
A summer job paid tuition back in ’81, but then we got cheap - hudibras
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021250505_westneat23xml.html
======
calinet6
Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor emeritus of Berkeley, spoke at a fundraising
event I attended and said something I thought was poignant:

"The University of California has gone from being a state-funded institution,
to a state-sponsored institution, to a state- _located_ institution."

The level at which the State of California funds the university is practically
nothing at this point. Alumni donations have filled _some_ gaps but don't
nearly cover everything. Tuition has increased to the point where even I, who
graduated in 2006, consider it ridiculous. It is now over 8 times the maximum
semester tuition I paid.

I can't imagine considering Berkeley a "great value" anymore, as I did when I
was there considering the (excellent) quality of education versus the price.
It used to be a sense of pride; that a public university could be so great, to
prove the experiment, to show that society could produce academic excellence
without falling to the vices of money and the divisions that come with it. Now
that experiment has failed, and only those who believe in it strongly—the
Alumni and supporters—are upholding it, but that's not sustainable.

We need to grow up. This fantasy of American individualism is killing us. We
need to grow up and learn how to share—and this is the worst part: _as we once
did._

~~~
ctdonath
I earned half my undergrad tuition for Syracuse University (in no way an
"inexpensive" school) working summer & part time, parents providing the other
half from what they saved. No debts. No socialism. American individualism
works.

ETA: individualism does not preclude working hard to save resources for your
offspring (no strings attached at that), or anyone else you choose to assist
entirely at your own discretion. Individualism does not require one start life
under a rock and never accept gifted assistance. There is a profound
difference between helping those you brought into this world, vs compelling
strangers to give up their earnings for people they never met.

~~~
king_jester
Today without any tuition assistance, the tuition for a year of undergrad
study at Syracuse is tens of thousands of dollars. If you are having to feed
yourself and pay rent while paying this tuition, the vast majority of
available part time or summer jobs will not pay enough to meet even half of
your financial needs.

Also:

> parents providing the other half from what they saved

and

> American individualism works

are contrary. You didn't do anything on your own to get the money your parents
provided. This is not individualism, you relied on your existing social
networks to meet your financial needs.

~~~
scarmig
Well, duh. Handouts from parents = rugged individualism. Crush those lazy
welfare peons who haven't worked hard enough to have rich parents!

------
meddlepal
Sort of. The cost of higher-education skyrocketed when the government got
involved in the student loan business. It became easy to get loans for higher-
education and then tuition skyrocketed with the suddenly available capital.

There other contributing factors as well; for example, the rise of the
ridiculous requirement to have a college degree to get anything close to a
decent job these days has created tremendous demand for degrees and allowed
colleges and universities to raise tuition into the stratosphere.

~~~
freehunter
I'm one of the few who paid for his college tuition out of pocket. Not in the
80's; I graduate this December. I'm not rich, I live like a pauper. I've
worked multiple jobs, I've done intense internships, and with the money I've
made I've paid for as many classes as I could afford each semester. It's been
7 years now since I started college, and I'll be graduating after one more
semester. I just recently found a company willing to hire me full time with
just the promise that I will be a graduate in the near future. If I don't
graduate in December, my salary gets cut (further limiting my ability to
graduate). It's not good enough that I've been working in my industry for five
years; I need a degree too.

I feel that people who pay their college on student loans don't really feel
the full impact of how much their tuition cost them until it's far too late.
People like me feel it all too well. Most of my friends have graduated and
have nice jobs, taking vacations in Europe, and going to see the doctor (what
I wouldn't give for health insurance...). They criticize me for not having
graduated yet. But we'll see which plan pays off in the long run.

~~~
glesica
Actually the loans may very well have been a better deal for you. You have
sacrificed three years of income (assuming you finish in seven years instead
of four). If you would have been able to command $50,000 per year, but instead
made, say, $20,000 per year, then you've left $90,000 on the table. That is
your opportunity cost (as the economists say) for being debt-free. So unless
your loans would have been greater than that amount, you should have just
borrowed the money and finished sooner, then lived cheaply and paid down your
debt.

------
jseliger
_Well, that’s the part we don’t want to talk about anymore._

That's not true at all: college costs are _constantly_ discussed. The book
_Why Does College Cost So Much_ is the most comprehensive treatment of the
issue I've seen, and it argues that the _main_ driver of college costs is
Baumol's Cost Disease.

 _It’s that taxpayers back then picked up 90 percent of the tab. We weren’t
Horatio Algers. We were socialists._

Universities like the University of Washington are also in a spending arms
race: universities are _increasing_ their per-student spending, even in the
face of falling state spending:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/06/04/public_univer...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/06/04/public_university_spending_is_up_not_down.html)
.

A side note: Danny Westneat is something of a joke among people who read the
_Seattle Times_ , and it's a mistake to take almost anything he writes
seriously. He's the sort of pious liberal that makes intellectually minded and
honest liberals crazy because of his tendency to repeat various kinds of half-
truths. This is a good example: he's right that if Washington picked up 90% of
UW's tab, tuition would be cheaper.

But it's also true that if he'd read more, and read more about the people who
actually study this issue, he'd have a more complete picture of the situation.
You'll learn more reading this comment than reading his column.

~~~
Retric
Your speaking in half truths, taking inflation into account the increase
intuition is mostly related to lack of funding for state schools. Consider a
few states hand out fee rides to a significant faction of students who meet
basic qualifications. The real issue is most states have been poorly run over
the last 50 years and face a wide range of funding issues related to pensions
and healthcare issues.

PS: _In the University of California system, the per-student cost of providing
education has actually gone down: total university-system expenditures divided
by number of students produces a number about 20-25% lower today than it was
in the '70s, in real-dollar terms._

~~~
Shivetya
Time for the rich colleges to find better use of their endowments then.
Berkley has three billion in endowments according to a 2011 report, I do not
have current numbers. Some famous East coast schools have numbers that dwarf
it.

According to Wikipedia the University of California system as a whole has over
ten billion dollars in various endowment categories. More telling is they have
over thirteen thousand administrative employees and just over ninety thousand
academic employees. That compares to only two hundred thirty six thousand
students. Gee, I wonder where the problem is? Two students per employee is a
lot of money to make up

~~~
Retric
That 10 billion endowment for _all_ the university's in California
(UC,CSU,CCC) would cover less than six months of the just the University of
California's (UC) operating budget before being used up. So yes it's a big
number but it's also not actually all that helpful.
[http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/index/chapt...](http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/index/chapter/12)

 _state educational appropriations constituted only 12 percent of UC 's
operating budget in 2010-11 compared to 23 percent in 2001-02. In 2011-12, the
state cut UC's budget an additional $750 million._

------
jimhefferon
I also paid for my college largely with high school jobs (I was fortunate
enough to have had a home, clothes, food, etc. while I was earning that
money). So kids, it is all true.

I work at a college and I am also just finishing putting my two children
through college, so I am very interested in the topic. I find the report at
[http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Anatomy-of-
College...](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Anatomy-of-College-
Tuition.pdf) informative. In particular, on page 2 you can see that the steady
increases in the cost of college fits with the fact that college is a service
industry (or at least it has been up to now).

On page 10 you see in a graph the point that the Seattle Times's article made
with an anecdote, that state and local governments have reduced support and
families have had to make good the difference. In my mind, just as we as a
society pool our resources to build bridges, we also need to produce people
who will lead tomorrow (but then, as I say, I work at a college).

~~~
gambogi
I've been working since I was 15 (I'm 20). In total, I've made around $15k. My
first year of school cost roughly twice that figure.

If I wasn't majoring in CS (or my Grandfather hadn't died), I would not be
going to the school I am. This isn't how the system should work.

~~~
jimhefferon
Oh, I absolutely agree (as does the original article) that a hard-working
bright student from a middle class household who wants to go to a state school
cannot do so from working hard, as you and I did, from age 15 through college,
at the kinds of jobs that such students would hold (I worked in a resturant;
that's the kind of job I meant). I agree with the article, and I assume with
you, that it is wrong that such a thing is not possible today.

------
tibbon
Tuition has skyrocketed, but have universities changed that much? They act
like they never have enough money, but yet... they have more than ever. What
are the offering now for their 10x increase in tuition in 30 years?

~~~
codva
Kids in a lot of colleges today are living a life of luxury compared to what I
had in the 80s. Any dorm built or renevated in the last 10-15 or so years will
have semi-private bathrooms. The dining options today are way better than what
we had. I trudged down to the dorm cafeteria and ate whatever slop they were
serving, high school cafeteria style. My son (at a small public university)
has what amounts to a mall food court at school, and he can choose from
burgers, pizza, wraps, vegetarian, Italian, Mexican, etc. every day. The
libraries are more functional, the sports facilities are all updated, etc. All
that costs money.

~~~
nicholas73
One out of many cafeterias on my college campus was reported to have cleared
100k in profit for the year. Food is definitely not the problem, and I
wouldn't be surprised if college dorms were profitable as well (more expensive
than living off campus).

~~~
maxerickson
How many meals do you figure they served each day?

$500 a day might not be all that much (or it could be quite a bit).

------
trotsky
Wage stagnation is probably a bigger factor.

    
    
        Minimum wage, 1951: $0.75/hr
        Minimum wage, 1981: $3.25/hr
        Minimum wage, 2011: $7.25/hr

~~~
zanny
While I don't agree with the status quo, if your labor isn't worth $15 an hour
to someone (mainly because someone else is perfectly willing to do the work
for less) then they don't have a moral obligation to pay you more, and minimum
wage laws only artificially constrict the limits of what the value of
unskilled labor is.

I'd rather see a basic income guarantee (mainly for creative people like
artists or FOSS developers) and the removal of minimum wage, so businesses can
correct the true value of labor in various fields.

It would help eliminate the rampant service industry that destroys souls
because most people don't have the fortitude to deal with random strangers
idiocy.

~~~
psaintla
How about an obligation to not shift your employee cost of living onto the
government?

~~~
viveutvivas
This is the important aspect that most people don't think about when
discussing this issue. A quick google search reveals 80% of Walmart employees
are on government assistance.

------
dclowd9901
This one's easy. It's obviously the availability of cheap money (loans) that
has caused the price of college to go up. Just like homes and cars (which are
equally ridiculously priced), we can only afford them because they are
comparatively leveraged. If people _had_ to pay out of pocket for these
things, you can bet they wouldn't cost nearly as much. If you can tack an
additional X thousand dollars onto the price and only affect the payment for
the item marginally, you can bloat pretty damn quickly.

That said, the quality of these things might also go down, but I have a hard
time believing our elders got a comparatively worse education/home/car,
adjusting for technological advances.

This may be a ridiculously sweeping statement, but I truly believe consumer
credit is one of the worst inventions of the modern era, and has drastically
reduced quality of life across the board.

------
larrydag
Here is something to look at

2013 Tuition: $12,500 Subsidized: 30% 2013 Total: $17,857

1981 Tuition: $687 Subsidized: 90% 1981 Total: $6870 2013 Dollars: $17,690 (at
3% inflation)

So the argument is not the cost of education as that hasn't changed in 30
years. Its more who is footing the bill which is implied in the article.
Should taxpayers pay for the education?

~~~
adventured
That $12,500 tuition is wholly subsidized. The loan guarantees provided by the
government are back-stopped by the tax payers (and ultimately the Fed, aka
people holding dollars).

The sole reason students can get loans totaling $40k or $50k is the government
is subsidizing the entire process with guaranteed loans.

Most likely as this soon to be multi-trillion dollar debt debacle explodes,
the government is going to end up paying for a lot of that debt via bailouts.
They're certainly not going to let that tower of debt truly fall over, so a
bailout is the only likely outcome.

------
cm2012
Isn't it also true that private institutions have seen an equally fast or
faster growth in tuition expenses? That would invalidate the article. For
reference btw, $3 to $6 in 1981 dollars is $7.50 to $15 in today's dollars
according to Westegg.

~~~
bradleyjg
Yes. Higher education is the only industry to give medicine a run for its
money in cost inflation.

Some blame Baumol's cost disease[1], and that's probably an element of it, but
so too are the multiplication of deanlets and deanlings[2], the cancerous
growth of the physical facilities a of every school, spending per student
being used as a proxy for quality by the USN&WR, the rise of bidding wars for
celebraty faculty, ect.

Much or all these effects are enabled by incentives for those that run
universities in which holding costs down play little to no role. That's
partially a function of the student loan system and partially a function of
lax oversight of "charitable" organizations in general.

[1][http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease)
[2][http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all)

~~~
danielweber
Once you get a group of customers who have been told and internalized "price
doesn't matter," then you will only see one response from the producers.

Producers who tried to avoid the game got left behind. When the students don't
care about the cost, then it becomes a losing proposition to skip out on (say)
the $10 million expense that only provides $1 million of value to your
students.

------
FatalBaboon
The fault is shared between both parties: employers demand degrees because
it's so much easier to recruit that way, and youngsters don't fight and just
go to college.

In my opinion we need way (WAY) more smart dropouts, people who realize they
don't belong in school but stay by fear are just as much at fault.

There's no fear or shame to have, I've been through it and it just disabled
poor professionnals from hiring me, which is more of a blessing than anything
else.

And of course, it's all debt-free from there on (except I bought a place in
Paris before my friends even moved out of their parents').

~~~
agilebyte
Yeah but for that to work we need a big mass of people without degrees. Right
now the status quo is on the other end of the spectrum so you get a trickle of
fighters.

We need someone to pave the way :). Maybe rising tuition is the way to go. At
some point uni education becomes so prohibitive that even the mass may avoid
it.

(btw I was not a fighter)

------
steven2012
I went to university in Canada in the early 90s. My tuition per year peaked at
$2500/yr. I could make about $6000 over the summer, which would pay for my
tuition and a big chunk of my dorm fees ($6000/yr). Nowadays, I don't know how
anyone can afford to go to university, or even if it's worth it anymore. I
believe there's a lot of value in higher education, but not if it means having
$100k+ in debt.

~~~
Danieru
Canada has been spared the American insanity if my understanding is correct. I
pay ~7k/year for University of Calgary. Even University of Waterloo our most
prestigious computer science university is only 10k. Provided you are not an
international student tuition should be reason. I expect my Microsoft
internship to pay for two years of uni including living expenses. Freelancing
paid for another year.

Compared to the farm work, tree planting, and landlording which my father did
to pay for University I'm on vacation.

------
dasil003
Someone who went to college in 1981 does seem ancient to me, after all my mom
went to college just a few years before that and she smoked cigarettes in
class ($0.25 a pack!), but this guy is only 48! Now I'm 35 and rapidly
catching up! I think the theory of logarithmic experience of aging where you
have experienced half your life by age 12 is totally true.

------
saintx
I paid for my undergraduate education (97-03) by dropping out to work as a
full time consultant. Because I did this twice, it took several extra years to
graduate. For grad school, I worked a full time night job and missed out on
the quintessential grad student experience of being a TA, getting to know the
faculty, making friends, and being a part of the grad student and research
community. I did manage to finish grad school with no debt, but I'll never
know whether it was worth missing out on the social academic experience. It
may technically be possible to pay for higher education through hard work, but
the opportunity cost is hard to appreciate for those who do.

------
perlpimp
Hate to break it to you but universities are in the business of research.
Teaching is nearly worthless use of researcher's time - taken away from
progressing science and getting those private and government grants. Or so the
teachers told me in Canada. Some teachers believe in teaching - others treat
students with contempt and shrug them off to assistants. And the bigger
university, the bigger the stakes are in research at least - lower quality
education you get.

Granted elevated acceptance requirements will get you in the boat with some
smart people - for four years of tedium and exasperation but then you'll have
the network to build from.

my 2c

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>Teaching is nearly worthless use of researcher's time

No, it isn't or else you'll soon run out of researchers.

------
BvS
Does anyone know why the cost of the universities have skyrocketed? Do they
offer a better staff/student relation, better equipment, better buildings, do
they pay their staff better...? I honestly don't know but since a lot of the
universities are non profits the money is not going to their shareholder's and
if I understand the article correctly the (inflation adjusted) amount of money
the government provides also has not decreased.

~~~
Nutella4
Bigger, newer buildings. Lots more administrators paid much higher salaries.
Tuitions subsidizing very expensive football teams. Gourmet food and single
rooms for students (so they can attract the best and brightest!) rather than
hash-slinging cafeterias and dormitories. Fancy gyms for the same reason.

Faculty salaries, however, are much lower since a large percentage now are
part time temps with PhDs.

~~~
codva
//Tuitions subsidizing very expensive football teams.//

I'm happy to say that at my alma mater (Purdue) the athletic programs are run
as a separate business. They don't get one penny from the University general
fund. I think they are one of 5 schools like that. Personally, I think every
public school should be required to fund athletics separately.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Normally when athletics are profitable, the athletic dep't grows. When they
are not, the college makes up the difference. I've never heard of an athletic
department that contributed anything back to the college, at least not
willingly.

~~~
codva
Well, Purdue does take a big chunk of the Big 10 Network proceeds for the
University, when that money is almost entirely the result of the athletic
program. However, I wouldn't say the athletic programs are willingly sharing
it.

------
Alex3917
This is a little misleading. When adjusted for inflation, the average amount
that students pay has increased only moderately. And on average students at
public universities only pay about 18% of the money that's spent per student.
There's no question it's a little bit harder now than it used to be, but it's
not like its twice as expensive, let alone 10x as some people would claim.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You're looking at tuition increases. Food, Housing, Books, etc. have also
increased in varying amounts.

~~~
Alex3917
Fair enough. But the average net tuition at public universities is only $4,900
per year. Assuming you make $10 per hour at a summer job, that works out to
exactly 40 hours per week over the summer. Obviously there are still other
expenses and considerations, but tuition itself isn't especially unreasonable.
The bigger issues are the fact that education you'll receive is likely
complete garbage, your degree won't be worth anything, and wages of the middle
class have been decreasing for decades.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
> Assuming you make $10 per hour at a summer job

Do you mean $10 per hour over the cost of living/driving/eating/etc ?

>The bigger issues are the fact that education you'll receive is likely
complete garbage

The lectures are the same, the bar has been lowered too much.

------
munin
no one should have to do what I did.

I grew up in the mountains. there were no rich people around. it would be very
rare to find a family that my family knew that had a college degree. also my
family didn't really have any money and I needed to move out as soon as I
finished high school.

I found tech jobs on the internet (yay IRC). I moved to different cities and
worked entry level tech jobs. I went to community college at nights and then a
state school during the day when I had a job with flexible enough hours. I
worked full time and went to school part time and after seven years I should
be done this fall, with no student debt (or really any other kind of debt).

but doing this really sucked. no one should have to do it. I've met more
people than you would think who were like me. when I started, people referred
to me as a "nontraditional" student but I think the "traditional" student is
becoming the abnormality...

------
adventured
The reason for this explosion in cost, is the Feds began fully subsidizing the
cost of a college education. Colleges then had the green light to perpetually
raise prices - even in the depths of the great recession - they knew Uncle Sam
would cover the bill. Education costs have had no connection to reality
because you could get a government backed loan for it. When you see an entire
industry, with plenty of competition amongst schools, disconnecting from
reality, you can almost always bet the government is involved in the cost
inflation.

Colleges then took that massive influx of government sponsored cash and put it
to work funding their bureaucracies, building an endless parade of buildings
they didn't actually need, significantly boosting professor pay, and
accumulating substantial endowments.

Meanwhile the actual education - their product - did not get more valuable. At
a time of terrible economic performance, with 14% real unemployment, falling
incomes, and lack of jobs post graduation, clearly the cost of an education
should have fallen by quite a lot. It didn't because of a guaranteed loan back
stop.

There is talk now that students should pay the same low interest rates on
their debt that banks pay when they borrow money. If that is put into effect,
all it will do is accelerate the debt accumulation. It'll enable students to
borrow more, and colleges will accordingly charge more. This government fueled
scheme can only end in tears (bailouts).

~~~
specialist
I loathe the trite "citation needed" when challenging disagreeable opinions.
Especially when statements are so easily fact checked.

However, your thesis of more federal funding leading to raising prices doesn't
square with my experience, what I understand of the current situation, and
many of the sourced comments below. (I currently work in higher ed; funding,
tuition, loans, worth of degrees are discussed ad nauseum. Though I sling
code, many friends and coworkers deal with the money, budgets, and
legislature.)

By "federal funding", do you mean research grants? I dimly recall that during
my father's generation, Sputnik motivated huge influx of cash into both K-12
and higher ed. Also, my grandfather's generation benefitted from the GI Bill.
Those initiatives lowered student costs.

It's accepted wisdom that our tuition has risen in direct proportion to the
withdrawal of state funding. We're currently funded at 9%. It's completely,
sadly accepted that we'll eventually be fully tuition funded.

I can't speak to the student loan gouging. Prior generations of students had
very low interest rates with lenient payback enforcement. So your point seems
counterfactual, leaning on some libertarian "free market" worldview.

~~~
pikewood
I'm curious: does state funding apply to out-of-state students? When I went to
college in the 90s, out-of-state tuition was about 3x as much as in-state, a
ratio that seems to have held to today--at least for my school. I would have
expected the ratio to decrease as in-state students presumably received less
state funding, but both have risen equally about 300%.

(I worked at the cashier's office, so historical tuition prices are still in
my memory, but I have no other schools to base this on.)

~~~
specialist
Good question.

We recently talked about that. I was surprised to learn that in-state tuition
discounts were subsidized by the state. I had always assumed out-of-state
students were charged a premium.

I'm told that, in my state, community college students will (likely) continue
to get subsidized, whereas university students won't.

------
peter303
Yes, I paid for MIT with five summers of work in the 1970s. When I graduated I
had two months of living expenses left in the bank, the lowest ever in my
life. the first three summers were blue collar, e.g. auto factories which paid
triple minimum wage then.

------
eweise
Yup its true and the norm. I made about $6K over the summer months and my
college tuition was $350 a semester. Shared an apartment for $200/month. The
thought of taking out a loan never entered my mind.

~~~
danielweber
Depending on your age, you may have been able to discharge any debt you
acquired after graduation, which made it nuts for anyone to loan you money.

The reasons for making student loans non-dischargeable was based on a theory
that only rich students would be able to go to college. However, I think
experience has been a very harsh teacher that we got something much worse out
of that bargain than we thought.

------
lettergram
I'm going to University of Illinois the tuition for the engineering department
= $19,980, and the living expenses = $7,000 ($400 rent, $100 food, $40
internet per month with roommate).

That's a total of $26,980 not including books, parking permits, clothes, any
possible fun, computer, etc.

I made ~$25,000 working a year at jimmy johns as a delivery driver 20 hours a
week (averaged $18 an hour), my 40 hour a week summer job ($10 an hour), and
my website/youtube income (only $500 or so). This year i'm broke, but I went
to a junior college for two years at $4000 a year, saved up, and I should
graduate with a bachelors in C.S. with a minor in BioE for a total loan (for
two years) I took out myself of ~$50,000.

1-2 years to pay back the loan, did it myself (I did have a cosigner for the
loan, but it is still in my name AKA I call it doing it myself because i'm
liable and am pretty responsible)

Quite frankly I would rather require each student to take out a loan
themselves, than have my future self pay for the students to drink and screw
around. My GPA is 3.5/4.0, i'll graduate when i'm 22 (currently 21), I have
always worked 20-60 hours a week, I have 110 credit hours and a year to go
(i've taken classes every semester including summer), and I have kept a
girlfriend even. Its possible, you just have to be serious enough to do it.

OR you could take $100,000 in loans, work 10 years to pay it back ($500,000 by
the end with interest).

Part of the reason it costs so much to go to school is so many people default.
Do you think I will? Perhaps take some of the pressure off the public to pay,
put it on the student and less people will default because only the most
serious will go to expensive universities. Like I said, $4000 a semester at a
junior college and I honestly think my education there was about the same
quality as U of I, I had professors from Argonne national labs, one guy even
designed the electronics for the f-18 hornet and taught as a kind of
retirement.

Sorry for the rant, but the point is, I did it all myself and all of these
comments about how hard or ridiculous it is it is are pathetic. Go to a junior
college for a couple years, transfer, take out some loans, pay them back and
get off the public's back (too many college students party to consider it a
worthy public investment). Although it's harder, its definitely more
gratifying to do it yourself.

------
esalman
It is hugely annoying when clicking on whitespace on a web page opens ads in a
new tab.

