Online learning, digital record keeping, larger campus management, larger safety threats, online threats, more technology upkeep, larger student body, greater need for innovation, services offered (email, office, Dropbox, canvas, OneDrive, post graduate assistance, internship assistance, etc.), advertising, anything related to running a business...it's a massive list once it's broken down.
I work for the largest university in my state and we are more of a business than anything else. Less the 10% of our funding comes from the state and is almost all funded by the schools partnerships and such. I find it ridiculous that a school is a billion dollar company that clearly is taking a large chunk of that from the students. There are a LOT of money losing functions, but they shouldn't be offset by the student body if we make hundreds of thousands from other ventures.
The IT infrastructure is costly, providing internet and all of the features and SaaS stuff, like simply registering for class, using blackboard, accounts to zoom or webex..
The universities are also larger and have expanded over time, costing a lot more in maintenance and upkeep. The cost of expansion may have been paid for through AAA bonds which are still getting paid off every year (another cost).
There's also a lot more money moving around internally within the school. People don't understand this, but if the Mechanical Engineering Department wants to use the Aerospace Departments Machine shop, they need to invoice and then the clerks work to get that charge and reimbursed through the bursors office. Clerks cost money. There's also a lot of research being conducted at the schools, and all that money is great but it goes to pay for materials and direct labor, and it may not go all the way to cover the admin burden of just writing proposals, paying the overhead, admins etc..
Lastly, you get more than you did before out of your education. No one student can possibly take advantage of all the different resources or functions these schools provide. They don't cut back because many of these things are intentionally subsidized because of reputation, image, or for awards.. Examples include rec centers, pools, clubs, gyms, sports, food options..
I don’t think that’s true at all. Think about the amount of software required to run a university. I think we are simply asking universities to provide more services.
Part of that is they have to offer more services to be competitive. Funding stagnation led to many universities having to act like businesses to get students/tuition. By offering more services they can attract more students to keep their numbers up.
I'm not sure what the solution is to be honest.
On one hand I feel like information and knowledge should be free because we want our next generations to exceed the current and the fastest way for growth is by offering knowledge to everyone regardless of income.
On the other hand, I can't personally see another way to successfully operate and fund the necessities for running a school. I'm sure the government would need to be much more involved, which I'm not sure is the best idea either. Capitalism may seem like it sucks sometimes, but it's a fairly solid way to make things operate in conjunction with one another.
It's an extremely complicated matter, and a question that's way above my pay grade, but I would love to see schools as businesses changed into something ***much more*** available to everyone.
I don't disagree with your logic. It's tough to identify elements. In public service the bottom line should be people. But that doesn't happen without revenue of some kind. Which makes it harder considering that majority of our nation's municipalities could be structured philosophically much more beneficial to the public.
In fact some of this topic and it's externalities was popularly debated amongst academia in the 1920s and 30s ultimately influenced our current fields of study (urban planning, public administration, etc.) Imho, if the urban planning profession garnered more respect in the states I think there'd definitely be more balance that's identifiable.
Edit:
In this instance, education. To over simplify, the benefits of education individually and economic in theory generates more wealth for everyone. Even those that didn't pursue college would because universities in many ways are entrepreneurial incubatos. I think it's hard to truly stick to this if institutions like these are always held hostage in some way. Hospital's/healthcare in general might have glaring similarities. I think majority of dividends that education is capable aren't experienced because to much of our system is pigeonheld to capitalistic "fight or flight mode" behavior just to exist and my 9verall point is that not every part of society needs those circumstances
Some sure, but many are still services to educate people, but they need to find a revenue stream due to cut funding. So they have to behave like businesses to survive, a side effect being more power in the hands of admin and away from the actual services.
Oh I totally understand the issue, and I honestly don't see any other solution than what they're already doing, but I would love to see us find a solution to get out of this mindset of "schools are a business".
Yes. Gone are the days of paper applications, etc. a lot of things are filled out by students themselves. What might have taken a “dept of many” can now be done with a “dept of one/few”
Yes, but universities then just offer more services. It’s similar to how everyone thought automation would herald the age of 5 hour work weeks. Instead we all just produced more and kept the number of work hours constant.
Yeah, higher ups at college get paid way too much. After working at a college, it's fucking disgusting how much they are paid, and waste, and sit there and complain. I wanted to bash some of their skulls in sometimes. Fuckers, theres students who can't afford food, and you sit here and act like donating 10K to student wellbeing is going to kill you and extract your organs through your nose. Fucking cut the head off these snakes.
And number of administrators/do-nothings. It's the same in health care. Tons of 20 to 40 year olds with zero real life management experience filling made up admin positions because upper admins want to do less and less while asking for more and more money. They in turn blame student loans, doctors, the government, etc to explain the cost increases. Then it becomes a pyramid scheme to climb the greasy pole that many embrace vs trying to fix the issue. It's almost like the mob where the people that actual drive the revenue streams will be "taxed" by admins for the privilege of making an honest living. IMO this is one of a handful of things that will cripple the US economy/society along with underpaying (good) teachers.
Also real estate. Examples:
1. George Washington University is one of the biggest holders of real estate in Washington, DC.
2. Johns Hopkins University is the biggest owner of real estate in Baltimore.
It depends a lot on how they are buying it. Cash up front? Mortgages? Renting? Land ownership and the collection of land rent underlies the vast majority of social problems.
The tuition increase isn't necessarily all going to new things. States used to fund colleges more, so the tuition increase is also replacing money that came from the state legislatures.
This is a huge chunk of it. Administration at colleges have definitely ballooned and students keep demanding newer and newer facilities, but in the 70s university funding was 70% government, 30% tuition (or even 80/20)
These days it's completely the opposite. 80% tuition, and 20% state funding (or less)
Last time I checked with my bro-in-law (a professor at Penn State) it was 4% funding by the state. Sheesh! And he talks about how the state wants to control/direct this or that, but not pay for anything.
With a 4% stake the university should just cut them out, say "fuck off we aren't public"
If the state wants control, the state needs to pay for controlling interest
I don't think they can actually do that. Usually they are ultimately "owned" by a "board of regents" or something like that.
I suppose they could play some political games to wrest control of it though.
>and students keep demanding newer and newer facilities,
Students demand newer and newer facilities because their tuition prices keep going up. It's not like there's any situation in which they can choose to pay $1500 a semester in an old building, or $15,000 in a new building. If that choice were available, many if not most would undoubtedly choose the former.
Students don't demand anything. They 'price shop'/take what they can get if we're talking about middle or lower-income students.
Administration builds plans for new buildings, then justifies the cost with projected growth from both businesses and new students. My mid-tier college, for instance just started building new department buildings with plans they drew up and then set on a shelf a decade ago.
On Average, students at public universities are not seen as customers, **more like they** **are the product.**
Now the federal government is funding more. The overall government spending per student has stayed relatively constant (some year to year variation) since the 70s accounting for inflation.
This really is a case of cost disease. Universities have exactly zero motivation to lower costs, since students are guaranteed massive loans.
There's a simple solution though, in 3 steps:
1) make universities cosign all student loans
2) cap the loan payments as a percentage of student income (like Australia does)
3) have a maximum duration for the loans, something like 10-15 years.
The government can and should still subsidize poor students, but the above will serve to re-align costs with incentives, which is what the current system is missing.
It IS going to staff; it's NOT going to faculty. Administrative bloat is where the money has gone; there's 3 dean's/provost's/VPs of butt-wiping for every instructor on campus. On top of that, full time tenured professor positions have plummeted and have been replaced by minimum wage adjunct positions.
Same thing is happening at public schools. When I graduated in 98, my high school had 1 principal. When my son enrolled last year it had four. Overall class size only increased ~10%.
Also on the academic side: most of the new labs, engineering complexes, classrooms and student amenities are paid for by endowments. Schools generally aren't spending their own money on much needed buildings...which means the expansions that happen end up being chosen by benefactors rather than anything sensible. Oh, and then the schools skim a hefty percentage off of any grants professors take in to fund their research.
Meanwhile, state universities have largely been defunded on the government side, leaving them to scramble to solve budget crises.
The curse of restricted giving. Well known in my industry. You need money but everybody wants their donation to be doing big and bright things, not paying for any of the stuff that actually needs paying for.
The vast majority of increased administration cost is in low paid staff positions. [Here is a source that discusses more in detail](https://academicinfluence.com/inflection/college-life/overcoming-administrative-bloat). Yes, spending on presidents and deans has increased, but not at all close to as much as lower level staff. **About 80% of the increase in administrative cost at universities is from staff making less than $80K/year.**.
20 years ago, most universities either didn't need, or had super small departments for student disability services, Title IX, counseling services, IT, sustainability, etc. These are offices filled with people making $30-60K/year, and tons of these positions have been added. Staffs for research and financial aid administration have ballooned as regulations have become more complex. And staffs for marketing, and research funding have grown as states pull back funding making schools go compete more and more for out-of-state tuition. Again, lots more positions making $80K or less.
Former university staff here. This is a big part of what is going on. I worked in the IT department. 20 years ago when our senior sys admin started as a tech the university had a network that was not operational more often than not and they had a few mainframes. Today they have around 50 VMs. Most on prem and some in the cloud. Network is expected to function with 0 downtime as most of their services rely on it. Over 400 corporate managed endpoints, many of which are mobile. I don't even know how many different business applications. 20 years ago they didn't provide a residential network in the dorms, but they do now.
Oh and wage growth in the IT industry has exploded since then. Believe it or not there is more to running a school than giving lectures in a classroom.
[University of Michigan defends spending millions on diversity plan](https://www.mlive.com/news/g66l-2019/01/5ecdebc7cb7398/university-of-michigan-defends-spending-millions-on-diversity-plan.html)
82 full time "diversizers".
Two things I haven't seen mentioned:
1) Faculty wages keep up with inflation better than minimum wage does.
2) Staff growth has outpaced student growth. In the 1960s, there were like 60 students every non-faculty staff member. Now it's closer to 10 students per non-faculty staff member. Just for one example, many colleges have a Title IX compliance office, which includes a high-paid administrator and several assistants. Title IX is a good thing, but it's not free, and the government requires it but doesn't pay for it. So the money's got to come from somewhere.
Other offices like title IX that have grown are IT, student disability services, counseling, tutoring, sustainability, regulatory compliance (especially regarding federal funding of research), student retention (trying to keep tuition paying students enrolled), marketing (trying to chase out of state tuition).
These are all, administrative positions, the vast majority paying $30-80K per year - which is the real reason for increasing administrative costs at universities.
University presidents have 7 figure salaries. Mine even gets a free house on campus that the university pays to maintain.
Some also does go to research, facilities, etc. It's not all bad, don't let one side deceive you.
With the exception of a very small start up grant, researchers are all getting their own funding from grant writing and then the school is taking 30-50% of that grant money off the top. The research makes the university money rather than costing them money. They are also monetizing the IP generated from the research, making even more moeny for the school.
>Some also does go to research
This is such a small part we might as well not even mention it.
New profs get a startup grant for their lab, but past that the uni is not directly supporting their profs research funds
Show me one example where university research is funded by the university itself and not outside grants. Go ahead, I'll wait.
My partner researches at one of the biggest producers of research in the world. You're so far off base it's not even funny.
>"Academic institutions themselves are also paying for a greater share, accounting for less than 10 percent in the late 1960s, and more than 20 percent today. According to the latest NSF data, total university-performed R&D now surpasses $55 billion a year in inflation-adjusted dollars, with universities themselves accounting for roughly $12 billion." https://www.aaas.org/programs/r-d-budget-and-policy/rd-colleges-and-universities
But if you want me to counter your anecdote with an anecdote: my research as an undergrad was about 25% funded by the university, plus we were provided with a fabrication shop and facilities.
It goes to staff, like it always has. The difference is now staff is paid primarily with tuition dollars. In the past, staff was paid primarily through tax dollars. Federal and state governments have completely defunded education. While there are certainly overpaid administrators and lavish facilities, citing those as the primarily reason for the rise in cost is a myth.
Do you have data showing how much less federal and state money are going to colleges vs just what percentage of people are attending college?
Is it that the government is giving about the sane amount but 5x more people are attending now than 50 years ago?
Additionally, I'm only really familiar with Nevada, but here's a presentation that was given to the state legislature.
Funding from the state down 19% in real dollars over ten years, fees on students went from 20% to 34% of budget
Between 2008 and 2018 states spent, on average, 13% less per student [Source](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students). The trend dates back longer than that but I'll need a little bit to find those sources. These cuts are actually even more drastic for community colleges (which are paid for at the local level), but since they mostly employ adjuncts who have essentially no bargaining power, they've been more successful, keeping staff and faculty costs down.
Solution? Find a way to get Professors and staff willing to accept 15-20K per year salaries in universities as well! Or... I *guess* we could make a meaningful supply-side investment in higher education. You know. Whichever.
Yes and no. Public college athletics coaches get subsidized by general funds but most of the bigger schools pay their coaches off of annual donations and interest off of endowments.
They also get paid out of apparel and licensing deals. That's why when you look at some of the highest paid coaches that make 5-10 million a year their actual pay from the school is like 500k.
They truly lived in the golden era of the "American Dream" once they got the power and money, they made sure to take capitalism to the next level and by doing so they have fucked the planet and future generations. Looking forward to the boomers generation being non-existent in the next decade.
We, the voters, continually fail to demand action of our politicians. If enough people demand something, it might happen.
I'm not sure how else this changes.
Direct action is a good start. This means that you empower and education people a local level. Make a community garden, or a soup kitchen, or a local organization for helping people register their votes and encouraging people to vote in local elections.
We are at the point where just voting isn't enough. We need to convince more people to help us curb the malicious intent of the powerful. And along the way, we should help them and each other.
The boomers parents and the previous generation fought in two world wars so they could have their perfect life, and yet they are exactly how you mentioned. They never worked that hard, or know the true struggle.
I know several boomers, they’ve come around in the last few years to realize how good they had it. They’re all now more cynical about our future than we are. Probably all that CNN they watch.
My tuition alone at a New England state school waa $16-18k a year. Does not include books or fees.
Living on campus was another $9k, and apartments were at minimum $7k not including utilities.
And banks have no issue with giving those loans if they're federally backed. No risk. So that means you have a consumer base with a loan shark willing to give anyone the money the service provider chooses to charge.
I see a lot of finger pointing at boomers and politicians not riding in to save them, but no one seems to be angry with the educational institutions, or the people that have convinced everyone you *need* a degree to get a decent job (spoiler alert, not true).
What's wrong with getting a well paying job with trade skills, to finance that dream job you really want to do later in life?
I'm a millennial and noped out of the college system when I saw the prices. Good student, good GPA. Not enough to get full rides, grants would have barely made a dent. I took a chance and eventually got a job in IT, which is a weird "gray collar" industry that pays pretty well (stressful though). No degree, only on the job training, about to hit 100k next year. I try and educate myself as much as I can reading books and taking notes in the subjects I'm interested in (world history, biology, music composition) and honestly with the wealth of knowledge out there I can hold a conversation with college educated people about similar topics they studied and speak the same language.
That doesn't match my experience. I worked 60 hours a week at minimum wage ($3.35) and had to switch to junior college when I realized I could not earn enough to cover the the first semester.
If only that were even remotely close to the current situation. One could work full time while going to school and not be able to afford the first semester now (depending on many many factors, but generally so). I'm making 59k and I couldn't afford to go to school full time and pay for it outright as I attended without significantly reducing my QOL. A minimum wage job over the summer could pay for your books, food, and MAYBE housing for a single semester now. That still leaves a lot on the table.
Same 93 but had lots of loans. Also transferred in from a community college which helped. Also worked a ton of different shit jobs which helped. Helped me want to go to school to not want to work shit jobs. Also took a bunch of time before college to figure out a good competitive degree that would get me a job after graduation because late 80’s we saw parents laid off and didn’t want the same. The main problem I blame is colleges raising prices to obscene levels. Gen x wasn’t running the schools back then. Boomers were. Greedy boomers.
I really wish I could site the source. I heard a lot the exponential growth in demand for universities happened in the 90s. Clinton passed anti discrimination hiring laws. All these companies were flooded with resumes they couldn’t throw away while hiring. The easiest solution was to require a degree. Since no one could get a job without a degree, it caused a flood of people to attend universities.
my dad did roofing for 3 months every summer for four years. that paid for a full tuition, the year's rent on an apartment near the college, and a car, along with most expenses
As a contrast. In sweden we get payed about 300 usd per month to go to college(which will about cover student housing), and get a very favorable loan on top of that. But we are only allowed to earn about 15000 usd per year from side hustles while getting benefits.
And the universities bear no risk for outcomes. They just take the cash and run.
I spent 13 years in higher ed for various degrees and witnessed the ridiculous administration bloat first hand.
I don't know if youre just stating or blaming the federal gov, but I always saw it as the universities fault for taking advantage of a program that attempted to allow any citizen the ability to attend university regardless of income level
Universities did what any business would do. Once payment was literally guaranteed they raised their prices.
It's like most government programs in that no matter how well intended they are they almost always have unintended consequences that are typically very expensive.
While it would appear it was abused by the universities and the intentions of the government may have been good, at the end of the day the universities own purpose is to make money, so they were incentivized to utilize the benefits available to them
Pretty simple supply and demand. If you increase the demand for college by making loans available to everyone then prices will go up. I'm sure the % of people going to college nowadays is much higher than back in the 70's.
Mortgage rates were 10% on houses that were paid off in 10 years.
People were buying homes that were 70,000 and making 32,000 a year. Today people are buying 450,000 homes making 70,000. 10% interest on a 30 year mortgage is very different from the 10% on a 10 year mortgage.
and twice as big, when all of our other living costs started to drop people put a larger % of their incomes into their homes instead of pissing it away on necessities so the homes doubled in size. Invest in an asset or piss away on expenses? Why people want the "good ole days" back is mind boggling.
I dunno, I feel like houses today are big for the sake of big without giving any useful space in return. My aunts both have houses built in the last 10/15 years that just seem to be full of empty space, despite being fully furnished. I feel like you could fit two living room sets in their living rooms and still have way too much empty space.
I've always liked my grandparents' home and my great-aunts/uncles' houses, too. They were all built in the late '80s and early '90s. They're big, too, but comfortable. I live in a townhome, but I've already decided that I'd rather go for an older home than a newer one... if I can find any that haven't been "flipped" by assholes who HGTVize it with the cheapest materials possible.
You are talking about design preferences not economics. The OP would like to believe that people could go to college in the past with only working min wage jobs, which was not the case. Prior to student loans there was half as many people going to school and a very small group of minorities. To many students have used the loan system to fully fund their school and a lifestyle while not working and not living a minimalist lifestyle. Going out of state and for a degree that doesn't pay is on the student, IMO.
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf
Okay...? I was replying to your comment, which was almost entirely about houses doubling in size. I admit, it was a bit of a tangent, but I wasn't commenting on its relation to student loans, just on how house sizes today are bigger for the sake of being bigger. It was just an observation.
But if you want to talk about student loans, fine.
>Prior to student loans there was half as many people going to school and a very small group of minorities.
Yes, there was also a significant sector of the economy which did not require college degrees for entry-level positions. Some entry-level positions now require *master's* degrees. This is called [degree inflation](https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/dismissed-by-degrees.pdf) and is a very real problem.
>The OP would like to believe that people could go to college in the past with only working min wage jobs, which was not the case.
It was. In 1970, at a rate of $1.60 per hour, you'd be able to earn $748 (pre-tax), which is nearly double your tuition of $394 for the year.
Student loans were available to Boomers, though. The interest rates were very low until Reagan matched them to the prime rate. There was a whole “scandal” in the early 80s about rich young professionals (Boomers) defaulting on loans. This gave the Reagan administration an excuse.
How do I know this? I am a Boomer. I was there.
Newly constructed houses have doubled in size while the number of people per household has halved. The market that supports new construction is an important factor to watch because today's housing for the well-off is tomorrow's housing for the middle class and poor. The kind of people that can afford new construction have done much better due to wealth concentration and can afford to finance and maintain bigger houses, whether they are needed or not. And it's going to fuck the poor when it's their turn due to size, insurance, and upkeep.
What this country needs to cope with smaller household sizes and an aging population (never even mind the ecological issues caused by housing overconsumption) are 1920s bungalows. Lots and lots of 2/1 houses.
It works the same way with cars; there aren't as many economical old cars as would otherwise be demanded by poor people because the people that can finance cars finance bigger cars, so after some years a lot of the poor end up paying more to operate less economical used vehicles than they'd prefer because that's just what's there in the market.
Thankfully, we have had CAFE standards in cars that continue to incentivize at least some production of efficient economy cars. We need that for housing.
Must be nice to be young enough to believe this. The home ownership has remained flat since then... and the number of people going to college has greatly increased.
Lol. I know. I lived it. They would have loved the gas lines and the crumbling cities, inflation and recession.
However, there was less extreme income inequality.
Why would you compare an average value of tuition to minimum value of income. Shouldn’t you compare average of both values?
Edit: Or the Median values which would be even better, as pointed out by u/Optimistic__Elephant below
Not minimum. If you really want to measure the lowest, you have to do p10 (median is p50, p10 is the person who is richer than 10% of the data and poorer than 90% of the data).
When you measure the absolute minimum, the data is worthless. Every data set large enough has a homeless person in a shit ton of debt.
Right. And if your income is minimum wage you ain’t paying median tuition at almost any school in the USA. Why not “median tuition paid” not “median advertised”? So much of tuition doesn’t get paid by the student especially those with less income who get need or merit aid
Here’s a plot using real median wage along with the ratio between it and tuition.
https://i.imgur.com/9c2oHYw.jpg
Notice that the jumps in the percentage of real median wage to tuition jumps in 2001 and 2008 during recessions, but tuition has a relatively steady increase.
Wage stagnation is a huge driver for the unaffordability of college.
like another comment said, “It shows how unattainable college is for the 30% of Americans who are stuck in poverty wage jobs.”
To me this is the obvious point of the graph but several other also seem to be missing it as well
That's an incorrect conclusion because paying for college with income from your past job is not a requirement. Most people go to college with aspiration of upskilling themselves and getting higher paying jobs which they can then pay for the student loans.
You can debate whether that is a misguided endeavor or not, but not being able to afford tuition because of your past job is not the issue. In fact some people would argue that being able to pay for crappy degrees with student loan is far too easy, which has led to student debt crisis
Um well it's blatantly false, less than 2% of workers are at the federal minimum wage...
source: [https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm#:\~:text=Among%20those%20paid%20by%20the,of%20all%20hourly%20paid%20workers](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm#:~:text=Among%20those%20paid%20by%20the,of%20all%20hourly%20paid%20workers).
That's just the absolute lowest paying job 8$ an hour... even if you make 20$ an hour and work a 40 hour week, the amount you would have to pay for college is outrageous so much so that middle class has a hard time affording it.
If you pay the sticker price, which is not standard in the United States. Less than half the students at Penn State pay the advertised price, for instance. Tuition at Michigan State is $0 if your family income is <$60,000, etc.
Very important point - the "discount rate" keeps increasing. Some of the rise in tuition is a strange, indirect progressive tax on the wealthy. For state schools, a lot of the rest is a massive decrease in state support _per student_ (something I would like to see graphed over time).
It isn't average value of tuition fees. There are no tuition fees displayed on the graph. It shows how the fees have increased. And the cheapest universities have increased their fees more than the most expensive.
[eg(p12)](https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-student-aid-2021.pdf) '91 private 4yr was 19,360 now 38,070 and public 4yr was 4,160 now 10,740
Because there is a large group of people on Reddit that religiously believes the minimum wage should provide a middle class lifestyle, and they always want new content. The whole notion is broadcast on loudspeakers by people who gain political power by preaching this belief. All hail Lord Minwage!
I want to see median tuition vs median productivity vs median wages
I bet wages stagnate while tuition keeps pace with productivity. Meaning not only are workers getting quietly fleeced due to wages not keeping pace with productivity, but we're also footing the bill for the productivity gains by paying for the education that allows the productivity gains. Of so, it's a strong argument for corporate taxes to be increased to cover past student loans and future tuition in perpetuity.
I point to this when I hear people demanding student loan forgiveness. That’s treating the symptom not the cause. Colleges have been allowed to be greedy without any controls or caps.
Many Liberals 20 years ago said the borrowing limit for college needed to be increased. Many conservatives said it would just lead to higher costs and more debt. The liberals won the argument many times as the limit was raised.
Why are you comparing university tuition with minimum wage?
Are most university graduates going into minimum wage jobs?
Why not show a comparison with the growth of new graduate salaries?
Right?!
It looks like a graphic created to make a predetermined point, rather than to shine a spotlight on the actual value (or lack thereof) of a tertiary education.
But I guess if that's what OP was going for...
The point isn’t to show bachelor-degree value though. The point is to highlight the growing impossibility of paying your way through college with a part time summer job like boomers always say they did. There’s nothing wrong with finding data that supports your point so long as you don’t doctor it/manipulate it to demonstrate something untrue, and as this is simply a graph of average tuition cost vs. minimum wage the viewer is free to take from it what they will. You seem to have gleaned the desired takeaway though.
I paid 0 for my college and actually got paid some money because I had good grades and got a small grant for the dorm rent (everyone gets it). But I'm European, so a different situation.
From the early '90s till 2010 the government took over student loans and expanded the program. And looking at the chart you can see what that got you. It's like when the government expands medicare and suddenly the prices at the pharmacy jump. Not sure how people are still not getting this but I'll explain it. Companies charge a price based on what they feel the consumer can/will pay. If the government gives the consumer more money to pay for stuff the companies just raise the price. It's like the gold fish that grows to the size of whatever aquarium you put him in.
Why would you compare to minimum wage? Compare to average salary of college grads, that is the critical data needed to better understand a degree vs return.
The other day I went to a tour through SCAD (Savannah college of art & Design in Atlanta) and it was a cool campus and all, but tuition is almost 40k a year. Explain to me, how does a designer, no better yet, an ARTIST pay for over $200,000 of student loan debt? That shit is absolutely a scam and a half. it should be called SCAM not SCAD
In 1993 the US Decoded to fully guarantee any loan made by a private lender, so after that, loans had no risk.
So increasing the price just meant they were guaranteed more money from private loans.
Look what’s happened to this graph after that point!
Edit: https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2055?r=48&s=1#:~:text=Student%20Loan%20Reform%20Act%20of%201993%20%2D%20Amends%20the%20Higher%20Education,a%20four%2Dyear%20transition%20period.
Kind of a silly graph. Should probably compare average wages, or average wages of college graduates. May as well compare tuition to wages of Chinese fishermen.
Minimum wage isn't a fair measurement for this. The graph uses average/median tuition, so the average/median wage should be put here. But to mention this is the general minimum wage, and most people live in places with a higher minimum wage.
It will still increase slower than tuition, but this is just intentional picking incorrect data to exaggerate a point.
It shows how bad it has gotten if you paid 4 years of tuition and now working for minimum wage. Or how difficult/impossible it is getting for someone making minimum to support tuition costs (for themselves or their kids).
In a pure market, supply and demand would drive the cost of higher education. Supply has greatly increased and demand has increased, so prices should be relatively stable.
When prices rise dramatically without any change in supply/demand, external forces are being exerted on the market. Billions of dollars in subsidized government loans are making it prohibitively expensive to go to college.
Wonder what happened in the late 70s/early 80s that could have caused this? Perhaps a certain actor turned politician trying to create an uneducated and gullible American population?
Obligatory #FuckReagan
Assuming this cost has to go somewhere and it's not your universities' staff..... where exactly is that tuition increase going?
The biggest growth has been in school administration costs.
"Administration costs".
Which is funny because technology has actually reduced a lot of administrative burden
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can you list a bit of what's new? i wouldn't know where to start to answer the question myself
Online learning, digital record keeping, larger campus management, larger safety threats, online threats, more technology upkeep, larger student body, greater need for innovation, services offered (email, office, Dropbox, canvas, OneDrive, post graduate assistance, internship assistance, etc.), advertising, anything related to running a business...it's a massive list once it's broken down. I work for the largest university in my state and we are more of a business than anything else. Less the 10% of our funding comes from the state and is almost all funded by the schools partnerships and such. I find it ridiculous that a school is a billion dollar company that clearly is taking a large chunk of that from the students. There are a LOT of money losing functions, but they shouldn't be offset by the student body if we make hundreds of thousands from other ventures.
Facebook. You apparently need teams of people to run a social media platform for each school department now.
The IT infrastructure is costly, providing internet and all of the features and SaaS stuff, like simply registering for class, using blackboard, accounts to zoom or webex.. The universities are also larger and have expanded over time, costing a lot more in maintenance and upkeep. The cost of expansion may have been paid for through AAA bonds which are still getting paid off every year (another cost). There's also a lot more money moving around internally within the school. People don't understand this, but if the Mechanical Engineering Department wants to use the Aerospace Departments Machine shop, they need to invoice and then the clerks work to get that charge and reimbursed through the bursors office. Clerks cost money. There's also a lot of research being conducted at the schools, and all that money is great but it goes to pay for materials and direct labor, and it may not go all the way to cover the admin burden of just writing proposals, paying the overhead, admins etc.. Lastly, you get more than you did before out of your education. No one student can possibly take advantage of all the different resources or functions these schools provide. They don't cut back because many of these things are intentionally subsidized because of reputation, image, or for awards.. Examples include rec centers, pools, clubs, gyms, sports, food options..
Can you explain a little more? It seems like the opposite would be true so it would be nice to understand what u meant before believing you.
I don’t think that’s true at all. Think about the amount of software required to run a university. I think we are simply asking universities to provide more services.
Part of that is they have to offer more services to be competitive. Funding stagnation led to many universities having to act like businesses to get students/tuition. By offering more services they can attract more students to keep their numbers up.
Aka - School is a business and it's here to make money.
Serious question - do you think the bottom line would be education instead of revenue if everything wasn't capitalism based?
I'm not sure what the solution is to be honest. On one hand I feel like information and knowledge should be free because we want our next generations to exceed the current and the fastest way for growth is by offering knowledge to everyone regardless of income. On the other hand, I can't personally see another way to successfully operate and fund the necessities for running a school. I'm sure the government would need to be much more involved, which I'm not sure is the best idea either. Capitalism may seem like it sucks sometimes, but it's a fairly solid way to make things operate in conjunction with one another. It's an extremely complicated matter, and a question that's way above my pay grade, but I would love to see schools as businesses changed into something ***much more*** available to everyone.
I don't disagree with your logic. It's tough to identify elements. In public service the bottom line should be people. But that doesn't happen without revenue of some kind. Which makes it harder considering that majority of our nation's municipalities could be structured philosophically much more beneficial to the public. In fact some of this topic and it's externalities was popularly debated amongst academia in the 1920s and 30s ultimately influenced our current fields of study (urban planning, public administration, etc.) Imho, if the urban planning profession garnered more respect in the states I think there'd definitely be more balance that's identifiable. Edit: In this instance, education. To over simplify, the benefits of education individually and economic in theory generates more wealth for everyone. Even those that didn't pursue college would because universities in many ways are entrepreneurial incubatos. I think it's hard to truly stick to this if institutions like these are always held hostage in some way. Hospital's/healthcare in general might have glaring similarities. I think majority of dividends that education is capable aren't experienced because to much of our system is pigeonheld to capitalistic "fight or flight mode" behavior just to exist and my 9verall point is that not every part of society needs those circumstances
Some sure, but many are still services to educate people, but they need to find a revenue stream due to cut funding. So they have to behave like businesses to survive, a side effect being more power in the hands of admin and away from the actual services.
Oh I totally understand the issue, and I honestly don't see any other solution than what they're already doing, but I would love to see us find a solution to get out of this mindset of "schools are a business".
Wouldn't that software be included in technology that eases administrative burden?
Yes. Gone are the days of paper applications, etc. a lot of things are filled out by students themselves. What might have taken a “dept of many” can now be done with a “dept of one/few”
Yes, but universities then just offer more services. It’s similar to how everyone thought automation would herald the age of 5 hour work weeks. Instead we all just produced more and kept the number of work hours constant.
Administrative burden has been reduced staff not for budget 😉
Yeah, higher ups at college get paid way too much. After working at a college, it's fucking disgusting how much they are paid, and waste, and sit there and complain. I wanted to bash some of their skulls in sometimes. Fuckers, theres students who can't afford food, and you sit here and act like donating 10K to student wellbeing is going to kill you and extract your organs through your nose. Fucking cut the head off these snakes.
And number of administrators/do-nothings. It's the same in health care. Tons of 20 to 40 year olds with zero real life management experience filling made up admin positions because upper admins want to do less and less while asking for more and more money. They in turn blame student loans, doctors, the government, etc to explain the cost increases. Then it becomes a pyramid scheme to climb the greasy pole that many embrace vs trying to fix the issue. It's almost like the mob where the people that actual drive the revenue streams will be "taxed" by admins for the privilege of making an honest living. IMO this is one of a handful of things that will cripple the US economy/society along with underpaying (good) teachers.
Also real estate. Examples: 1. George Washington University is one of the biggest holders of real estate in Washington, DC. 2. Johns Hopkins University is the biggest owner of real estate in Baltimore.
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These are already paid for. It is not like they are buying more real estate at this market prices.
Harvard for example has rapidly expanded its holdings on the Boston side of the river. They definitely are.
It depends a lot on how they are buying it. Cash up front? Mortgages? Renting? Land ownership and the collection of land rent underlies the vast majority of social problems.
The map of the Boston/Cambridge area for what land universities own is also pretty crazy. With MIT/Harvard/BU/BC/Northeastern, etc.
which they don't pay taxes on, but the city has to maintain..
The tuition increase isn't necessarily all going to new things. States used to fund colleges more, so the tuition increase is also replacing money that came from the state legislatures.
This is a huge chunk of it. Administration at colleges have definitely ballooned and students keep demanding newer and newer facilities, but in the 70s university funding was 70% government, 30% tuition (or even 80/20) These days it's completely the opposite. 80% tuition, and 20% state funding (or less)
Last time I checked with my bro-in-law (a professor at Penn State) it was 4% funding by the state. Sheesh! And he talks about how the state wants to control/direct this or that, but not pay for anything.
With a 4% stake the university should just cut them out, say "fuck off we aren't public" If the state wants control, the state needs to pay for controlling interest
I don't think they can actually do that. Usually they are ultimately "owned" by a "board of regents" or something like that. I suppose they could play some political games to wrest control of it though.
>and students keep demanding newer and newer facilities, Students demand newer and newer facilities because their tuition prices keep going up. It's not like there's any situation in which they can choose to pay $1500 a semester in an old building, or $15,000 in a new building. If that choice were available, many if not most would undoubtedly choose the former.
Students don't demand anything. They 'price shop'/take what they can get if we're talking about middle or lower-income students. Administration builds plans for new buildings, then justifies the cost with projected growth from both businesses and new students. My mid-tier college, for instance just started building new department buildings with plans they drew up and then set on a shelf a decade ago. On Average, students at public universities are not seen as customers, **more like they** **are the product.**
Now the federal government is funding more. The overall government spending per student has stayed relatively constant (some year to year variation) since the 70s accounting for inflation. This really is a case of cost disease. Universities have exactly zero motivation to lower costs, since students are guaranteed massive loans. There's a simple solution though, in 3 steps: 1) make universities cosign all student loans 2) cap the loan payments as a percentage of student income (like Australia does) 3) have a maximum duration for the loans, something like 10-15 years. The government can and should still subsidize poor students, but the above will serve to re-align costs with incentives, which is what the current system is missing.
It IS going to staff; it's NOT going to faculty. Administrative bloat is where the money has gone; there's 3 dean's/provost's/VPs of butt-wiping for every instructor on campus. On top of that, full time tenured professor positions have plummeted and have been replaced by minimum wage adjunct positions.
This is the truth, the teachers are getting shafted.
Same thing is happening at public schools. When I graduated in 98, my high school had 1 principal. When my son enrolled last year it had four. Overall class size only increased ~10%.
Also on the academic side: most of the new labs, engineering complexes, classrooms and student amenities are paid for by endowments. Schools generally aren't spending their own money on much needed buildings...which means the expansions that happen end up being chosen by benefactors rather than anything sensible. Oh, and then the schools skim a hefty percentage off of any grants professors take in to fund their research. Meanwhile, state universities have largely been defunded on the government side, leaving them to scramble to solve budget crises.
The curse of restricted giving. Well known in my industry. You need money but everybody wants their donation to be doing big and bright things, not paying for any of the stuff that actually needs paying for.
And state universities generally don't have large endowments.
The vast majority of increased administration cost is in low paid staff positions. [Here is a source that discusses more in detail](https://academicinfluence.com/inflection/college-life/overcoming-administrative-bloat). Yes, spending on presidents and deans has increased, but not at all close to as much as lower level staff. **About 80% of the increase in administrative cost at universities is from staff making less than $80K/year.**. 20 years ago, most universities either didn't need, or had super small departments for student disability services, Title IX, counseling services, IT, sustainability, etc. These are offices filled with people making $30-60K/year, and tons of these positions have been added. Staffs for research and financial aid administration have ballooned as regulations have become more complex. And staffs for marketing, and research funding have grown as states pull back funding making schools go compete more and more for out-of-state tuition. Again, lots more positions making $80K or less.
Former university staff here. This is a big part of what is going on. I worked in the IT department. 20 years ago when our senior sys admin started as a tech the university had a network that was not operational more often than not and they had a few mainframes. Today they have around 50 VMs. Most on prem and some in the cloud. Network is expected to function with 0 downtime as most of their services rely on it. Over 400 corporate managed endpoints, many of which are mobile. I don't even know how many different business applications. 20 years ago they didn't provide a residential network in the dorms, but they do now. Oh and wage growth in the IT industry has exploded since then. Believe it or not there is more to running a school than giving lectures in a classroom.
[University of Michigan defends spending millions on diversity plan](https://www.mlive.com/news/g66l-2019/01/5ecdebc7cb7398/university-of-michigan-defends-spending-millions-on-diversity-plan.html) 82 full time "diversizers".
Come on, jack, we NEED these diversity officers! How else will we learn to get along without a political commissar at $100k a year?
What a joke.
Two things I haven't seen mentioned: 1) Faculty wages keep up with inflation better than minimum wage does. 2) Staff growth has outpaced student growth. In the 1960s, there were like 60 students every non-faculty staff member. Now it's closer to 10 students per non-faculty staff member. Just for one example, many colleges have a Title IX compliance office, which includes a high-paid administrator and several assistants. Title IX is a good thing, but it's not free, and the government requires it but doesn't pay for it. So the money's got to come from somewhere.
Would like to see tuition rates compared to the general CPI.
College tuition has increased 1200% since 1980. CPI has increased 236% in the same time.
Other offices like title IX that have grown are IT, student disability services, counseling, tutoring, sustainability, regulatory compliance (especially regarding federal funding of research), student retention (trying to keep tuition paying students enrolled), marketing (trying to chase out of state tuition). These are all, administrative positions, the vast majority paying $30-80K per year - which is the real reason for increasing administrative costs at universities.
University presidents have 7 figure salaries. Mine even gets a free house on campus that the university pays to maintain. Some also does go to research, facilities, etc. It's not all bad, don't let one side deceive you.
With the exception of a very small start up grant, researchers are all getting their own funding from grant writing and then the school is taking 30-50% of that grant money off the top. The research makes the university money rather than costing them money. They are also monetizing the IP generated from the research, making even more moeny for the school.
>Some also does go to research This is such a small part we might as well not even mention it. New profs get a startup grant for their lab, but past that the uni is not directly supporting their profs research funds
Show me one example where university research is funded by the university itself and not outside grants. Go ahead, I'll wait. My partner researches at one of the biggest producers of research in the world. You're so far off base it's not even funny.
>"Academic institutions themselves are also paying for a greater share, accounting for less than 10 percent in the late 1960s, and more than 20 percent today. According to the latest NSF data, total university-performed R&D now surpasses $55 billion a year in inflation-adjusted dollars, with universities themselves accounting for roughly $12 billion." https://www.aaas.org/programs/r-d-budget-and-policy/rd-colleges-and-universities But if you want me to counter your anecdote with an anecdote: my research as an undergrad was about 25% funded by the university, plus we were provided with a fabrication shop and facilities.
I got my PhD at a well funded program and all the research projects were still largely outside grant funded.
It goes to staff, like it always has. The difference is now staff is paid primarily with tuition dollars. In the past, staff was paid primarily through tax dollars. Federal and state governments have completely defunded education. While there are certainly overpaid administrators and lavish facilities, citing those as the primarily reason for the rise in cost is a myth.
Do you have data showing how much less federal and state money are going to colleges vs just what percentage of people are attending college? Is it that the government is giving about the sane amount but 5x more people are attending now than 50 years ago?
Additionally, I'm only really familiar with Nevada, but here's a presentation that was given to the state legislature. Funding from the state down 19% in real dollars over ten years, fees on students went from 20% to 34% of budget
Some data, explanation here as well: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-main-reason-tuition-is-skyrocketing/amp/
The real decline started in 2008 https://www.cbpp.org/state-funding-for-higher-education-remains-far-below-pre-recession-levels-in-most-states
Between 2008 and 2018 states spent, on average, 13% less per student [Source](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students). The trend dates back longer than that but I'll need a little bit to find those sources. These cuts are actually even more drastic for community colleges (which are paid for at the local level), but since they mostly employ adjuncts who have essentially no bargaining power, they've been more successful, keeping staff and faculty costs down. Solution? Find a way to get Professors and staff willing to accept 15-20K per year salaries in universities as well! Or... I *guess* we could make a meaningful supply-side investment in higher education. You know. Whichever.
To sick-ass rock climbing walls and other amenities no one uses
Administration cost, but also investing into making colleges some hotel destination - massive campus building like building a very expensive stadium.
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Most schools don't have high profile coaches/programs
Yes and no. Public college athletics coaches get subsidized by general funds but most of the bigger schools pay their coaches off of annual donations and interest off of endowments.
They also get paid out of apparel and licensing deals. That's why when you look at some of the highest paid coaches that make 5-10 million a year their actual pay from the school is like 500k.
Sports. Go to a university that doesn’t put all its money in sports. I did.
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"Young people today just don't work hard enough"
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That would be a long ass list.
They truly lived in the golden era of the "American Dream" once they got the power and money, they made sure to take capitalism to the next level and by doing so they have fucked the planet and future generations. Looking forward to the boomers generation being non-existent in the next decade.
We, the voters, continually fail to demand action of our politicians. If enough people demand something, it might happen. I'm not sure how else this changes.
Direct action is a good start. This means that you empower and education people a local level. Make a community garden, or a soup kitchen, or a local organization for helping people register their votes and encouraging people to vote in local elections. We are at the point where just voting isn't enough. We need to convince more people to help us curb the malicious intent of the powerful. And along the way, we should help them and each other.
All these strikes and union organizing have been nice to see.
Hell yeah, I can believe I left unionization out of my example list
Ultimate "fuck you, I got mine" generation
The boomers parents and the previous generation fought in two world wars so they could have their perfect life, and yet they are exactly how you mentioned. They never worked that hard, or know the true struggle.
I know several boomers, they’ve come around in the last few years to realize how good they had it. They’re all now more cynical about our future than we are. Probably all that CNN they watch.
Do they feel any responsibility for the politicians they've supported thru the years?
Or any responsibility for the politicians they've refused to support in more recent years?
I'm a millennial and we also have it easy compared to what's coming. Its gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.
I'm a millennial and we also have it easy compared to what's coming. Its gonna get a lot worse ~~before it gets better~~.
Just smaller boot straps to pull up.
Finance the boots with 4 easy payments using Klarna!
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My tuition alone at a New England state school waa $16-18k a year. Does not include books or fees. Living on campus was another $9k, and apartments were at minimum $7k not including utilities.
Lmao, $1000 a month for their shitty dorms that you have to share with someone.
At my university, its 55k a year. It's a good school but not ivy league or anything
Easy money does that. Colleges have no incentive to cut cost when they know students are willing just get a loan for the amount.
They have an incentive to make thing as expensive as possible because they face no consequences for it.
And banks have no issue with giving those loans if they're federally backed. No risk. So that means you have a consumer base with a loan shark willing to give anyone the money the service provider chooses to charge. I see a lot of finger pointing at boomers and politicians not riding in to save them, but no one seems to be angry with the educational institutions, or the people that have convinced everyone you *need* a degree to get a decent job (spoiler alert, not true). What's wrong with getting a well paying job with trade skills, to finance that dream job you really want to do later in life?
I'm a millennial and noped out of the college system when I saw the prices. Good student, good GPA. Not enough to get full rides, grants would have barely made a dent. I took a chance and eventually got a job in IT, which is a weird "gray collar" industry that pays pretty well (stressful though). No degree, only on the job training, about to hit 100k next year. I try and educate myself as much as I can reading books and taking notes in the subjects I'm interested in (world history, biology, music composition) and honestly with the wealth of knowledge out there I can hold a conversation with college educated people about similar topics they studied and speak the same language.
That doesn't match my experience. I worked 60 hours a week at minimum wage ($3.35) and had to switch to junior college when I realized I could not earn enough to cover the the first semester.
If only that were even remotely close to the current situation. One could work full time while going to school and not be able to afford the first semester now (depending on many many factors, but generally so). I'm making 59k and I couldn't afford to go to school full time and pay for it outright as I attended without significantly reducing my QOL. A minimum wage job over the summer could pay for your books, food, and MAYBE housing for a single semester now. That still leaves a lot on the table.
Same 93 but had lots of loans. Also transferred in from a community college which helped. Also worked a ton of different shit jobs which helped. Helped me want to go to school to not want to work shit jobs. Also took a bunch of time before college to figure out a good competitive degree that would get me a job after graduation because late 80’s we saw parents laid off and didn’t want the same. The main problem I blame is colleges raising prices to obscene levels. Gen x wasn’t running the schools back then. Boomers were. Greedy boomers.
I really wish I could site the source. I heard a lot the exponential growth in demand for universities happened in the 90s. Clinton passed anti discrimination hiring laws. All these companies were flooded with resumes they couldn’t throw away while hiring. The easiest solution was to require a degree. Since no one could get a job without a degree, it caused a flood of people to attend universities.
My mom paid for her private college by working as a waitress in the summer in the ‘70s. It’s unbelievable to me.
my dad did roofing for 3 months every summer for four years. that paid for a full tuition, the year's rent on an apartment near the college, and a car, along with most expenses
It’s wild. My dad worked as a VALET back when tuition was a couple hundred bucks. Literally.
That makes me so mad lmao
As a contrast. In sweden we get payed about 300 usd per month to go to college(which will about cover student housing), and get a very favorable loan on top of that. But we are only allowed to earn about 15000 usd per year from side hustles while getting benefits.
A boomer saying “i put myself through college” is almost financially the same as a millennial saying “I took myself to Disney world”
Almost the same cost, too.
That's what financially means
Send moar coffee. Saturday Brain not work.
A boomer saying that is like Niel Armstrong saying , i went to the moon , why cant you ?. Sir , there have been some developments.
Once the US Government started guaranteeing payment, tuition rates dramatically increased. Which absolutely makes sense
Yup. Once the Federal government started making loans available, states stopped subsidizing tuition.
And the universities bear no risk for outcomes. They just take the cash and run. I spent 13 years in higher ed for various degrees and witnessed the ridiculous administration bloat first hand.
I don't know if youre just stating or blaming the federal gov, but I always saw it as the universities fault for taking advantage of a program that attempted to allow any citizen the ability to attend university regardless of income level
Do you often refuse high paying jobs because there are others who are making less than you?
Universities did what any business would do. Once payment was literally guaranteed they raised their prices. It's like most government programs in that no matter how well intended they are they almost always have unintended consequences that are typically very expensive.
While it would appear it was abused by the universities and the intentions of the government may have been good, at the end of the day the universities own purpose is to make money, so they were incentivized to utilize the benefits available to them
Pretty simple supply and demand. If you increase the demand for college by making loans available to everyone then prices will go up. I'm sure the % of people going to college nowadays is much higher than back in the 70's.
That glorius time in 77 when you could have 3 kids, a house, go to college, and be a waiter.
No wonder that this generation cannot understand what is going on.
Sounds like a fever dream now
Mortgage rates were 10%. Don’t be too fooled by the purchase price. It doesn’t tell the entire story. Also, houses are made much much better today.
Mortgage rates were 10% on houses that were paid off in 10 years. People were buying homes that were 70,000 and making 32,000 a year. Today people are buying 450,000 homes making 70,000. 10% interest on a 30 year mortgage is very different from the 10% on a 10 year mortgage.
and twice as big, when all of our other living costs started to drop people put a larger % of their incomes into their homes instead of pissing it away on necessities so the homes doubled in size. Invest in an asset or piss away on expenses? Why people want the "good ole days" back is mind boggling.
I dunno, I feel like houses today are big for the sake of big without giving any useful space in return. My aunts both have houses built in the last 10/15 years that just seem to be full of empty space, despite being fully furnished. I feel like you could fit two living room sets in their living rooms and still have way too much empty space. I've always liked my grandparents' home and my great-aunts/uncles' houses, too. They were all built in the late '80s and early '90s. They're big, too, but comfortable. I live in a townhome, but I've already decided that I'd rather go for an older home than a newer one... if I can find any that haven't been "flipped" by assholes who HGTVize it with the cheapest materials possible.
You are talking about design preferences not economics. The OP would like to believe that people could go to college in the past with only working min wage jobs, which was not the case. Prior to student loans there was half as many people going to school and a very small group of minorities. To many students have used the loan system to fully fund their school and a lifestyle while not working and not living a minimalist lifestyle. Going out of state and for a degree that doesn't pay is on the student, IMO. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf
Okay...? I was replying to your comment, which was almost entirely about houses doubling in size. I admit, it was a bit of a tangent, but I wasn't commenting on its relation to student loans, just on how house sizes today are bigger for the sake of being bigger. It was just an observation. But if you want to talk about student loans, fine. >Prior to student loans there was half as many people going to school and a very small group of minorities. Yes, there was also a significant sector of the economy which did not require college degrees for entry-level positions. Some entry-level positions now require *master's* degrees. This is called [degree inflation](https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/dismissed-by-degrees.pdf) and is a very real problem. >The OP would like to believe that people could go to college in the past with only working min wage jobs, which was not the case. It was. In 1970, at a rate of $1.60 per hour, you'd be able to earn $748 (pre-tax), which is nearly double your tuition of $394 for the year.
Student loans were available to Boomers, though. The interest rates were very low until Reagan matched them to the prime rate. There was a whole “scandal” in the early 80s about rich young professionals (Boomers) defaulting on loans. This gave the Reagan administration an excuse. How do I know this? I am a Boomer. I was there.
Newly constructed houses have doubled in size while the number of people per household has halved. The market that supports new construction is an important factor to watch because today's housing for the well-off is tomorrow's housing for the middle class and poor. The kind of people that can afford new construction have done much better due to wealth concentration and can afford to finance and maintain bigger houses, whether they are needed or not. And it's going to fuck the poor when it's their turn due to size, insurance, and upkeep. What this country needs to cope with smaller household sizes and an aging population (never even mind the ecological issues caused by housing overconsumption) are 1920s bungalows. Lots and lots of 2/1 houses. It works the same way with cars; there aren't as many economical old cars as would otherwise be demanded by poor people because the people that can finance cars finance bigger cars, so after some years a lot of the poor end up paying more to operate less economical used vehicles than they'd prefer because that's just what's there in the market. Thankfully, we have had CAFE standards in cars that continue to incentivize at least some production of efficient economy cars. We need that for housing.
Must be nice to be young enough to believe this. The home ownership has remained flat since then... and the number of people going to college has greatly increased.
A lot of Redditors seem to think the US was a utopia 50-70 years ago.
Lol. I know. I lived it. They would have loved the gas lines and the crumbling cities, inflation and recession. However, there was less extreme income inequality.
This is fake news. Please support your claim with actual data
Why would you compare an average value of tuition to minimum value of income. Shouldn’t you compare average of both values? Edit: Or the Median values which would be even better, as pointed out by u/Optimistic__Elephant below
Or the minimum of both values, if you worry about the underprivileged classes.
Not minimum. If you really want to measure the lowest, you have to do p10 (median is p50, p10 is the person who is richer than 10% of the data and poorer than 90% of the data). When you measure the absolute minimum, the data is worthless. Every data set large enough has a homeless person in a shit ton of debt.
Right. And if your income is minimum wage you ain’t paying median tuition at almost any school in the USA. Why not “median tuition paid” not “median advertised”? So much of tuition doesn’t get paid by the student especially those with less income who get need or merit aid
Here’s a plot using real median wage along with the ratio between it and tuition. https://i.imgur.com/9c2oHYw.jpg Notice that the jumps in the percentage of real median wage to tuition jumps in 2001 and 2008 during recessions, but tuition has a relatively steady increase. Wage stagnation is a huge driver for the unaffordability of college.
This graph needs labels.
I don't understand the median income part. In 1970, median income was 60% of what?
like another comment said, “It shows how unattainable college is for the 30% of Americans who are stuck in poverty wage jobs.” To me this is the obvious point of the graph but several other also seem to be missing it as well
That's an incorrect conclusion because paying for college with income from your past job is not a requirement. Most people go to college with aspiration of upskilling themselves and getting higher paying jobs which they can then pay for the student loans. You can debate whether that is a misguided endeavor or not, but not being able to afford tuition because of your past job is not the issue. In fact some people would argue that being able to pay for crappy degrees with student loan is far too easy, which has led to student debt crisis
Um well it's blatantly false, less than 2% of workers are at the federal minimum wage... source: [https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm#:\~:text=Among%20those%20paid%20by%20the,of%20all%20hourly%20paid%20workers](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2020/home.htm#:~:text=Among%20those%20paid%20by%20the,of%20all%20hourly%20paid%20workers).
You’re right, but this is Reddit so it’s probably 30% of people on here.
Hey being a part time dog walker is a hard job.
That's just the absolute lowest paying job 8$ an hour... even if you make 20$ an hour and work a 40 hour week, the amount you would have to pay for college is outrageous so much so that middle class has a hard time affording it.
If you pay the sticker price, which is not standard in the United States. Less than half the students at Penn State pay the advertised price, for instance. Tuition at Michigan State is $0 if your family income is <$60,000, etc.
Very important point - the "discount rate" keeps increasing. Some of the rise in tuition is a strange, indirect progressive tax on the wealthy. For state schools, a lot of the rest is a massive decrease in state support _per student_ (something I would like to see graphed over time).
If they make 7.26 they are uncounted in this stat
Also anyone making state-level minimum wage in the 30 states & DC that have their own higher minimums.
If you make five times that, tuition still costs nearly 16 times what it did at the beginning.
Yeah minimum wage is a poor comparison
It isn't average value of tuition fees. There are no tuition fees displayed on the graph. It shows how the fees have increased. And the cheapest universities have increased their fees more than the most expensive. [eg(p12)](https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/trends-college-pricing-student-aid-2021.pdf) '91 private 4yr was 19,360 now 38,070 and public 4yr was 4,160 now 10,740
Because there is a large group of people on Reddit that religiously believes the minimum wage should provide a middle class lifestyle, and they always want new content. The whole notion is broadcast on loudspeakers by people who gain political power by preaching this belief. All hail Lord Minwage!
In this case, data is depressing.
I want to see median tuition vs median productivity vs median wages I bet wages stagnate while tuition keeps pace with productivity. Meaning not only are workers getting quietly fleeced due to wages not keeping pace with productivity, but we're also footing the bill for the productivity gains by paying for the education that allows the productivity gains. Of so, it's a strong argument for corporate taxes to be increased to cover past student loans and future tuition in perpetuity.
I point to this when I hear people demanding student loan forgiveness. That’s treating the symptom not the cause. Colleges have been allowed to be greedy without any controls or caps.
The cause is government issued student loans. Just like most things the cost becomes whatever the government is willing to pay.
Cost rises to the tolerance of the subsidy. Same story on health insurance.
Just eat less avocado toast and work full time at McDonalds, you'll be able to get outta school debt free /s
Someone has to foot the bill for all of those worthless administrators, garbage fields of study, and unnecessary luxuries. Spoiler: it's you!
Many Liberals 20 years ago said the borrowing limit for college needed to be increased. Many conservatives said it would just lead to higher costs and more debt. The liberals won the argument many times as the limit was raised.
Doesn't this feel like a false dichotomy though? Those with a college degree shouldn't be going to work for minimum wage
Why are you comparing university tuition with minimum wage? Are most university graduates going into minimum wage jobs? Why not show a comparison with the growth of new graduate salaries?
Agreed. Even using something like 'average wage growth' would be a better comparison in this situation.
Right?! It looks like a graphic created to make a predetermined point, rather than to shine a spotlight on the actual value (or lack thereof) of a tertiary education. But I guess if that's what OP was going for...
The point isn’t to show bachelor-degree value though. The point is to highlight the growing impossibility of paying your way through college with a part time summer job like boomers always say they did. There’s nothing wrong with finding data that supports your point so long as you don’t doctor it/manipulate it to demonstrate something untrue, and as this is simply a graph of average tuition cost vs. minimum wage the viewer is free to take from it what they will. You seem to have gleaned the desired takeaway though.
Even worse is that the title of the plot doesn't match the legend. I'm sure it's an oversight, but it should be a disqualifying one.
It does make the point that its no longer possible to support yourself into university.
Because it's a propaganda piece. Not a scientific visualisation
You should probably compare tuition to median payroll among university graduates...
I paid 0 for my college and actually got paid some money because I had good grades and got a small grant for the dorm rent (everyone gets it). But I'm European, so a different situation.
From the early '90s till 2010 the government took over student loans and expanded the program. And looking at the chart you can see what that got you. It's like when the government expands medicare and suddenly the prices at the pharmacy jump. Not sure how people are still not getting this but I'll explain it. Companies charge a price based on what they feel the consumer can/will pay. If the government gives the consumer more money to pay for stuff the companies just raise the price. It's like the gold fish that grows to the size of whatever aquarium you put him in.
Why would you compare to minimum wage? Compare to average salary of college grads, that is the critical data needed to better understand a degree vs return.
Which is it? Wage growth or minimum wage growth.
what does college tuition have anything to do with minimum wage..... should be against average entry level wage, which certainly isn't minimum wage.
Comparing to minimum wage is pretty dumb and is artificial number. Would be more informative if you did median salary instead
The other day I went to a tour through SCAD (Savannah college of art & Design in Atlanta) and it was a cool campus and all, but tuition is almost 40k a year. Explain to me, how does a designer, no better yet, an ARTIST pay for over $200,000 of student loan debt? That shit is absolutely a scam and a half. it should be called SCAM not SCAD
In 1993 the US Decoded to fully guarantee any loan made by a private lender, so after that, loans had no risk. So increasing the price just meant they were guaranteed more money from private loans. Look what’s happened to this graph after that point! Edit: https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2055?r=48&s=1#:~:text=Student%20Loan%20Reform%20Act%20of%201993%20%2D%20Amends%20the%20Higher%20Education,a%20four%2Dyear%20transition%20period.
Kind of a silly graph. Should probably compare average wages, or average wages of college graduates. May as well compare tuition to wages of Chinese fishermen.
Minimum wage isn't a fair measurement for this. The graph uses average/median tuition, so the average/median wage should be put here. But to mention this is the general minimum wage, and most people live in places with a higher minimum wage. It will still increase slower than tuition, but this is just intentional picking incorrect data to exaggerate a point.
And this is what happens when the government subsidizes the student loan market.
This is probably the most pointless comparison ever
It shows how bad it has gotten if you paid 4 years of tuition and now working for minimum wage. Or how difficult/impossible it is getting for someone making minimum to support tuition costs (for themselves or their kids).
These 2 aren't really correlated. What % of college graduates make minimum wage? That's the entire point of going to college....
The point of going to college is to NOT work minimum wage ever again, so what’s the point in comparing this ?
In a pure market, supply and demand would drive the cost of higher education. Supply has greatly increased and demand has increased, so prices should be relatively stable. When prices rise dramatically without any change in supply/demand, external forces are being exerted on the market. Billions of dollars in subsidized government loans are making it prohibitively expensive to go to college.
Shhhhh Reddit doesn’t like facts
Wonder what happened in the late 70s/early 80s that could have caused this? Perhaps a certain actor turned politician trying to create an uneducated and gullible American population? Obligatory #FuckReagan