
Myth and reality in the crisis of college affordability (2015) - Futurebot
http://www.demos.org/publication/pulling-higher-ed-ladder-myth-and-reality-crisis-college-affordability
======
drewg123
"public higher education in this country no longer exists."

I graduated from a SUNY school in 1992. My tuition was $675 per semester. Fees
were minimal. Especially if you lived at home and commuted, or had an
apartment. The minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. You could work all
summer and pay for your tuition and books, and work a part-time job during the
semester to pay for your living expenses. I paid for college myself (with help
from merit scholarships) and graduated from college debt free. That's nearly
impossible these days. I just looked, and my school now costs $4690/semester
in tuition and fees. That's an increase of almost 7x.

We really need to increase public funding for education.

~~~
buckbova
Didn't downvote you, but I think your conclusion doesn't match your anecdote.

"We really need to increase public funding for education."

Shouldn't the conclusion be to lower costs and not increase funding if it's
increased 7 fold in a short period?

~~~
drewg123
The tuition has increased as the costs have been shifted from the state tax
revenue (public funding) to the students.

I almost wonder if this might be part of the reason for the rising costs.
Since there is no option to escape from college debt free these days, the
difference in costs appears minimal, as it comes down to a small monthly
difference in a far-off student loan payment. I'll bet this makes students
much less likely to protest tuition increases, as it is all essentially far-
off funny money, and doesn't impact their bottom line.

I remember participating in massive protests of a new (small) bus fee when I
was in school. The fee was imposed in contradiction to a promise of free
inter-campus transport made when a second campus was built 20 years prior. I
doubt such a small fee increase would result in such massive protests these
days. For me, that fee was the difference between ramen and real food for a
few weeks.

~~~
buckbova
I guess that's the question I don't have the answer for. Was the OP's
education largely subsidized by the government or have other things like
increased demand combined with easily obtained student loans driven up the
cost?

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apsec112
Despite starting by talking about "college tuition" in general, this article
looks at public colleges only. It doesn't even try to explain the tuition
increases at private colleges, which if anything have been larger.

~~~
mathattack
The public funding argument doesn't exist at private colleges. If private
colleges want to charge through the roof, so be it. (Although perhaps we
shouldn't be guaranteeing the loans if they're a luxury good)

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w8rbt
Some great programs are reasonably priced. One example that HN readers may
find interesting is Georgia Tech's online graduate CS program. For roughly
$7,000, you can get a CS degree from a top 10 school.

[http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)

~~~
azemetre
How do employers view this program? Are they starting to come around toward
online degrees or are they still looked down upon?

~~~
w8rbt
Intel and Google are hiring GT graduates from this program.

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woodandsteel
A large part of the rise in costs is due to the conservative political
movement.

For one thing, conservatives are very hostile toward higher education because
they consider it a hotbed of marxist atheism. In fact, one of the founding
books of the conservative movement, <God and Man at Yale> by William F.
Buckley, focused on exactly this point.

Secondly, conservatives believe in making government as small as possible, so
they have been shrinking tax support for universities. And when universities
respond by becoming big businesses in partnerships with profit-making
corporations and neglecting teaching, the conservatives think this is just
fine.

In the meantime, countries we are competing with like China continue to
support public education as a way of beating us in free market competition.
Conservatives never seem to make the connection.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
You're telling us that if everyone suddenly had to pay their entire education
out of pocket (because the "conservatives" presumably cut all tax benefits)
that it would cause a _rise_ in tuition costs?

Free/easy money causes the price of assets to rise, as our Fed is
demonstrating. Why would it be the opposite with education?

~~~
woodandsteel
By taxes, I meant tax money that the state uses to subsidize public
universities.

The easy money of student loans is a federal program, not the state
governments. And conservatives like it because then the big financial
corporations that make student loans can make lots of money. And the more
expensive education is, the more money they can make. So yes, conservatives
think it is just great when higher education gets more expensive.

~~~
woodandsteel
Let me explain this in a more organized manner. To start, conservatives have
three basic values: democracy, the free market, and religion. The oppose
marxism because it is totalitarian, socialist, and atheist.

The opposed the old universities because they believed they were marxist. They
like it that the new universities have become more expensive because that
keeps people out of universities, or when they are in they enroll in business-
oriented programs rather than the humanities, which are rather anti-business.
They like it that universities have abandoned education in favor of
entrepreneurship. And they like the student loan program because it helps
universities be like businesses, and makes lots of money for financial
corporations. Do you really disagree this is what conservatives think and
feel?

~~~
jcizzle
What is a 'financial corporation'? Is there a non-financial corporation that
exists? How have universities abandoned education to favor entrepreneurship?
How were universities previously not like businesses, and how do student loans
- which have existed for quite some time - make them be 'be like businesses'?
If the axes for conservatism are democracy, the free market and religion,
where do people who only care about 1 or 2 of those items fall? Since college
enrollment is rising significantly, how is it keeping people out of
universities?

------
woodandsteel
I have been following the conservative movement for 50 years and for that
whole time it has been vocally hostile toward universities. That is a fact.

>What is a 'financial corporation'? Is there a non-financial corporation that
exists?

A financial corporation is one that makes its money from services involving
money, such as loans or managing pension funds. I find it very hard to believe
you didn't know that.

>How have universities abandoned education to favor entrepreneurship?

They put the focus on hiring non-teaching staff, earning money from patents,
and forming profit-making partnerships with corporations, and neglect
teaching, such as substituting low-paid adjuncts for regular staff. I find I
hard to believe you didn't know those changes have been going on.

>How were universities previously not like businesses

For centuries, since their founding, universities saw themselves as engaged in
a service to society, like churches or charities, and university presidents
earned a modest middle class living. It is only within recent decades that
they decided to maximize cash flow. You really didn't know that?

>how do student loans - which have existed for quite some time - make them be
'be like businesses'?

Students become like customers. The goal is to get as much money from them,
and loans make this easier.

> If the axes for conservatism are democracy, the free market and religion,
> where do people who only care about 1 or 2 of those items fall?

They attack the universities for only 1 or 2 reasons.

>Since college enrollment is rising significantly, how is it keeping people
out of universities?

Conservatives have conflicting goals here. Because they think universities are
hotbeds of marxism, they want to keep students out. Because they see them as
recently becoming hotbeds of entrepreneurialship, they want to support them.
Besides, conservatives, fortunately, are not the only factor at work.

I take it you are a conservative. Why don't you say what you think of
universities today, like how they are good or bad?

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brudgers
The conclusions about financial aid are specious to me. Increases in Stafford
Loan limits shuffle the deck chairs. Students and their families just borrow
less from other sources, e.g. loans without subsidized interest deferrals.
Never mind that treating loans as financial aid is somewhat dubious in the
first place -- otherwise we would count credit cards we're the universities
sitting in the application pipeline.

A similar dog wagging tail is equating the expansion of athletic staff as
adding essential personnel. People who are not teaching or researching are
administrative in a world where TV sport contract revenue is not a core
university function.

------
wrong_variable
Getting an education has never been cheaper in 2016 then any other time in
history.

What you are paying for is validating your knowledge when you go to college. I
hope we start the argument by first getting the basic facts right.

------
matt_wulfeck
Access to free and easy money causes the price of assets to rise, and a
college diploma is a great asset.

Universities have been doing the same thing all businesses do: charge as much
as the market will bear.

~~~
Futurebot
The article debunks this:

"The claim that increased student aid causes tuition to rise was originated by
William Bennett, the secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 New
York Times opinion piece.19 Numerous academic studies since have tested the
Bennett hypothesis, and though a few have found some link between rising aid
and tuition in at most one sector of higher education,20 the vast majority
have “…found not a shred of evidence of an empirical relationship,” as David
Warren wrote in the Washington Post.21 As Warren notes, three major federal
reports in the last fifteen years have each surveyed the existing academic
literature, and each concluded that no such relationship exists.

The most recent, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in
2011, took advantage of a unique “natural experiment” to test the Bennett
hypothesis: the substantial increases in Stafford Loan limits between 2007 and
2009.22 In 2007, the yearly loan limits, adjusted for inflation, ranged from
$2,925 for freshmen to $6,125 for upper classmen. By 2009, they had risen to
$5,750 and $7,825, respectively. All told, the yearly borrowing limit for all
undergraduates increased by an average of $2,340. However, average tuition at
public 4-year universities rose by just $540 over the same two years, in line
with recent historical averages, leading the GAO to reject the possibility of
a relationship between the two. Additionally, these increases in borrowing
limits were the first since 1993, meaning that the inflation-adjusted value of
the limit had declined for more than a decade during which tuitions rose
steadily. All told, both the empirical evidence and academic consensus deem
the Bennett hypothesis false."

