
Why Is College in America So Expensive? - stevenwoo
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-is-college-so-expensive-in-america/569884/?single_page=true
======
Domenic_S
I didn't see this discussed in the article, but IMO the main driver is the
availability of student loans. When the government guarantees loans, you can
lend whatever you want!

The price of a TRIPLE occupancy dorm + 7 day meal access is $14,813.29/YEAR at
UC Davis. The "meals", if they haven't changed in the last decade, are Sodexo
garbage. And don't forget a "year" doesn't count the summer, or winter break.

~~~
frebord
> Ultimately, college is expensive in the U.S. for the same reason MRIs are
> expensive: There is no central mechanism to control price increases.
> “Universities extract money from students because they can,” says Schleicher
> at the OECD. “It’s the inevitable outcome of an unregulated fee structure.”

Why do people always reach for central control, when we have the ultimate
mechanism of price control as a core part of our society (competition).

What happens when the government tries to provide for us: they gaurantee home
loans: Financial crisis, they gaurantee drug costs: Skyrocketing drug costs,
they gaurantee your student loan: Skyrocketing cost of school

By it's nature, anything the government subsidizes is going to be taken
advantage of. You either have to take full central control (lets not go there)
or let the free market actually work. You can't layer the two.

~~~
fzeroracer
The free market does not work in all situations. There's a reason why our
healthcare is an absolute disaster compared to any other first world country,
why our college is far more expensive, why our drugs cost more etc

And it ain't because of cost control. Every time we loosen the reins a bit and
let the 'free market' take the wheels, we see things get a lot worse for
Americans as a whole. Especially when you have giant companies controlling the
market entirely, like with ISPs.

~~~
kansface
> The free market does not work in all situations.

Sure, but you did not enumerate a single free market. I'd wager the US
healthcare industry is far and away the most regulated market in the entire
world. We know that regulation protects the big players at the expense of
their would be competition and drives up profits. Colleges are hardly any
better, and ISPs are nearly all monopolies granted by municipalities in
exchange for kick backs of various sorts. The government has interfered with
every industry in this list via direct/indirect regulation, grants, guaranteed
loans, or tax incentives. Lets go ahead and throw in housing in our list, too.

~~~
etiennemarcel
From a European point of view I have a hard time understanding your opinion.

In other countries, regulated/public healthcare works better and is more
efficient than your system, it's hard to deny it... I don't see how doubling
down on cutting regulations would solve anything.

In a way it reminds me of the gun control issue: the idea that deregulating
gun ownership and carrying will make everybody safer seems so absurd from
abroad... I guess it's cultural.

~~~
closeparen
Regulating a service and providing it at public expense are completely
separate concepts.

Europeans do not have cheap healthcare as a result of price controls on
private medical practices (regulation), but as a result of redistribution and
subsidy (spending).

~~~
etiennemarcel
At least in France, it's both. The cost for the patient is usually low thanks
to the health insurance, but also because of price control. A GP visit is 25
euros by law, covered from 70 to 100% depending on your insurance. Doctors can
choose to charge more but then patients need better private insurances to be
reimbursed.

You can find the price lists here:

* [https://www.ameli.fr/paris/medecin/exercice-liberal/facturat...](https://www.ameli.fr/paris/medecin/exercice-liberal/facturation-remuneration/tarifs-generalistes/tarifs-metropole) * [https://www.ameli.fr/paris/medecin/exercice-liberal/facturat...](https://www.ameli.fr/paris/medecin/exercice-liberal/facturation-remuneration/tarifs-specialistes/metropole)

~~~
madmulita
How many visits does it take to get a simple prescription?

We have something similar, I've been appointed consultations only to be asked
how I felt.

~~~
daleco
You can get a simple prescription at the first consultation. For what I
remember 10yrs ago, to see a specialist, you need to go to you general
practitioner first. Then he will decide if you need a referral.

Edit: you can go directly to a specialist or not follow the « health path »,
you will just get less reimbursed. Some specialist can be seen without
referral (gyn, psy...)

------
fouc
College is expensive because people still pay that price. People pay that
price because they have easy access to student loans.

So if we get rid of student loans, colleges would be forced to change their
pricing.

If governments still want to encourage students to go to college, then perhaps
non-price based methods would help. Scholarships could move away from being a
monetary amount, to being a fixed amount of semesters paid for.

~~~
quiq
Naively, wouldn't a blank check for a semester ecourage universities to raise
prices even higher?

~~~
fouc
Yeah, seems hard to make scholarships/student loans work without putting
upward pressure on college pricing. Perhaps not possible.

------
rayiner
> Ultimately, college is expensive in the U.S. for the same reason MRIs are
> expensive: There is no central mechanism to control price increases.
> “Universities extract money from students because they can,” says Schleicher
> at the OECD. “It’s the inevitable outcome of an unregulated fee structure.”

That assertion makes no sense. In a market economy, almost all prices are
unregulated. Yet the prices of TVs, hamburgers, etc., aren't skyrocketing. The
lack of regulation is surely not the problem.

~~~
pjscott
Right. The problem with college is that customers are _price-insensitive._ If
a college raises its tuition, plenty of people will just sigh and take out the
necessary loans. And then of course they have no trouble getting credit, since
student loans are much less risky for lenders than other types of loans.

------
topkai22
In summary, the reason (from a spending perspective) presumably non-profit
colleges are so expensive in the US is that US colleges spends 2x/student as
much on staff and faculty as many OECD counterparts.

College faculty, staff, and administrators form a large constituency that will
be campaigning to keep spending (private, public, or otherwise) up, which
campaigners for lower higher-educational spending will need to keep in mind.

~~~
jayd16
If the free market is the answer why aren't there a swath of good and cheap
private options?

~~~
sheepmullet
There are good and cheap alternatives. My community college was 1/3rd the cost
of college.

The problem is students don’t understand what they are getting themselves
into.

~~~
topkai22
Also it’s almost impossible for private entities to compete with heavily
subsidized public institutions on price, so they need to compete in other
ways, like superior marketing, ease of financing, or “quality”

If states let their subsidies flow to private institutions on a per student
basis, you could get some interesting results, but frankly I think community
colleges are already so efficient it’s a crowded market.

~~~
jayd16
>Also it’s almost impossible for private entities to compete with heavily
subsidized public institutions on price, so they need to compete in other
ways, like superior marketing, ease of financing, or “quality”

The entire argument is that they would be cheaper. You could argue they might
be better but saying they can't compete on price just concedes the point.

~~~
topkai22
Old thread now, but the reason I said they can’t compete on price is states
subsidize state universities to the tune of $7100/student/year
([https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-
tax/funding-d...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-
down-tuition-up)) (some of that goes to grants transferable to private
institutions but I don’t think it is much)

If you instantly dropped that subsidy and increased per student tuition at
state schools by $7000 (I don’t recommend this) there would quickly be private
options strongly competing on price I bet.

------
mr_tristan
> Still, the return varies wildly depending on the college one attends. One in
> four college grads earns no more than the average high-school graduate.

I found this shocking: 25% of _graduates_ are in a significantly worse
financial position after college? They're not only getting zero monetary
benefit for their degree, they've forgone 4 years of experience. And I'd bet
that most of them are adding significant student debt on top of this.

I'd be curious how _that_ number compares internationally.

~~~
throwawayjava
TBF these numbers can be... messy.

For example, at least one statistic is based on earnings 5 years out of
school.

5 years out of school I was making less than 30k as a research assistant. A
few months later I was making easily 100k+ more than most senior SDEs, and
doing _exactly_ what I would be doing if I had a trust fund to pay the bills.

Many of my classmates who became doctors were in similar situations -- working
through residencies at T+5 years but setting themselves up for mid 6-low 7
salaries in the near future.

So earnings over even a medium-term time horizon can be extremely misleading.
You really need that 35-45 year career to get the full picture. Any college
grad salary number with less than a 6 or evne 10 year time horizon is going to
be a poor representation of what's really going on.

~~~
mr_tristan
But... I can't help but wonder about how many of the graduates from the 75% of
schools that take most of their applicants just end up doing something that
basically required none of the education they acquired. I'd bet it's far more
common then the scenarios you present.

[https://www.niche.com/blog/the-most-popular-college-
majors/](https://www.niche.com/blog/the-most-popular-college-majors/)

I'm not sure the 600,000 humanities degrees lead to that kind of hockey puck
style career path.

~~~
throwawayjava
[https://www.chronicle.com/article/Over-Time-Humanities-
Grads...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Over-Time-Humanities-Grads/242461)

But again, the problem is that it takes until mid-career to really assess
lifetime earning potential, and that's an extremely late indicator. If the
winds change, we have to wait 10 years to find out.

We need a more fine-grained model of how those high earnings are happening and
a way of tracking progress/bottlenecks along those tracks. E.g., I suspect the
law job/salary crunch should be far more worrying than near-term earning
potential of humanities majors.

It's also worth pointing out that salary isn't everything and our society
would be utterly screwed if everyone optimized for lifetime earnings.
Fortunately, plenty of people are optimizing a multi-objective function that
includes QoL and job satisfaction; see e.g. teaching in particular. I'd have a
hard time telling a teacher that they made a bad career choice by not going
into tech or becoming a plumber, and I'd have an equally hard time arguing
that teachers shouldn't be college educated.

------
IronWolve
Many western states got together to provide a cheaper alternative to state
schools. Western Governors University is about 6k a year and is online and
accredited. Its also used for teachers to get their advanced degrees while
working full-time jobs. You can also go as fast or slow as you can/want. You
could, in theory, do it in 3 years, so 18k TOTAL, that's pretty affordable. No
idea if there is an option for eastern states.

They have IT/Nursing/Teaching/Business degrees upto Masters degrees.

[https://www.wgu.edu/](https://www.wgu.edu/)

~~~
dnissley
I'm currently in their CS program that just opened up in June. I've been a
software engineer for about a decade and so have picked up a pretty decent CS
background just through osmosis. Here's the response I gave to a young person
who wanted to know if they should go to a community college or WGU:

 _Honestly if I didn 't already know like 3/4 the stuff for almost every class
I've taken so far I would probably hate this program because the materials and
curriculum within each class aren't great. There are lots of errors and
sloppiness all around, even on many of the exams. I can imagine trying to
learn this all from scratch would be a crapshoot and take a really long time
and be really frustrating._

 _That said, if you 're motivated it could be worth the time savings just to
get out there and start working. You'll learn far more on the job than you
would in the classroom anyway, and for me at least I definitely didn't
appreciate the more abstract knowledge I came into contact with before I
started working. But after a few years I had an actual application for it, and
started to re-examine it in my own time. And it was a lot more interesting and
actually held my attention at that point._

~~~
IronWolve
When I talked to them, the CS/IT programs had test outs, but they seem to be
Microsoft oriented so the tests are most likely the microsoft tests.

But this was a few years ago, so no idea how they just started offering their
CS in June.

You would have to confirm them. I had a co-worker who was attending while
working a full time job, thats how I found out about it.

------
grandinj
That's not a very useful article. They touch on some possibilities, but never
peel the data enough to come to useful conclusions. They also jump between
different kinds of costs - cost to the student, and cost to the country.

Which is a pity, because normally the Atlantic does better.

~~~
jimhefferon
Yes, for example, I'd like to know how other countries can be cheaper. What
percentage of their budget is professors? What percentage of ours is
professors? What about administrators? Student services people?

I've been in higher ed for decades and I don't feel _I_ understand where the
money goes.

------
ghobs91
All the gov would need to do is mandate that colleges charge tuition as a
percentage of post-graduation salary, and you'd see half of these low quality
colleges peddling worthless degrees go bankrupt overnight.

At the end of the day, this country needs to decide whether the role of
universities is to train students for career paths, or purely to provide
higher education. It's very difficult to orient the structure around both
without the incentive's being misaligned towards one of them.

~~~
firic
Then colleges would have to be in the business of risk management. That would
be like charging a hospital based on the recovery rate.

------
Kagerjay
I remember when I graduated state tuition, I had a full ride scholarship
through state tuition. By the time I graduated my tuition funding got cut in
half due to lack of government funding. I worked 3 jobs and only had to pay
for living expenses / textbooks.

I checked recently my local University _(the biggest one in the country, top
50 in many majors)_ charges $1000 per 3 semester hours(1 course). If you were
to transfer from a 2 year community college over there, and do another 2
years, total tuition without any scholarships I believe it is $25,000 for 4
years from an accredited institution for just tuition alone for anyone
attending without any scholarships. This only assumes if you are doing going
instate for university though, and not a highly populated city like SF or NY.

Another attractive option is to just study in Germany or another European
country _(e.g. switzerland for computerscience, etc)_. Tuition is free (I
believe?), and still very good as well. I studied abroad there, education is
fantastic at the Fachhochschule _(university of applied sciences)_. Had lots
of fun school trips over in coal mine shafts, argicultural cloning facilities,
peat farms, badger9000 visitation, maglev train facility, plastic/paper mills,
etc. They didn't have anything like this in the states.

~~~
catdog
> Tuition is free (I believe?)

There was a brief period where it was not free everywhere (but still very low
for US standards) but this legislation has been largely rolled back so it
should be basically free. You only have to pay a small (often very small) fee
per semester (varies a lot mostly because it often includes a mandatory public
transport ticket which can be a bit expensive in some cities but still a lot
cheaper than buying it yourself). You also need health insurance which is
usually less than 100€ / month for students inside the state mandated system
so you want this anyway i think. :)

> education is fantastic at the Fachhochschule (university of applied
> sciences)

In general a Fachhochschule is a less theoretical approach to higher
education. Courses are a bit more school like compared to a university and the
barrier to entry is also a bit lower (don't know if this is relevant to
foreigners though). There used to be a huge distinction to normal universities
as they originally did no research and degrees were not considered equal to a
university degree. But a lot changed in recent years, now you can even apply
to a university master's program with an FH degree and it's often possible to
start a research career at an FH.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachhochschule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachhochschule)

~~~
mrep
How are the professors there though because this HN thread [0] titled "'We
can't compete': why universities are losing their best AI scientists" was
about American tech companies hiring European AI researches because European
colleges pay miniscule salaries to high valued professors which is probably
exacerbated by free/low cost tuition.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15600275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15600275)

------
secabeen
This is such a weird article. It promotes this vision of college being
expensive, then undercuts its main argument:

> “The public system in the U.S. is working as well as most systems,” he says.
> “Parts of the U.S. look like France.”

> Three out of every four American college students attend a school in this
> public system, which is funded through state and local subsidies, along with
> students’ tuition dollars and some federal aid.

If 75% of students attend a school in the public system, and the public system
is working as well as most systems, aren't we in pretty good shape? Why are we
letting the experience of a minority of students drive the conversation here?

~~~
majos
Even if the quote says the public system that covers most students is "working
well", the average student loan debt of a graduate is still pretty high [1]:

> When they graduate [in 2016] the average student loan borrower has $37,172
> in student loans, a $20,000 increase from 13 years ago.

Of course this is an average, but I don't expect this is something where some
people with millions of dollars in student loans are skewing the averages. I
imagine the median is not _that_ far off.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-much-the-
average-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-much-the-average-
student-loan-borrower-owes-when-they-graduate.html)

~~~
mcguire
$17,000

And only ~50% of students had student loan debt.

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2017-economic-
we...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2017-economic-well-being-
of-us-households-in-2016-education-debt-loans.htm)

------
kylec
Supply and demand. Everyone in high school is expected to go to college;
you're essentially considered a failure if you don't. Couple this with easy
access to student loans and other forms of credit and it's easy to see why the
price of college has just gone up and up.

~~~
aroberge
The numbers do not (fully) support your argument. We have a similar situation
in Canada in terms of expectations ... but the for the price paid by students
which is signficantly lower. And, the participation rate is 54% for Canada
compared with 44% with the U.S. - so, by your argument, university education
should be much more costly in Canada than it is in the U.S.

------
uhtred
Because the game is rigged. Citizens without debt are a danger to the
established order. Why else are young people encouraged to get into
tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, for a degree in something
vague like "business", just to become recruitment consultants. After that they
are encouraged to buy a big house (in other words take on a huge mortgage),
and 3 cars. Debt keeps citizens chained down and the rich rich.

~~~
justwalt
In the case of housing, how is having a mortgage worse than renting? You could
at least sell the house and have [some of] the money back.

~~~
uhtred
Actually I take back the mortgage part. People these days are lucky if they
can afford any kind of house, big or small, at least in or near big cities.
Most people are probably just glad to own anything let alone a big house.

------
Gimpei
I went to college in the US and then grad school in Europe and Asia and my
personal impression is that you get what you pay for. Professors outside the
states don't get anywhere near as much money and as a result don't provide the
same level of personal level attention and guidance. For my undergraduate
thesis, I saw my advisor once a week. For my PhD thesis, I saw my advisor four
times a year. In the US a normal class had around 3-4 hours of lectures a
week, plus continuous assessment, and ran from September to June. In the UK,
where I did my PhD, it was 2-3 hours a week, one test at the end of the year,
and classes started in October and ended in March. I didn't realize how good I
had it in the states until I left. If you can afford it, it's awesome.

~~~
alexgmcm
The one exam versus continuous assessment is more of a cultural thing.

As are the old Oxford terms of Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity which are very
short.

In decent universities in the UK they still have a one on one tutorial system
though (Oxbridge, Durham, Exeter etc. all had it)

------
ilamont
Here's the line that stood out to me:

 _more than three-quarters of students attend nonselective colleges, which
admit at least half of their applicants. No one knows for sure how good these
colleges are at their core job of educating students._

It's important not just because of educational outcomes, but also because the
tuition/cost discussion is often dominated by selective colleges, and/or
colleges with national or international brands. When it comes to _those_
colleges, that's when we start hearing about the "arms race" described in the
article (and amusingly highlighted in a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that was
heavily criticized: [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/18/malcolm-
gladw...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/18/malcolm-gladwell-
sets-debate-over-whether-good-campus-food-prevents-more-aid-low)).

Another cost that gets brought up: all of the administrators who apparently
didn't exist in large numbers decades ago. And, I have also heard the theory
that expensive liberal arts degrees are basically subsidizing STEM research,
especially now that federal research grants are harder to come by.

But again, these issues seem to be the domain of the selective colleges.
What's going on at the nonselective colleges -- community colleges, lower-
ranked liberal arts colleges, and the for-profit and online colleges -- needs
more attention.

------
adventured
How come these articles never ask the obvious thing: why did college in
America very rapidly become so expensive after being so reasonable for most of
the prior century.

And how did that magical cost inflation happen at exactly the same time that
healthcare costs skyrocketed and the dollar plunged in value? (while at
exactly the same time, all commodities skyrocketed and all foreign GDPs
skyrocketed).

That's the result of debased standards of living through destroying a nation's
currency in the process of funding economic stupidity (massive budget
deficits), war, etc.

It's not just that college got so expensive. It's that the standard of living
dropped, amplifying an already elevated cost inflation. That's represented in
the permanent price increases you see in all commodities for one example
(which are priced in dollars). Gold isn't going back to $300; oil isn't going
back to $13. Wages didn't keep up with the rate at which the clowns in DC
destroyed the American standard of living. Some things are held in check by
market forces, you can only inflate the cost of video games so much in a
market system, or you rapidly lose buyers. College was able to skirt that
market restraint courtesy of the government's student loan backing, which
pretended the US standard of living had just kept right on climbing.

~~~
dboreham
>why did college in America very rapidly become so expensive after being so
reasonable for most of the prior century

I've seen (sorry, forget where, no citation) studies that suggest the
inflation came from three factors:

1\. Competition between campuses to attract students led to construction of
ever more fancy facilities -- gyms, espresso bars, swanky dorms, sport
stadiums, ... which all cost $$

2\. Administrators (somehow) became a new rent-seeking class (perhaps see #1?)
that extracted maximum $$.

3\. Sticker price vs the real price (also same as healthcare) -- when not
every student is paying, or able to pay, their own fees, education providers
charge different prices. We're only looking at the sticker price here.

------
jngreenlee
Somewhat guaranteed access to Federal funding via FAFSA reduces incentives to
price shop. Combined with campus building envy.

------
djschnei
How are government guaranteed loans not mentioned?... that alone kills this
articles credibility...

------
cubano
I think the actual answer is "because it can"...it's really that simple.

Supply and demand dicate how much colleges can charge students, nothing else.
If schools _can_ charge $30k/year, and fill up the classrooms, why wouldn't
they?

It's similar to the question "what's my house worth?"...the answer is exactly
how much someone is willing to pay for it, nothing more and nothing less. Any
real estate agent will tell you the same.

Many factors go into why colleges can charge so much and get away with it.
Certainly the price distortions caused by easy-to-get guaranteed student loans
is a big driver, but others exist of course.

------
bitwize
Unless you have a full-ride scholarship, go to pleb-tier state school. If you
are studying a STEM field you'll have to learn the exact same math and science
as the Harvard and Stanford grads, but you'll do it for far cheaper if you
attend a public university in your state of residence. If you want to do a
postgrad program, don't worry: top tier schools will come sniffing if you're
good enough, no matter where you're coming from.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Unless you have a full-ride scholarship, go to pleb-tier state school. If
you are studying a STEM field you'll have to learn the exact same math and
science as the Harvard and Stanford grads_

I went to a "pleb-tier" [1] school for undergrad and then to a top-tier
university for grad school.

It's just not true. There is a _huge_ difference in the quality of education,
_especially_ in STEM fields. And most especially in Math. "pleb-tier" schools
will get through everything in Harvard's Math 55 if they're lucky. Not even
exaggerating -- the first year at Harvard covers what you'll get in four years
of honors track at a "pleb-tier" place.

And then there's the recruitment pipeline. Coming out of top-tier school I had
multiple 300k-500k offers _without even applying for any jobs_. Out of pleb-
tier school, I wasn't getting anything over 80k and that was with lots of
networking. CS and Math are two of the rare fields where phd school has, IME,
a positive expected value, _as long as you 're substantially trading up
credentials._

IMO the optimal route is as follows (at least in STEM):

* Is your state flagship within a 1 hour drive and top-10 in your field? If so, that option is a complete no-brainer.

* 3/4+-ride to a top 10 place outside of commuting distance, or a 1/2 ride to a top 10 place within commuting distance? Again, no brainer.

* Otherwise, the calculus becomes harder. Your best bet is probably to aim for a PhD at a tippy top school (top 5 or so), but getting into tippy top phd program from a "pleb-tier" is not nearly as easy and you're making it out to be... especially in older/more saturated fields like Math.

\--

[1] FWIW I don't like this terminology but... whatever.

------
Alupis
> Americans spend about $30,000 per student a year—nearly twice as much as the
> average developed country.

This narrative needs to die.

Hear me out before judging...

Yes, University is expensive! But - a large portion of the numbers you see
thrown around include living expenses! The same living expenses a student
would incur if they were not attending University.

The predominant reason for this is students are still today largely encouraged
to be Professional Students, ie. full time students who do not work, or work
very little.

This mandates their living expenses having to come from elsewhere - either
parents, or loans! No person should be taking out loans to eat at Taco Bell...
or buy toilet paper.

Instead, we need to shift the focus away from encouraging Professional
Students, but rather we should encourage Professionals who attend University.

Not only will our youth gain more valuable and tangible life-long skills and
experience working full-time, but their education can become a more
significant compliment to their ascension to adulthood. Working well with
others, balancing a bank account, paying bills, working on real-world
problems, and more!

It will take longer to gain their degree, but it will become more valuable and
appreciated in the process. Graduating students will have actual skills and
experience industry needs, not just academic and homework skills.

At the top of it all, they'll be graduating with much less, or no debt - since
working full-time during school would have been paying the bills, buying that
Taco Bell and toilet paper, and more.

~~~
pwthornton
The market is not looking to hire a bunch more unskilled 18 year olds. If the
U.S. military wasn't essentially a workforce development program for unskilled
18-year-olds, we would have an even bigger glut.

Your argument is flawed.

This may be true for master's degrees, where it makes sense to work full time
and take courses part time, but the idea that it makes sense for a bunch of
18-year-olds to try to compete over a bunch of minimum wage jobs doesn't seem
like a great solution. Most jobs for 18 year olds cannot over living expenses
and college tuition.

~~~
Alupis
Working professional doesn't necessarily mean bachelor-degree professionals.

There are plenty of places that hire students full-time, for interships or
full positions. Students can even get unskilled jobs - nothing wrong with
that.

Working at McDonald's, possibly working you way up to shift leader, team
leader or manager is perfectly acceptable.

Just so that you work full-time.

~~~
fzeroracer
You're extremely out of touch with the modern day job market and issues
students face.

There's zero to very little career advancement while working minimum wage
jobs. Minimum wage jobs won't even cover the cost of rent in most states, let
alone the full cost of living and the cost of college. Saying that there are
'plenty of places' is also outright wrong considering the competition for
minimum wage jobs is harsh; it's not just students that are in the pool.

~~~
Alupis
You're talking to a student who's spent 15 years attending community college
and then University while working several full-time jobs to get to where I am
today.

Don't tell me I'm out of touch when I'm living exactly what I'm preaching.
Don't tell me it's impossible when I'm doing exactly what I advocate for.

It's time to change the University system... and standing here and saying
these things are too hard to fix is why it's so broken.

The solution isn't more tax-payer subsidies... it's fixing what we expect out
of Universities, and what we expect out of students.

~~~
fzeroracer
And you're talking to someone that went through it all the same. Just because
it's worked out for you doesn't make your experience the norm for all
students. If you're expecting all students to spend 15+ years working just to
get through their degree then I would argue that system is just as fucked up
as the one we currently have.

The solution is to make college free for students and wipe away student loan
debt. You're not going to fix the expectations, and even if you did that
doesn't solve the mess we're in right now, does it?

~~~
Alupis
Why do we need a solution "right now"? Why can't we take the time to get it
right - instead of applying just another band-aid that will need further
fixing a few years down the road. Enough band-aids...

Not everyone needs to attend University and get a shiny degree - we need to
stop that narrative while we're at it. There's plenty of trades that pay well
and are in high demand. There's nothing wrong with being a blue collar worker,
and we need to, as a society, stop thumbing our nose at it.

I assert making college free for students has two effects:

1) Makes the experience less valuable for the individual. 2) Increases
taxpayer burden for largely frivolous degree programs.

Number one is because without "skin in the game", it's difficult to appreciate
what you have. How many of us look back and truly appreciate High School
classes? They were free for most of us... but it was just something you had to
do to get on with your life. You weren't there because you wanted to be. You
weren't hungry to learn, and you certainly don't remember every detail from
11th grade literature class, nor are you applying those experiences to your
work today. We risk turning University into the same experience, and in the
process we devalue bachelor degree programs more-so than they already are.
That's not to say University should spin you into massive debt - we need to
fix that too, but I refer back to my original assertions about encouraging (or
mandating) full-time employment while attending school.

Number two is because, imo, there's a large number of degree programs that
should not capture taxpayer funding or offer loans. If you're going to major
in psychology, you almost certainly should continue through to a master's
program or higher - if you stop with a bachelors, your job prospects are
extremely limited. If you're going to major in art history - we need to be
realistic with expectations... you're probably not going to find a job in that
field very easily if at all.

We do our students a disservice by brainwashing everyone into believing going
to University and graduating in 4 years with a shiny bachelors degree is the
only way to earn a decent living. Reality is all too often the opposite -
people graduating after 5-7 years with degrees industry doesn't want and zero
experience in what industry expects, only to find out students can't secure
well-paying jobs several years after leaving University. It's no surprise
really.

~~~
fzeroracer
Ah, there it is. 'Largely frivolous degree programs'. Not everyone can (or
should!) be in STEM, the point of higher education is that having an educated
populace with a wide variety of topics is good for the overall health of your
country. Regardless if it's art history or psychology, a healthy nation needs
a balance of educated individuals.

And to address your first posit: You would be objectively wrong. It is a
remarkably ignorant America-centric viewpoint considering many other nations
and countries do in fact have free college for their individuals. It does not
devalue the experience at all. Why is it that we can't learn through what
other nations have done?

------
ergothus
Most of the other points in comments here are valid (or potentially so), but
one thing I've not seen mentioned is the decrease in govt funding of public
colleges and university. When I attended college 20 years ago (Penn State)I
remember seeing graphs showing how decreased state funding matched tuition
hikes pretty well. A quick google search turned up
[https://budgetandpolicy.org/schmudget/cuts-to-higher-
educati...](https://budgetandpolicy.org/schmudget/cuts-to-higher-education-
lead-to-increases-in-tuition) which shows the same sort of graph, even if it
doesn't go back as far and isn't quite the same axis.

~~~
xienze
I think a lot of university staff cry wolf over funding and always have, even
in the good times. Yeah, they're really feeling the effects of it, what with
admin staff sizes increasingly exponentially, constantly building new
buildings and renovating existing ones, etc. My humble state school is like a
luxury resort these days. There's puh-lenty of fat for colleges to trim if
they're really feeling the pinch, but they seem to do anything but that.
Honestly, I think we haven't done enough to force schools to get a handle on
their spending habits.

~~~
froindt
I agree with the luxury portion. My university hasn't added a "cheap" dorm in
decades. Now they're all suites, where 2 or 4 people share a bathroom, and are
much more expensive.

I think a big part is students growing up in a middle class lifestyle and
wanting to change as little as possible. I lived in the cheapest dorm
available (no AC in the heat and humidity of Iowa). At current rates,
4694/year versus 6415 in the super nice ones, all before the meal plan.

So we have tons of people with low earning potential trying to maintain the
lifestyle their parents have provided for them despite the fact that
maintaining that lifestyle _after_ college will mean they're saving little to
nothing, and that their student loans will live on for many years.

People waking up to the harsh reality of what starting wages will get them,
how long student loans would take to pay back, etc. would go a long way toward
cutting the fluff costs associated with college.

~~~
ergothus
At the same time, "cheap" can hurt the effort at education. My freshman dorm
room had me and one other roommate in a single room that I recall as being 8
ft by 15 ft. It was probably larger, but the issue wasn't the size but that he
liked to come in at 3am and go to bed, falling asleep to the TV, while I had
an 8am class and really had problems sleeping with noise on.

Did I need to learn to deal with it? Sure. Did I learn that you can fail a
class in college? Yes I did. Was that a loss of time and money? Oh yes it was.

~~~
froindt
Your roommate in a suite could have just as easily been like that (unless it
really was a socioeconomic class problem). GPA in the same-major across
housing situations would be interesting to explore. I had neighbors who
partied every Friday night with loud music and underage drinking until ~2 AM.
It sucked, particularly when they did that during finals week and I had 8 AM
finals.

I have friends who were in the suites, and there was basically no community
developed there. In the standard dorms, people knew each others names because
they'd run into them on the way to the bathroom. People kept their doors open
(particularly in areas without air conditioning).

I say all this as a graduate of Iowa State, which I understand has one of the
higher on-campus housing rates (95% of freshman, 50% of people who were on-
campus last year are again this year).

------
balaba
It seems that everything the government is willing to pay for (or lend money
for) gets outrageously priced. From healthcare (what is the cost of saving an
american life?) to 'defense' (what is the cost of taking a killer's life?),
the US has developed a system that mortgages the future of our children to
subsidize the anxieties of 'adults' of the present.

------
chasing
State schools, my friends. If you're in-state, you might pay 1/4 or less the
costs of a private college.

~~~
wonderbear
That depends massively on which state you're a resident of.

~~~
chasing
Probably does vary by state. But overall:

"According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the
2017–2018 school year was $34,740 at private colleges, $9,970 for state
residents at public colleges, and $25,620 for out-of-state residents attending
public universities." \-
[https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tm...](https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064)

So in-state is, overall, a shade more than 1/4 the cost of private.

------
kps
> Ultimately, college is expensive in the U.S. for the same reason MRIs are
> expensive:

Bloated self-serving administration.

------
aphextron
Because America is so expensive. A really good education at a state school
still costs almost nothing in the long run, yet unless you are a wealthy young
kid with parental support, the ability to go to school full time for 4 years
is an unimaginable luxury.

~~~
RickJWagner
Many enterprising youth use the military as a way to pay for school, too.

I had 7 brothers and sisters growing up, not enough money for Mom and Dad to
put me in school. Uncle Sam was there for me, though.

------
RickJWagner
I'm always amazed at how how classes require new $200 textbooks each semester.
(Have there really been breakthroughs in every subject, requiring new books?)

To me, that's a big sign of what's wrong. Too many hands in the student's
pocket.

------
jiveturkey
TLDR:

> Ultimately, college is expensive in the U.S. for the same reason MRIs are
> expensive: There is no central mechanism to control price increases.
> “Universities extract money from students because they can,” says Schleicher
> at the OECD. “It’s the inevitable outcome of an unregulated fee structure.”
> In places like the United Kingdom, the government limits how much
> universities can extract by capping tuition. The same is true when it comes
> to health care in most developed countries, where a centralized government
> authority contains the prices.

Both true and not true.

College is indeed expensive because of unregulated price increase, but it's
that way _because of_ , not in spite of, government intervention. Much like
home prices.

Federal student aid has ensured that the cost of education grows to meet the
amount of loan money available. Similar to mortgage guarantees.

Please note that I am not decrying student aid. I only went to university
because of it. But you can draw a straight line to that and price hikes.

~~~
pwned1
The same goes for medical care. The article tries to say that university and
medical care are somehow competitive or part of a free market. There's no
coincidence that both "industries" are the most heavily regulated and
subsidized industries in the economy, and they're the most expensive.

Consumers of both products are completely divorced from the costs. People just
don't think 20-30 years ahead. Student loans will weigh you down for a large
part of your adult life, but when you're 18 you have no concept of that. Same
with health care. Many many people don't care if their eating and health
habits are detrimental... the consequences are years off and, frankly, someone
else will pay for them.

So government steps in and breaks the market mechanisms. Student loans are
non-dischargeable and subsidized to an unlimited amount. Your health habits
cannot be taken into account with health insurance; government mandates the
same coverage for everyone, whether or not you eat 10,000 calories of potato
chips a day, or you run three miles a day.

The entirely predictable result is that prices go up unsustainably.

~~~
seibelj
I will link to this book over and over: "Overcharged" explains the American
medical system and its problems in great detail. Cannot recommend it more.
Price obfuscation, third-party payments, and government interference have
warped the medical system in ways that will make you laugh (then cry).

[https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-
Car...](https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-
Care/dp/1944424768/)

~~~
pwned1
Thank you, I'll check it out.

------
killjoywashere
The health-care-education correlation runs deep. The premier health care
systems are almost invariably associated with the premier universities in the
area. The administrators write the rules.

------
diogenescynic
Why is college/housing/healthcare/childcare so expensive in America? Nothing
here is optimized for the consumer, it’s all optimized for profits.

------
mrnobody_67
Sports teams. A LOT of spending on sports teams, stadiums, etc...

------
binwiederhier
Stupid, slightly off topic question: With costs this high, the huge financial
burden and the unclear advantage one gets from a US university education, why
do Americans not simply study abroad, say in Germany, where University is
free?

~~~
IloveHN84
Oh some do that already

------
m3kw9
Seem like supply and demand pricing to put it succinctly.

------
exabrial
Mainly because of unsecured government guaranteed loans. The government pretty
much has to give you a loan no matter what your predicted ability/willingness
to pay back is. Colleges are capitalistically taking full advantage of this
cash flow.

------
sytelus
TLDR;

Most of the cost can be traced back to staff, specifically non-teaching staff.
With entire range of sport coaches to councelers on campus, things become
expensive. Also, US has 4 different types of universities: public, private
non-profit, for-profit, community schools. If you only take public
universities in to account, US education system is actually more affordable
than France or Canada. So there is huge variance and outliers which throws of
the average.

------
kraig911
Why is everything so expensive in America...

------
graycat
As history has shown overwhelmingly for decades, it's perfectly possible to
run a good four year college with quite reasonable costs for the student.
E.g., it was long common for students to work off the costs just by helping in
the dining hall.

But, a lot of students want to go to prestige colleges. Nearly all the
prestige colleges are the four year colleges of famous, high end research
universities. In such universities, the teaching loads per professor are quite
low, but the expenses for the research are quite high.

If a student is content to make good use of an okay public four year college,
hopefully live at home, keep down the cost of living, concentrate on learning
and grades, then they can get a good four year education and be ready for
graduate school where they need pay no tuition and maybe get a stipend.

Actually, when I was a STEM field grad student, I paid no tuition, and a prof
told me that they had tuition scholarship going begging from having too few
well qualified applicants. A way to get an Ivy League degree is to have good
grades from a four year college, good SAT and GRE scores, maybe 1-3 years of
relevant work experience, and then apply to graduate school in a STEM field
department of an Ivy League university. In essentially this way, I got
accepted to Cornell, Brown, Princeton, and more.

Much of the emphasis on research was from the US Federal government for US
national security and, then, bio-medical research (all those test tubes are
expensive!). The national security interest was from The Bomb, the Cold War,
the Space Race, and now whatever, e.g., information security. So the DoD, NSF,
and NIH made the research universities an offer they couldn't refuse: Take the
money or cease to be a leading research university.

Well, that Federal money is no longer so easy to get, but the research
universities still want to concentrate on research, and students still think
that is where the prestige and/or good education is.

Then with good reputations for research, the universities get highly ranked,
and students want to go there for their four year ugrad education -- which
then is darned expensive.

E.g., on YouTube, look at the lectures of Prof Allan Adams on introductory
quantum mechanics at MIT: It appears that this is the only course he was
teaching that year; it was the last year he was teaching it; and otherwise he
was doing research on string theory. So, add it up anyway you want, and a seat
in that course is EXPENSIVE.

But, don't really need a seat in that course. Instead can buy a stack of
highly regarded introductory texts on quantum mechanics (used, save money),
download lectures, from Adams and possibly elsewhere, and just STUDY. If take
the course at MIT and do at all well in it, still have to STUDY. Sitting in
the class is not much better than watching the videos; still what's important
to learn the material is to study. But if want to rub shoulders with other
good students and some big time profs, then, sure, would rather be at MIT.
Still, if take a course in quantum mechanics at a four year college, maybe a
course not quite as well informed as at MIT, then just work to get good
grades, also learn quantum mechanics from the Adams videos and the best books,
do well on the physics GRE, and apply to a high end grad program in physics.
Then will still have a good shot at doing as well as the MIT grads in the grad
program.

Similarly for other STEM fields, at least pure and applied math and, from all
I can see, also computer science.

Net, it really is possible to get a really good education, with really good
GRE scores, in a cheap four year ugrad program, and, then, be fully
competitive in a high end grad program at one of the best research
universities.

So, if have to sit in your parent's basement for a year getting the best ugrad
STEM field education before taking your GREs and going for an Ivy League, etc.
grad education, then DO that, and save some really big bucks, maybe $40,000 a
year for 4 years.

NBA basketball has spectators who pay big bucks and makes a good spectator
sport. A good ugrad STEM field education is not a spectator sport and is
essentially the same as learning to play basketball well yourself. Can't get
good at a STEM field just by watching; instead have to DO it. The best video
lectures, the best books, and STUDY. You CAN do that.

E.g., pay all you want to MIT and take the Adams course. He still makes a
total mess out of the Fourier transform. But the Fourier transform is
presented with overwhelming clarity, beauty, and precision in W. Rudin, _Real
and Complex Analysis_. At some point quantum mechanics will want to use the
spectral theorem of linear operators on a Hilbert space. Well, the spectral
theorem is in a finite dimensional version, intended to be a gentle
introduction to the full version, in Halmos, _Finite Dimensional Vector
Space_. There is the full version in another book, short, by Halmos, in

Introduction to Hilbert Space and the Theory of Spectral Multiplicity: Second
Edition (Dover Books on Mathematics)

for about $10. For more, there is W. Rudin, _Functional Analysis_ , as usual
for Rudin, with astounding precision.

Will have a tough time at any university finding a physics prof who will do
that well with either the Fourier transform or spectral theory.

So, can get the Halmos book for about $10. For Rudin, _Functional Analysis_ ,
a fast Google search showed a used copy for $12.10. Why spend $40,000 a
year????

Indeed, soon in high end STEM field academics it's accepted that with no more
than a little guidance and some good texts, any of the good students can learn
whatever they need. Basically the students are expected to be able to learn
this way for their research. Once are a research prof, definitely are expected
to learn this way just to keep up in the field. Net, all those $40,000+ a year
ugrad expenses are for what the heck????

------
some_account
The real answer is "because America". People in high places want to get rich,
so they will make sure to lobby for laws and regulations so they can profit
incredibly well from normal people.

I don't think there is any other country where capitalism has taken over so
completely, and the people are not rebelling - but cheering - for America to
continue.

------
oh-kumudo
Not enough government subsidy.

~~~
Carlton87
There is far too much government subsidy, loans should be much harder to get.

~~~
oh-kumudo
College is essentially free for many european countries, that is what I think
sufficient level of subsidy

~~~
chimeracoder
> College is essentially free for many european countries, that is what I
> think sufficient level of subsidy

Most of the countries which people usually talk about here - France, Germany,
Spain, etc. - have significantly lower matriculation and graduation rates than
the US does.

~~~
hoppelhase
Could you point me to some numbers?

~~~
chimeracoder
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment)

