When will the college tuition bubble burst?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here posting the roundly disproven Bennett hypothesis that federal loan availability drives the cost of college needs to take a good hard look at the proportion of the cost of their in-state option that has been paid by the state government over the last, say, 50 years. It's a line plummeting almost down to the Y axis in some states (and especially for the flagship publics, which play a key role in setting expectations in a state about what college "should cost.")

http://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/academy/multimedia/pdfs/publications/researchpapersmonographs/PublicResearchUniv_ChangesInStateFunding.pdf

In 43 states, state revenue contributions to public higher education are still below where they were before the Great Recession--and in 7 of those they are 30% below where they were. https://shef.sheeo.org/report/

In general, public institutions' costs set the floor of what is "reasonable," and privates follow it accordingly.

So if you want lower tuition costs, vote for public investment in public higher education.

Exactly.

If public schools all of the sudden receive a huge public injection of funds, they are not going to decrease tuition - each of the schools already has a group of customers (students and families) willing to pay certain costs. Instead, the public schools will spend the funds to improve and would even increase tuition due to the improvements relative to private schools.

Correct! Same reason why it doesn't benefit the avg consumer if you give tax-breaks to corporations. They (the corporations) put the extra into reserve or buy back their stock, they don't embark on capital projects and go on hiring sprees. Mirror image of the inadequacy of "trickle down economics".

Of course it's not correct. The federal government, through the Higher Ed Act (which created the student loan program--and the nation's fifth largest lending program, incongruously run by the Department of Education, which has no banking expertise--and is now way overdue for reauthorization) could inject funds with strings attached.

For instance, the strings could be that the funds be used to lower tuition, or lower the sticker price, or lower the net price for X% of students--or that to get the funds, the state also invest sufficiently to take the net price to zero for in-state students.

There are a million options once you are past the idea that--as with the federal student aid program itself--the money is just out there with minimal strings attached as far as the institutions are concerned.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The high cost of tuition is driven by the availability of federal loans to fund it. The Department of Education could put a brake on the rising costs by imposing rules on schools for eligibility, including limiting the price tag, for tuition or for other expenses.

+1. Stop making it so easy to get a loan for college, and the cost will go down.

Yeah this. Would probably take an act of congress but as PP said no federal funding for private schools with tuition above a certain level. Same provision for out-of-state public. I bet the schools will adapt real quick and get 'lean' in areas with waste and overspending in order to lower tuition. Even the 'reachy lottery' schools don't like the optics of being seen as bastions of economic 1%ers, a change in federal loan law will make them stick out sorely and they'll move to fix, others will either follow or fold.

This is the sort of post I expect to see on a site like DCUM, where it seems like 90%+ of users have HHIs above $250k. For the kids in those families, there's really no honest question about whether they can go to college. Of course the vast majority can. Yes, the loans suck, and perhaps parents don't want to help, but it is at least a clear and feasible option for the vast, vast majority of kids in those situations. And still would be possible almost regardless of what the government would do with federal student loans.

Then there's the families at or below the median household income of $68k per year. Or even harder, in the bottom 10%, which in Maryland would mean about $25k per year. In these cases, federal grants and loans are critical to simply giving these students have the option to go to college.

Cutting federal student loans programs wouldn't hurt the DCUM crowd. Perhaps they'd benefit from slightly reduced tuition costs. But it would absolutely hurt the many young adults to need this funding to have any hope of paying for college.

There's no easy answer here, but I don't think market forces are going to help without dramatically screwing over the lower socioeconomic classes. Subsidies don't work well if you don't have tight control over the industries benefiting from those subsidies. I personally think the best option is to dramatically improve the funding to public universities, making sure that they are affordable to all. Federally-mandated state reciprocity agreements can help provide competition within the public education space. Fix state/federal student aid to the public university tuition cost (with some adjustment to account for direct subsidies to the public schools), and hope that they'll fall in-line.

It might still create a two-tiered system of public and private schools, but I'm not overly worried about that. Public research universities are already quite good. The top-end of public universities is first-rate. The bottom tier won't be great, but that's probably OK for a variety of reasons. I think the key would be making sure that the middle-tier public universities are on-par with private liberal arts colleges. As part of this, it would make sense to try to make sure that there are plenty of smaller, public colleges with strong on-campus cultures, to replicate the benefits many of the private colleges give you. (See the University of Minnesota-Crookston as an example)

It would work if the government, rather than oking massive amounts of loans at all levels, would provide higher grants to lower socioeconomic folks in return for a certain number of years of govt service. Just like the military. Then those folks get a college education, the government has an increased pool of workers that potentially become career govt workers, and loans are now discharged in bankruptcy so the lenders put pressure on the schools for more reasonable tuition rates.

You don't means-test primary or secondary schools, nor do you attach stipulations.

Just make college cheaper for everyone. It's absolutely feasible if we focus on public universities and colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like at some point charging $400k (or whatever price point) for a middle of the road private undergrad is going to harm a university's ability to recruit students. Especially as incomes remain stagnant. Any predictions on how tuition prices will stabilize?

It started to burst about two years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

Same. Some friends of ours just announced on Facebook that their daughter go into Duke, where I’m pretty sure they’ll be full pay and my initial thought was “Suckers”. Ours is going to a small public for less than a third of the price and has a better chance to do research and eventually end up in med school.

Not sure if poster is jealous that “friend” can afford to pay for Duke or that “friend’s” kid can get into Duke but obviously something. My kids definitely could not and I would be impressed. Neighborhood kid is going to Georgetown and my reaction is kids worked his ass off and how nice the family is willing to make his college the financial priority. And BTW, who gets into Duke anymore? Crazy competitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

Same. Some friends of ours just announced on Facebook that their daughter go into Duke, where I’m pretty sure they’ll be full pay and my initial thought was “Suckers”. Ours is going to a small public for less than a third of the price and has a better chance to do research and eventually end up in med school.

Yeah they're real losers

Any parent that “announces” where their child is going to college on Facebook is pretty much the definition of loser. However, choosing Duke over a small public school for their daughter hardly makes them suckers. Worth every penny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here posting the roundly disproven Bennett hypothesis that federal loan availability drives the cost of college needs to take a good hard look at the proportion of the cost of their in-state option that has been paid by the state government over the last, say, 50 years. It's a line plummeting almost down to the Y axis in some states (and especially for the flagship publics, which play a key role in setting expectations in a state about what college "should cost.")

http://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/academy/multimedia/pdfs/publications/researchpapersmonographs/PublicResearchUniv_ChangesInStateFunding.pdf

In 43 states, state revenue contributions to public higher education are still below where they were before the Great Recession--and in 7 of those they are 30% below where they were. https://shef.sheeo.org/report/

In general, public institutions' costs set the floor of what is "reasonable," and privates follow it accordingly.

So if you want lower tuition costs, vote for public investment in public higher education.

The Bennett hypothesis has not been widely disproven. It likely plays a small role in increasing college costs. See chapter 8 of James Koch's evenhanded treatment of the subject.

https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-impoverishment-of-the-american-college-student/

Koch is an economist and former college president.

[Anonymous]

This has been talked about for decades. Our youngest is a HS senior. I remember thinking when our financial advisor told us 18+ years ago to put away more per month than our mortgage for higher education that it was crazy and something would have to change. Nope, no change yet. And no, we could not and did not save that much. Oldest went to college in-state, and our current senior will be going to a top 50 school with merit aid (unless they receive aid from the top 20 school they are hoping to hear from in January).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is driven by the insecurity of the upper classes in the US, desperate to get their kids on the right path.

It will keep getting worse unless we change our economic system to one that avoids this winner takes all economy.

+1

OP, you don't see the parents who went to HYPES or similar freaking out over what college they have to make an enormous donation to, it is the parents who never went to college or went to a very non-HYPEs college who are taking that route.

Has Elon or Emory ascended to those nights?

Sorry HYPS. And no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

You looked at the wrong privates. At that income (for the strong student) there are many privates that will discount well below the public school cost. Not the top 30 schools but solid colleges in the top 100.

Please enlighten me. Sone schools we briefly considered were Wakeforest, Emory, Tulane, and Lafayette, Washington and Lee and Lafayette. From everything we could see, we would be full pay. It’s not worth it when our in-state option is probably UVA and/or William and Mary.

You just named a bunch of elite colleges. If that’s your category then no, not a lot of merit there. LACs in the forties-sixties give lots. My B+ kid got merit in the $25-45k range at several, making them comparable and occasionally cheaper than public options. If your kid is a UVA candidate there are lots of LACs that would pay to have an excellent student like that. Higher up, Richmond’s top awards are generous. W&L’s Johnson is a free education.

Second that. My B+ kid with 1340 SAT got several offers from privates which put them in par with our in-state tuition. My high stats kid, however, got significant merit discounts from several schools, including Tulane.

[Anonymous]

There’s some misinformation in this thread in regard to college loans being “unlimited”. Federal student loans MAX at $30,000 Total for 4 years of an undergrad degree. So that $5500-$7500 per year for dependent students. That’s all the student can take.

All other loans require the signature of a parent or co-signer, aka the adults.

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized

Grad school loans are different and can be for much larger amounts.

[Anonymous]

I hope it will burst. So much speculation about that, with the pandemic's effect on colleges.

Until then, I feel pretty resigned to it and we save the max tax deductible amount in 529 for our kid. Started several years before birth contributing what we could, usually the tax deductible amount for one of us parents. We will also have flexibility, in terms of paying off our mortgage around the time our kid starts college.

Really hope the bubble bursts however. It is ridiculous. I am an earlier millennial and can't believe how much my in-state flagship university has gone up in terms of tuition, since I graduated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

Same. Some friends of ours just announced on Facebook that their daughter go into Duke, where I’m pretty sure they’ll be full pay and my initial thought was “Suckers”. Ours is going to a small public for less than a third of the price and has a better chance to do research and eventually end up in med school.

Yeah they're real losers

Any parent that “announces” where their child is going to college on Facebook is pretty much the definition of loser. However, choosing Duke over a small public school for their daughter hardly makes them suckers. Worth every penny.

And any person that calls someone “the definition of a loser” in an anonymous forum is pretty much the definition of a bitter jerk. Particularly when it comes to something as insignificant as social media behavior. Get a life.

As for the topic of the thread, thinking it will burst/is bursting is definitely different than thinking it will burst uniformly across the board. The elite schools - meanings he top 200 or so, not just the ivies — will not be affected as demand will remain high.

The main reason for the increase in top tuition prices is the switch to generous need-based aid. You don’t have to like it but I am full pay x2 and I am fine with it. It is what it is and there are lower cost options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

Same. Some friends of ours just announced on Facebook that their daughter go into Duke, where I’m pretty sure they’ll be full pay and my initial thought was “Suckers”. Ours is going to a small public for less than a third of the price and has a better chance to do research and eventually end up in med school.

Yeah they're real losers

Any parent that “announces” where their child is going to college on Facebook is pretty much the definition of loser. However, choosing Duke over a small public school for their daughter hardly makes them suckers. Worth every penny.

That is crazy. Facebook isn't just about showing off. For a lot of people it's the primary way they're in touch with their extended families and friends they don't get to see often. you are allowed to be proud of where your kid goes to college and let people in your circle know. That doesn't make you a loser.

I am not active on Facebook but I am thrilled for the good fortune bestowed upon my friends that I see on there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK but we make close to 300k and aren’t sending our kids to private schools because we think the tuition is ridiculous!

You looked at the wrong privates. At that income (for the strong student) there are many privates that will discount well below the public school cost. Not the top 30 schools but solid colleges in the top 100.

Please enlighten me. Sone schools we briefly considered were Wakeforest, Emory, Tulane, and Lafayette, Washington and Lee and Lafayette. From everything we could see, we would be full pay. It’s not worth it when our in-state option is probably UVA and/or William and Mary.

Back to the original point, UVA and William and Mary may be relatively good values compared to full pay private, but if you look even at those public schools there is an extraordinary amount of bloat. Large administrations to support things not closely related to quality of education and professors that teach less and less over time. It is time for a restructuring in higher education.

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/college-major-salary/2020/12/24/cad0f5de-44b3-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html