On the cost of a college degree...

[riderinthestorm]

12. Costs for 2012 at the University of Illinois, a public state school for in-state undergrads is $30k

http://admissions.illinois.edu/cost/tuition_freshman.html I've posted this before but seems as though there's a contingent of DUers who refuse to believe it.

I sound like a broken record but anyone saying "those kids should just work while they're in school and pay as they go" or "they shouldn't have spent so much on a private university" or "what kind of idiot racks up that much debt?" or "they could live at home and save $$$".

Well, the answer is that today's college degree costs a fortune. Its impossible to work your way through school debt free. Not too many high school diploma's net you a part time job making $30k per year so you MIGHT be able to work and pay as you go. And people don't seem to realize how expensive its gotten compared to "their day". Lastly, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I could not have lived at home after I turned 18 - sink or swim was the motto since I was now an adult.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for making college so unaffordable. We are undercutting our best and brightest.

K&R Nadin. I was appalled at some of the responses on that other thread that we were both on.

Edited to add my older girl finished her masters degree in the UK at one of their top universities. A single year's tuition, housing and food costs, fees, books etc was $12k for a foreign student. We paid a couple extra thousand for her to travel and work on some archaeological digs so the total cost for her masters in the UK, as a foreign-full-pay student was $14k - much cheaper than anything she was offered here in the US by the top universities she applied to and got into where ALL of the programs were 2 years and at least double the cost.