In 1970, I returned to college after four years in the USAF.

[MineralMan]

At that time, the GI Bill sent me $254 per month while I was back in school. That was the same amount I was making as an E-4 in the USAF.

Amazingly, I was able to cover almost all of my expenses at a state university for two years with that GI Bill benefit. I did some side hustles during that time period, as well, but that was how things were at that time. I could provide a detailed budget I followed, but that's irrelevant.

Today, such a thing is impossible. Then, the State of California subsidized the state colleges and universities. Used textbooks were easy to find. Food was cheap if you cooked for yourself. Now, none of that is true. Now, a college degree is out of reach for a broad spectrum of people in their late teens and 20s.

It's getting worse, not better. And that's unlikely to change.

I was lucky to have been born when I was. I'm more than aware of that. I'm sorry that such a thing is no longer possible. Very sorry. I wish we could return to a time and economy where it was possible. That, however, would take a huge change in how we approach everything, and I don't foresee that happening. I wish I could help, but my time is running out.

I can say this, though: We must get rid of government by the right. I can still vote, but such a change is going to require everyone who thinks clearly to vote, too, and to force the issue. We are at what could be a turning point in either direction. Think long and hard about how eager you should be about making change. It could affect your entire life.

[617Blue]

1. The people have voted to defund themselves and enrich the fat cats. It's crazy.

[dugog55]

2. It is refreshing to see a fellow Boomer admit

that things were much better/easier for us at that young age than kids have it now. It infuriates me when older people say the kids just don't want to work and are unwilling to put in the time to make their lives better. Practically every facet of life is stacked against the last two generations. I graduated in '72, and I would say only half the class went to college. Good paying union steel worker jobs and other employment was only an application away. Those that didn't go to school were probably married by the age of 21, had a decent job, bought a house and maybe even had some kids. Health care came free (or almost) anywhere you worked, or if you had to get it yourself it was inexpensive. In 1973 I was working part time at UPS loading the delivery trucks, hours 3AM to 8:30. I had full health care, a weeks vacation and was making $6.25. I moved to Pennsylvania to catch up with my parents that had moved there the previous year. Knowing I would be without health insurance I went to an in town small insurer. I got a full coverage policy for three months, $42. Not a month, total. Four weeks later I got appendicitis. I spent three days in the hospital from the appendectomy, total cost of the surgery and the three hospital days was $465. I did not pay a penny.

Right now, if that happened to someone, they would probably have medical debt for years. I'm not saying everything was better then, but Reagan basing the economy and everyday life on the cutthroat, bottom line capitalism, and worship of the stock market, eventually destroyed how life should be for average Americans.

[pecosbob]

3. Ditto...in 1978 my tuition and books were less than $300...I was one of the last to serve under the old G.I. Bill.

[Shermann]

4. Over the past 30 years, inflation has averaged 2-3% while tuition inflation has averaged 5-6% in the US

There will always be colleges which are affordable, but the average college costs seem to be trending in the wrong direction. So, there will be fewer choices available to even average earning households.

That is a significant gap. That difference compounds every year and are now as much as 80% higher in inflation-adjusted dollars. That's no longer a ticket to the middle class, that's wealth privilege!

[The Roux Comes First]

5. Thanks So Much for Your Post. Very Well Said!

I graduated from college in 1971, so I suspect we're near-contemporaries. In hindsight it was a great time to grow up despite major life-quakes like the assassinations. By the time the real apeshit presidents came around I was close enough to being an adult that I could reason (or rationalize!) my way through far more than I was able to in my late teens.

But the republican credo of placing greed as the preeminent life-goal was a death-knell for the middle class.

[AZJonnie]

6. Yep. I'd have not been able to attend Uni if tuition was a whole lot higher than it was late 80's

and early 90's. Think I was paying less than $1200 for 3 quarters in the state university system, TOTAL.

Probably at least $5K there nowadays, though I've not checked up on it.

[ToxMarz]

7. Yep, early 80's very good state University with in state tuition you could definitley find a way to pay tuition

without going massively in debt. And if your parents couldn't cover it, even if they helped a little it was totally doable.

[Sancho]

8. In the 1970s, my wife and I worked our way through college and graduate school.

We got some family help, worked all kinds of jobs, never borrowed any money. The universities had student health clinics and cheap health insurance. We both got small scholarships, but tuition was mostly covered by working part time.

[BeneteauBum]

9. Same story starting in 1969

I was at the University of Florida. The GI bill covered tuition, housing, and a food plan. It was meager living but finally got my degree. That wouldn’t be possible today.
Peace ☮️

[Cirsium]

10. The statistics say otherwise

"Now, a college degree is out of reach for a broad spectrum of people in their late teens and 20s."

Their is a higher percentage of people in the US who are college graduates today than ever before.

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/cps-historical-time-series.html

"Food was cheap if you cooked for yourself. Now, none of that is true.'

In 1947 we spent 23.0 percent of our income on store-bought food. This had fallen to just 7.1 percent last year.

https://cepr.net/publications/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourth-of-income-went-to-food/

[FakeNoose]

14. I don't think those numbers include the cost of tuition loans

Most graduates these days have crushing college loans to pay back, and they are prevented by law from declaring bankruptcy to get rid of it. So much debt that they'll never own a home, and maybe never get married or have children of their own.

My generation (roughly the same as Mineral Man's) never had to face that kind of student debt.

On the other hand my grandson is a freshman at Georgetown University and his tuition is about $80 thousand per year. Who can afford that, that isn't a trust fund baby? Luckily my grandson is a stellar student who qualifies for a scholarship, otherwise there's no way our family could have afforded this.

[Cirsium]

19. Of course

Agreed.

"Who can afford that?" is the key question. The upper 10%. THAT is the problem. It is a class struggle issue.

[Shermann]

22. Percentage with degrees is only one statistic that can conceal a problem.

There may be lower cost colleges available, but the average cost has been rising faster than inflation. So, there is basic coverage but fewer affordable options every year (sort of like healthcare).

[Cirsium]

23. Agreed

I am not disputing that. Class warfare.

[twodogsbarking]

11. Most everything costs ten times what it did in the seventies.

Oil is not the answer but don't say that.

[JT45242]

12. One thing in the financial literacy curriculum is overlooked: debt to projected income

The national curriculum for financial literacy gives a formula to use

The maximum amount of "good college debt" can be calculated

Debt should be less than or equal to 2 times the median starting salary for your major at your college. (Must have appropriate placement statistics, I forget what the cutoff was but it was something like 85-90% of graduates had jobs within 6 months). So that kills all debt to for profit college -- that is all bad.

So, if you want to be an engineer then you can take on more debt. If you to go a school with a name that will get you extra money in your major (ex. son when to Rose Hulman institute of Technology) you can take on more debt.

If you are going to be a schol teacher, it is easy to find the average starting salary in your state. Double it -- that is the maximum debt you can take.

If you are a philodophy, English, etc. major -- what minor will pay the bills.

Yes, the costs have risen greatly mostly because at state universities in the 1970s the cost went 70% to taxes and 30% to student and family. Now that percentage is closer to 20-25% taxes and 75-80% student and family. If we did not give huge tax breaks to corporations and the megawealthy, then college could be more affordable.

My kids looked at return on investment and job potential as being as important as location.

[hunter]

21. Realistic, I suppose, but it's just fucking noise.

The value of an educated populace really can't be reduced to dollars and cents.

Personally, I graduated from college without any debt.

In the later 'seventies my share of the rent for an apartment I shared with some other guys was $85. My student fees were about $1200 a year, my books (mostly used) were less than $200. I paid no tuition.

Here's the kicker: I had some skills as a laborer and could usually find part time work for $5.00 to $8.00 an hour, even though I was a complete lunatic. I had a $400 car too. You do the math. I've joked that gasoline was free and I abused that privilege a lot, joyriding all over the western United States and the border regions of Mexico.

I know mine was not a typical experience but I knew plenty of people who were working their way through school with part time work that paid less and no student loans.

These days I would have been priced out of school or expelled permanently, and quite likely would have ended up living on the streets, alienated from my family. In school I found the resources to deal with my mental health issues and an education that qualified me to do laboratory work and teach science.

I don't think anyone would have measured me as a good investment when I quit high school at sixteen. Hell, when I was eighteen even the military rejected me, despite the two years of college I'd successfully completed with a "B" average.

So yeah, fuck that noise. College ought to be easily accessible to anyone willing to make the effort.

I can't say my educational choices were lucrative (Evolutionary Biology and English if it matters to you) but they definitely kept me off the streets.

[surfered]

13. Similar story..

Graduate school on the GI Bill after discharge in 1972 after two years in the Army. Our state had free tuition for veterans. Still worked as a Park Ranger 4PM to midnight. I was able to make ends meet.

[Maeve]

15. Couple of years behind you, but

Hubby could work a summer job and pay for the year's tuition and books. Part time the rest of the year took care of rent and food. (1973-78 era)
Our eldest worked full time year round and STILL couldn't cover tuition while living at home (2000-05, about).

[rickford66]

16. GI Bill was great

In 1971 I finished my engineering degree which was interrupted by a tour in the NAVY. Later in 1977 I returned to college for an ASS degree. All that time my wife had a minimum wage job and we owned a very modest home, two very used vehicles and a 5 acre woodlot. My neighbors joked that I was on welfare. Hey you put on the uniform and "they" own you. That was the first thing said to me after taking the oath. The GI Bill was a bonus if you beat the odds.

[yardwork]

17. I'm about ten years younger than you, and things were much easier than now.

After I graduated from college, while I was seeking a better job, I had a 40-hour work schedule waitressing at a local hotel. I had a consistent schedule. The job paid benefits, including fully paid health insurance.

When I got married we bought a house that cost $72,000, in our mid-twenties. That house sold a few years ago for nearly $800,000 - and the listing photos show the same renovations we made in the 80s! Not updated at all.

Salaries for most young people are not ten times greater now than they were 50 years ago, but housing costs are.

Something went terribly wrong and I know who I blame.

[multigraincracker]

18. In the late 80s I went back to college and all it cost me was for books. My employer paid the rest.

[Bavorskoami]

20. I was a Boomer on the GI Bill in early 70's

After high school graduation in 1965, I attended a good private engineering school where the tuition was $1,600 IIRC for each of my two years there. Can't remember the room and board. I dropped out in 1967, was in the Army for almost 4.5 years, went back to college to an out of state BIG 10 university (graduating in 1974) and the GI Bill covered just about everything. Somewhere about '73 or '74 I talked to a high school classmate who had attended the Air Force Academy. Then the Air Force sent him for an MBA at Harvard. After that he was at the Pentagon at that time doing studies of how the government could save money on the GI Bill (benefit reductions mostly). I was so pissed at him. Good for him to get into the Academy and Harvard, but for him it was all completely free college and more, but here he was looking for ways to cut help for others who served where they had much more hardship than he ever saw. I hate that attitude of "I got mine, and screw you."

And don't get me started on the two classes of employees: those who got in early enough, like us Boomers, to get a pension, but new hires are out of luck. (My former employer ended pensions for new hires in 2007). I fear for those younger generations when they retire.