteria got loose and house prices
tripled in some areas, also rising in almost all. VC's got sloppy and we had
the dot-com bubble.

The serious problem facing America today is that _easy money_ is already
flowing yet this bubble is also called "barely getting by as a nation."

~~~
jseliger
_The somewhat counter-intuitive answer is that easy money has increased the
price of education, in this case easy borrowing._

Based on my reading of Archibald and Feldman's book _Why Does College Cost So
Much?_ , that doesn't seem to be the case: their data show that Baumol's Cost
Disease is the real culprit.

------
mrxd
Is there any data showing that the cost of college is increasing?

I know the _price_ (i.e. tuition) is increasing, but this is due to colleges
increasing tuition rates to make up for shortfalls as state budgets for higher
education are cut. But I haven't seen any data showing that the costs have
risen.

It's also worth noting that the #2 suggestion is mostly just an accounting
trick that would increase the price to students, not decrease it. If "perks"
like room and board aren't provided out of tuition, students will have to pay
for that somehow anyway - they're necessities, not perks. And removing state
subsidies for those things means that students will be paying even more, if
you add up tuition + room + board.

~~~
lelandbatey
I've got absolutely _no data_ to support this, so make no mistake that this is
anything other than the wildest speculation:

The feeling that's "in the air" is that what's really happened is buildup of
too much management in the school systems. There seem to be far more
"managers" per professor than there were before, and those managers are being
paid far to much, especially in comparison to the professors doing the actual
teaching.

It's pretty classic: most large-ish universities have marketing departments
(or hire marketing departments), large non-educational functions and services
that take up tremendous man power, overly large "cultural" aspects like
sports, and many more.

The cost of educating hasn't really changed, but that's not what most
universities are focused on doing anymore.

~~~
mrxd
This article[1] from the WSJ shows that administration varies between 3-10% of
education spending. So probably not a significant driver.

[1]:[http://graphics.wsj.com/documents/NONCLASS1212/](http://graphics.wsj.com/documents/NONCLASS1212/)

Unless there is data showing otherwise, I would argue that costs haven't
changed, only the price.

The cost of providing education in 2013 at University of Washington is a
little less than it was in 1990: $16,800 vs. $17,000. The difference is that
in 1990, the state paid for 82%, where today it pays 29%.[2] That's where your
tuition increases are coming from.

[2]:[http://www.washington.edu/discover/budget/](http://www.washington.edu/discover/budget/)

------
willchilcutt
How about go to an in-state school, get a scholarship (many go unclaimed every
year), and get an on campus job?

I, along with many people I know, got paid to go to school this way.

Why people are paying tens of thousands of dollars a year/semester is beyond
me.

~~~
Romoku
I never got the whole scholarship thing. All of the websites that advertise
them sound like scams.

I'd prefer to get an online bachelor's degree if they existed.

~~~
willchilcutt
Most schools have lists of scholarships that are applicable to the school. No
need to go to third party websites.

------
glesica
Universities are like any large organization, mission drift occurs and keeping
your customers happy can means offering non-core services in a bundle.

I think the real trouble is that college is still awesome for people who can
afford it. It's like anything in capitalism, whatever the people who can pay
want is what happens. I read an article awhile back that discussed how one of
the private schools in NYC was building new luxury student housing and sending
limos to pick students up from the airport, that's about as far from these
recommendations as you can get.

The point is that change isn't going to come from the elite schools, not
_real_ change. They may offer online programs and such, just dabbling really,
but they have no trouble attracting wealthy students and donors, so they have
no real incentive to radically change what they are doing. At best, they may
tack on some extra programs under different names that just further cement the
inequality in education we have in the US.

So, change needs to come from the bottom, from the small state schools and
community colleges whose students are struggling to fund their educations. But
state schools are on strict budgets, and small ones have small endowments. So
_real_ change won't come from there either because those institutions can't
afford to make such radical changes, they literally don't have enough money.
All they can do in many cases is what they've been doing in the past until
they can't do that any more and then they can close up shop.

Either way, I personally have a pretty bleak view of the future of higher
education in the US.

------
mebreuer
The education that Kamenetz describes could be offered for free at
wikipedia.org.

By removing research, extracurriculars, sports, and on-campus living, she is
paring a university education down to a simple exchange of knowledge, which is
free online. These things all add to the essence of college, a place to
transition from a child to an adult. The value of college is not what you
learn in classes, but the personal development you go through by taking
leadership positions in student organizations and pursuing passions with other
young thinkers.

University is expensive because it's an adult development camp in addition to
a knowledge exchange. The most expensive camps produce well developed, open
minded individuals who are generally better positioned to succeed. I'd be
surprised if I'm using anything I learned in a classroom even 5 years out of
college, but the lessons learned outside the classroom will stay with me for
life.

------
Totient
My problem with the online course idea (aside from the fact that this is
pretty much already available) is that it lacks interactivity. The only reason
I went to half of my lectures as an undergrad was because I could ask
questions and get an near instant, expert response.

And sure, it's possible to pause a video lecture and look something up, but in
my experience, it's just not the same. If I'm trying to understand something
for the first time, and a part of the lecture just doesn't _quite_ make sense,
I want the transaction cost of clarifying a point to be as low as possible.

------
mdturnerphys
The LDS (Mormon) Church has a new program for members to get an online
bachelor's degree from BYU-Idaho for a total tuition cost of $7,800 [1].
Judging from member/non-member tuition on campus, that's probably subsidized
at a rate of 1:1, but even $15,600 isn't too bad.

[1]
[http://www.byui.edu/online/pathway/tuition](http://www.byui.edu/online/pathway/tuition)

~~~
phamilton
BYU in Provo is still less than $10k tuition over 4 years and is arguably a
much more prestigious and well rounded school.

Also important is the abundance of merit based scholarships at both schools. I
know many people who were on either half tuition or full tuition scholarships
their whole 4 years.

~~~
mdturnerphys
Tuition for members would be $19,400 (8*$2,425) over four years [1].

(I was one of the lucky ones with a full+ tuition scholarship. My wife had a
half-tuition athletic scholarship, which was essentially full-tuition because
her dad is faculty so she only had to pay half.)

[1] [http://finserve.byu.edu/content/tuition-and-general-
fees](http://finserve.byu.edu/content/tuition-and-general-fees)

------
coyotebush
Alternate degree structures and modes of instruction are definitely worth
exploring.

Points #1 and #5, though, would likely not go over well with current
university faculty. Reshuffling of faculty roles seems much better designed by
those with classroom/advising experience. And who's to judge which are similar
or niche fields of study, besides departments themselves?

------
hobzy
Have young american students looking for a university ever thought of studying
abroad ? I mean hell, my (swiss) bachelor's degree costs 580$ a semester, so
3480$ ... Add 1160$ and you have a Master's degree. Average salary is between
84K$ - 96K$ / year when I'm done. Even with a foreign diploma they can come
back to the US if they want to work there.

------
oakaz
10.000? Is this affordable for people who make no money? We're talking about
people aged 18-22. Do they make money? How the hell is it fair to elect people
by the wealth of their families?!

Come on people! Don't you see the huge discrimination?

This system is a blood sucker. Please demand a real change instead of dealing
with it

~~~
aet
$10,000/k for a Bachelor's equates to about $15 per a class period. At a class
size of 30 that is $450 per class in revenue for the school. A professor
spends 2 hours a week doing prep, 2 hours a week in office hours, 2 hours
grading and 2 hours in class. Lets say overhead is 40%. That is equivalent to
~$30 dollars an hour to teach a class at 8 hours a week. Teach four classes
and you are at ~40 hours a week. That puts you at about $50K a year after
taxes. Most professors teach 1 or 2 classes a semester to leave time for grad
students and research. --- are my assumptions way off here? 2 classes would
mean $25k a year -- poverty line for family of 4.

~~~
oakaz
oh, dude, seriously, there is no school outside of US, right?

~~~
aet
IT is a Washington Post story about universities in the U.S. -- but okay,
change the currency, doesn't matter.

~~~
oakaz
Sorry, but, what the fuck are you talking about?

Do you know the amount of the universities that you can study for free?

Dozens.

and I mean: no fee at all. I studied in three of them. And one of them was a
great university with a lot of foreign students. Teachers were quite good. And
I was also served high quality food (much better than the garbage you pay for
every day) for free, every morning, noon and evening.

Open your eyes bro. Not so many people are able to pay thousands to the
schools. And my point here is to tell your kind of god damn middle class;
start considering everybody.

Don't be one of those fucking selfish dicks.

~~~
aet
You are confusing free with government or someone else pays. I hope you
continue on with your education, gl.

------
trg2
Link to the non print-friendly version:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/26/a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/26/a-bachelors-
degree-could-cost-10000-total-heres-how/)

------
aspensmonster
How? Lower prices. Tuition+Fees used to hover around 10k total at public
institutions.

~~~
beagle3
The high prices are a symptom. The cause is cheap student loans:

Since it is easy to get a loan, people will borrow as much as needed to get to
the highest tier institution that will accept them. The private ones can thus
increase their prices, and lure the staff with higher salaries. Now the public
institutions need to level up salaries of professors and administrators, or
they will leave for the private institutions.

That has been happening over the last 20 years. Remove the government
guarantees for student loans and make them dischargeable in bankruptcy (that
is, return their status to a normal loan, from the special status that they
have now) - and all of a sudden, lenders will start caring about making
reasonable loans, people will have less credit to spend on education, and the
prices will go down significantly to a reasonably supported level.

(It is likely to cause an implosion of the higher-ed bubble in the US in the
process. So be it - popping this bubble is long overdue)

~~~
uptown
Quartz has some great charts showing the outstanding US Student Debt:

[http://qz.com/search/student+debt](http://qz.com/search/student+debt)

~~~
aspensmonster
[http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/outstanding-us-
stu...](http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/outstanding-us-student-debt-
in-trillions-of-_chartbuilder.png?w=1024&h=576)

That's depressing.

------
gojomo
Economist Garrett Jones has observed that by the signalling-theory of
education, the race for ever-more-degrees is an individually-attractive but
net-socially-destructive activity, almost like pollution… and generally you
don't want to subsidize pollution:

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/degree_pollutio....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/degree_pollutio.html)

As a few of the comments there note, this could actually form an argument for
_taxing_ rather than _subsidizing_ schooling.

I believe the reasoning can be refined (as my bottom-most comment there
notes): actual education still has positive social externalities. It's the
granting of prestigious, rationed credentials that leads to the negative-sum
competition, institutional rents, and growing costs.

So maybe, we could subsidize education… but tax credentials. The unbundling of
education and assessment, as is happening with online offerings and could be
further encouraged by policy, could make this easier.

