College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive in One Generation

[antigop]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/college-tuition-increased-1100-percent-since-1978

As bright-eyed college freshmen arrive on campus, they can look forward to accruing knowledge, independence, lifelong friendships—and serious bills. In the 2012-13 school year, first-year, on-campus tuition averaged $43,000 at four-year, private schools and $21,700 at in-state public schools.

It wasn't always like this: The cost of undergraduate education is 12 times higher than it was 35 years ago, far outpacing inflation. While the indexed price of college tuition and fees skyrocketed by more than 1,122 percent since 1978, the cost of medical care rose less than 600 percent, and the cost of housing and food went up less than 300.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Traditionally, higher education was an effective social divider

separating the children of the rich from those of the poor. That all got screwed up after WWII, when the GI Bill let the riffraff in. From then through the 70's, tuition was very low. I think it was only about $200 a semester when I was a freshman at UW-Madison in 1962.

Since then things have righted themselves, though, and once again higher education is only for the deserving rich & those portions of the lower classes who are willing to indenture themselves to the Corporatocracy for life to get it. No more radicals with lower-class origins and politics melded with hifalutin' knowledge bases. They'll never be able to pay off their (undischargable) student loans if they go in for that rabble-rousing social organizing nonsense.

[global1]

2. I Just Found Out My Girlfriends Son & His New Wife Have $300,000 In Student Loan Debt......

He got his MBA recently - but is still taking classes - because he said as long as he is still taking classes he doesn't have to start paying back on the loans. His wife is still in an MBA program. He said at the interest rate that they have - once they start making payments - it would take them 35yrs to pay it off.

I was dumbfounded when I heard this. They are just starting out in life and it looks like they have no hope to be able to afford a house - even if they both have good jobs - the bulk of their money will be going to pay off the student loans.

Something needs to be done about this. With no student loans hanging over them - they would have been able to buy a house, furnish it and live a decent life and contribute to the economy.

This is what is happening to the younger generation now. Now I understand why they are so apathetic politically. They don't feel that they even have a chance.

[quadrature]

3. simple solution...get rid of, loans, grants, and the DoE...nt

[Sancho]

4. Actually, the support for education from states plus more schools plus more administration drives

up the costs. There is a much smaller per cent of the cost of tuition being paid by government. There are many more opportunities to go to college. The main rising cost on most campuses is administration salaries.

There are solutions to paying for higher education, but the repubs want to turn the entire system into a for profit business.

[90-percent]

5. Yet another crime of my generation

inflicted on people the age my children would be, if I had any. We boomers are perhaps the first generation in American history that totally sabotaged the future of our children. Nice people, us boomers!

-90% Jimmy

[Throckmorton]

6. IN 1979 I started attending a two year state run technical college in Waterbury CT

A tri-mester at this school cost me $219.00 for 17 credits, and all my books for the year cost under $200.00. An entire year there cost me about $850.00. My son started at the successor to this school last week, his Mathematics text alone cost $248.00, all of his books came to $1079.00, and a Semester's tuition is $2285. We have been informed to expect another $550 to $700 worth of books for the second semester. I consider myself lucky that we will only pay about 7 times more for his education than I did in 1979 and 1980.

I weep for our future.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Annual University of Minnesota tuition for a commuter student in 1968: $375

Annual University of Minnesota tuition for a commuter student in 2014: $12,060.

In the Minnesota case, there are three main causes:

1. Cuts in state aid to the university

2. Administrative bloat accompanied by an increase in the number of part-time professors

3. Lots of new buildings, more than are justified by the increase in enrollment