Just calculated projected college costs for my kid and almost vomited

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So I mentioned this to DH, who has worked in higher ed. He said the number one thing that will stop all of this is to get rid of private student loans entirely. He said as soon as students can only take out loans up to the federal limit, "tuition will crater back down immediately."

Similarly to what some of you have said, he said the biggest driver of tuition increases is the ability for students to borrow a ton of money. He also said that if you can discharge loans in bankruptcy, that will reduce banks' incentive to give out these loans like candy.

And then the top schools will be populated only by the wealthy instead of mostly by the wealthy.

Logic is faulty and there is a reason no one suggests this for other markets that rely on debt, such as housing.

Nope. If students can't take out private loans, tuition will go down, making it more accessible to everyone.

You have no evidence of that at all. Sure it will go down some places -- just as not all colleges charge the same now. Do you think the top 50 schools will be forced to lower their prices? Don't you think they can fill their cohorts with full pay-no loans now?

Also, you can't stop all forms of debt, so eliminating one has little effect. Mortgages and other forms of debt will fill the void.

One last polite suggestion: simply repeating your assertion is not a sound way of proving your assertion.

It's just common sense.

Why can schools charge so much tuition now? Because they can fill their classes with people who can give them the money. However, most people can't give them full-price from their own personal accounts. So they take out loans and the schools get some combination of parents' money and the bank's money.

What happens if the bank's money disappears? The parents' money isn't going to replace that difference, so schools HAVE to reduce tuition or give out a crapton more financial aid. Why? Because they aren't going to be able to fill their classes with people who can pay $70K+/year.

It's really not that difficult.

Private loans are exceedingly rare at the top colleges, and graduates of them, on average, have among the lowest levels of indebtedness of all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

NP.

Are you sure about that?

Yes.

There are more than enough wealthy people in the world whose children can fill the top colleges. But the colleges don't want that, and neither do I.

We make $350K/year, which in anyone's book is a lot of money. We have one kid. We will not easily be able to pay the projected college costs. We will manage, but it won't be easy.

This is anecdotal validation of my assertion.

That would mean you'd need to find 50,000 kids every single year whose families can pay that tuition. That would also require abandoning every factor universities normally look at--geographic diversity, racial diversity, etc--and look solely at ability to pay.

Yep.

At top schools the neediest will still attend via financial aid, and everyone else - UMC, poor planners, and the recently successful will be out of luck or resort to other financial/debt mechanisms.

So you're telling me that you think there are 30,000 kids out there whose families can pay and that schools will just abandon everything they say about wanting a diverse class in order to fill their schools with those families?

They won't want to, but they can if they choose or need to. They will still be able to give financial aid based on need the way they do now, so it won't be 100% uniform.

The unfortunate fact is - the current system, while painful and seemingly unfair, is probably the best one. People have plenty of lower cost options for higher education today. They just don't want them.

Please note I am not saying borrowing big for college is a smart individual choice. It isn't. But people choose it,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WHY ARE WE accepting this?????

It’s complete bullshit. Next on agenda: college reform. It’s absolutely immoral.

Agreed. But public instate is half of what you say.

[Anonymous]

Also no one has to pay 70K in tuition.

[Anonymous]

If you aim to save 15% of your income for retirement all of your working years, assume 15% of your income will go toward your children's college education for 8 years (which may take 8 years off of your retirement savings unless you can save 30% per year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you aim to save 15% of your income for retirement all of your working years, assume 15% of your income will go toward your children's college education for 8 years (which may take 8 years off of your retirement savings unless you can save 30% per year).

Never, ever sacrifice your retirement savings to save for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you aim to save 15% of your income for retirement all of your working years, assume 15% of your income will go toward your children's college education for 8 years (which may take 8 years off of your retirement savings unless you can save 30% per year).

Never, ever sacrifice your retirement savings to save for college.

You choose to have kids. If you can you SHOULD pay for college. You adjust your spending so you can do both.

[Anonymous]

maybe things will change, lot of these schools will have to change because of corona.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/university-like-cd-streaming-age/613291/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two points:

1. College tuition soared because the federal government made loans easy to get. The $$ was virtually unlimited, and the colleges found ways to spend it. Now, there’s a whole generation of students who regret their choices, but it’s hard to put that genie (plus all his overpaid college admin friends) back in the bottle.

2. Countries that have free universities have lower college attendance rates than the US, and generally select for college potential at a much younger age than the US. I’m sure this wouldn’t affect any of your special children, but limiting the # of kids that can go to college hurts the upwardly mobile.

Oh, and one more — government-funded college is a huge giveaway to the UMC/rich. It’s an incredibly regressive government program.

No, students that have the ability go to the universities and those that don't go to technical schools. So if you are very wealthy but have an idiot for a child, which you in particular well might, your little idiot isn't getting into school for free.

Government-funded college is not a huge giveaway to the UMC/rich because the UMC/rich are being taxed proportionally higher to pay for the college. These are individuals that could pay to go to private colleges themselves if they cared to.

But continue arguing why government-funded college is devilish while driving your CR-V.

It’s hard to know where to start with this.

How do you think “ability” is determined in these countries? Standardized tests. Who does well on standardized tests? Rich/middle class kids. Kids of the educated. Not poor kids. Kids of people who could pay for college “if they cared to” as you say.

I agree that we have done a lot of kids a huge disservice by convincing them that learning a trade is a bad thing. But, giving a kid a standardized test and taking them off the college track in middle school is going to miss a lot of talent that happens to be late-blooming (not to mention the kids that don’t have parents who will push them to prepare for the tests).

Your sentence about taxes is just gibberish. The “tax” you are referring to doesn’t exist, and if we were to tax the rich for education, why would we turn around and give it back to them? That is pointless and the definition of a regressive program. In reality, working people pay taxes, and the government decides what to spend it on. I believe that spending it on making college free for the relatively well off people who make up the vast majority of college students is not a wise use of taxpayer dollars.

I have no idea what CR-Vs have to do with anything. I’m a person who paid off my student loans and has saved a significant sum to pay for my kid’s college, and that’s appropriate. I don’t need free college for my kid. I’m all for spending $$ on the kids who do need help (but not for those families who don’t have the $$ because they would really rather have a house at the beach).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two points:

1. College tuition soared because the federal government made loans easy to get. The $$ was virtually unlimited, and the colleges found ways to spend it. Now, there’s a whole generation of students who regret their choices, but it’s hard to put that genie (plus all his overpaid college admin friends) back in the bottle.

2. Countries that have free universities have lower college attendance rates than the US, and generally select for college potential at a much younger age than the US. I’m sure this wouldn’t affect any of your special children, but limiting the # of kids that can go to college hurts the upwardly mobile.

Oh, and one more — government-funded college is a huge giveaway to the UMC/rich. It’s an incredibly regressive government program.

Actually, college tuition soared because states drastically cut funding for higher education.

Check out the interactive bar graphs here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students

As an example, from 2008-2018 Louisiana cut funding per student by more than 54%, and tuition rose 106% in the same time frame. The talking point that "government got involved, and costs went up" is being perpetuated by the very same people who pushed for the funding cuts that actually drove increases in tuition.

Then why did tuition at my private law school soar over the same time period? Was that also the state cutting support?

No. It was the school taking advantage of how much their students could and would borrow.

Private schools absolutely do get state funding, as well as federal. Both were cut in tandem with the loosening of loan restrictions (and exclusion from bankruptcy). Shifting the burden from the government to the individual was not a single issue. Loans are only part of it, and they're pushed by the same Contract with America cum Tea Party folks who cut the funding.

Yeah. And the skyrocketing amounts being spent on college administrator salaries would have nothing to do with it. Nor the lavish building programs. I don’t even recognize my old college campus. Lots of snark about climbing walls — but it’s true. The amount of $$ spent on amenities, fancy dorms, dining options, etc is just incredible. Why? Because no one was price shopping in those years and they thought they needed it to attract students. After states cut funding during the recession, and recent college grads realized what $200k+ in college loans really meant in a tight job market, there’s been a reckoning. But walking this back is going to take a long time and probably some college bankruptcies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So I mentioned this to DH, who has worked in higher ed. He said the number one thing that will stop all of this is to get rid of private student loans entirely. He said as soon as students can only take out loans up to the federal limit, "tuition will crater back down immediately."

Similarly to what some of you have said, he said the biggest driver of tuition increases is the ability for students to borrow a ton of money. He also said that if you can discharge loans in bankruptcy, that will reduce banks' incentive to give out these loans like candy.

And then the top schools will be populated only by the wealthy instead of mostly by the wealthy.

Logic is faulty and there is a reason no one suggests this for other markets that rely on debt, such as housing.

Nope. If students can't take out private loans, tuition will go down, making it more accessible to everyone.

You have no evidence of that at all. Sure it will go down some places -- just as not all colleges charge the same now. Do you think the top 50 schools will be forced to lower their prices? Don't you think they can fill their cohorts with full pay-no loans now?

Also, you can't stop all forms of debt, so eliminating one has little effect. Mortgages and other forms of debt will fill the void.

One last polite suggestion: simply repeating your assertion is not a sound way of proving your assertion.

It's just common sense.

Why can schools charge so much tuition now? Because they can fill their classes with people who can give them the money. However, most people can't give them full-price from their own personal accounts. So they take out loans and the schools get some combination of parents' money and the bank's money.

What happens if the bank's money disappears? The parents' money isn't going to replace that difference, so schools HAVE to reduce tuition or give out a crapton more financial aid. Why? Because they aren't going to be able to fill their classes with people who can pay $70K+/year.

It's really not that difficult.

Private loans are exceedingly rare at the top colleges, and graduates of them, on average, have among the lowest levels of indebtedness of all schools.

Why do people think that basic economics doesn’t work for colleges? Supply and demand. More students (demographics), and more students with $$ (loans) = higher prices. It will be interesting to see what happens when covid dries up the full pay international student pipeline. We’ll see how fixed those tuition costs really are (or schools will lower their standards to get students with $$.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pete Buttigeg talked about this. Public college should be free. I went to an Ivy and a private grad school with my immigrant parents' help. They did pay as you go for the most part and also took out loans. I paid most of my grad school through loans and scholarship. But the costs of college now and in the future are absurd. I'm sure the bubble will burst, and if it doesn't I may send my kids to university abroad. In the meantime, I'm saving $8k per each child each year in a 529 (enough to get the tax benefit in dc).

That’s not the Buttigieg position. He actually bucked the progressives on this.

“Americans who have a college degree earn more than Americans who don’t,” he said. “As a progressive, I have a hard time getting my head around the idea of a majority who earn less because they didn’t go to college subsidizing a minority who earn more because they did.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/05/pete-buttigieg-democratic-candidate-bucks-progressives-free-college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So I mentioned this to DH, who has worked in higher ed. He said the number one thing that will stop all of this is to get rid of private student loans entirely. He said as soon as students can only take out loans up to the federal limit, "tuition will crater back down immediately."

Similarly to what some of you have said, he said the biggest driver of tuition increases is the ability for students to borrow a ton of money. He also said that if you can discharge loans in bankruptcy, that will reduce banks' incentive to give out these loans like candy.

And then the top schools will be populated only by the wealthy instead of mostly by the wealthy.

Logic is faulty and there is a reason no one suggests this for other markets that rely on debt, such as housing.

Nope. If students can't take out private loans, tuition will go down, making it more accessible to everyone.

You have no evidence of that at all. Sure it will go down some places -- just as not all colleges charge the same now. Do you think the top 50 schools will be forced to lower their prices? Don't you think they can fill their cohorts with full pay-no loans now?

Also, you can't stop all forms of debt, so eliminating one has little effect. Mortgages and other forms of debt will fill the void.

One last polite suggestion: simply repeating your assertion is not a sound way of proving your assertion.

It's just common sense.

Why can schools charge so much tuition now? Because they can fill their classes with people who can give them the money. However, most people can't give them full-price from their own personal accounts. So they take out loans and the schools get some combination of parents' money and the bank's money.

What happens if the bank's money disappears? The parents' money isn't going to replace that difference, so schools HAVE to reduce tuition or give out a crapton more financial aid. Why? Because they aren't going to be able to fill their classes with people who can pay $70K+/year.

It's really not that difficult.

Private loans are exceedingly rare at the top colleges, and graduates of them, on average, have among the lowest levels of indebtedness of all schools.

Why do people think that basic economics doesn’t work for colleges? Supply and demand. More students (demographics), and more students with $$ (loans) = higher prices. It will be interesting to see what happens when covid dries up the full pay international student pipeline. We’ll see how fixed those tuition costs really are (or schools will lower their standards to get students with $$.)

Uhhh... Because "colleges" aren't a commodity...

... and because there's already more supply than demand now... way more...

Stop spouting off page 1 of economics for dummies like you have it all figured out. You don't.

[Anonymous]

Private schools absolutely do get state funding, as well as federal. Both were cut in tandem with the loosening of loan restrictions (and exclusion from bankruptcy). Shifting the burden from the government to the individual was not a single issue. Loans are only part of it, and they're pushed by the same Contract with America cum Tea Party folks who cut the funding.

Someone made this claim that private schools get public funding, and since that funding was reduced it contributed to the rise in tuition. Can anyone provide any substantial evidence of this? I work at an expensive private university and I don't see any evidence it ever received public funding (not counting here programs such as ROTC).

[Anonymous]

We should be angry at the cost of state schools, not privates. And I know someone will come on here and say “UMD is only $11k” (conveniently ignoring the cost of room and board) which is a ridiculous answer considering
1-Some qualified kids still can’t afford that amount per year in tuition
2-If they are going to live nearby CP, rent costs money
3-Don’t suggest a kid live at home and commute 45+ minutes per day if that is not an option you’d find acceptable for YOUR OWN kid. If that was such an amazing option everyone would do it. You can’t boast the benefits of living in a dorm (and make fun of directional “commuter” schools) and then say that THOSE kids should commute because it’s so great, but but not my kid!