Anonymous wrote:I feel sorry for today's generation. After adjusting for inflation, college is much more expensive than it was in the past.
This is harmful to our economy and society because even if a college thinks a family can afford a $50k-75k education, very few U.S. families actually can and that kind of price tag is ridiculous. (I know I sound like my Grandpa talking, but seriously...!). We should be offering more opportunities to our kids, not fewer.

Not to mention less expendable income since graduates have to put their money towards loans. IF states fund universities better, they can charge less and privates will be forced to lower tuition. That means voting so that happens.

I feel sorry for today's generation. After adjusting for inflation, college is much more expensive than it was in the past.
This is harmful to our economy and society because even if a college thinks a family can afford a $50k-75k education, very few U.S. families actually can and that kind of price tag is ridiculous. (I know I sound like my Grandpa talking, but seriously...!). We should be offering more opportunities to our kids, not fewer.

The people with money demand amenities. Colleges have to play the game, putting money towards dorms and rev facilities to yield those students.

Because college is not a right nor is it a surprise expense. If you are low income elite/rich colleges offer financial aid. If your family is not and they are educated we all make choices and have to live with the consequences. Moreover, there are many more families able to pay than spots so the schools do not have a problem filling their classes. Indeed many parents select their careers/jobs with paying for college as a primary goal. Why should that not be rewarded?

Yes it stinks but why should schools charge less than they can? The ones that don't need to charge you can count on one hand, and they are also the ones that are most generous with need based aid, so your ire may be misdirected.

Now, if you were asking why the state won't fund your flagship better to make it cheaper -- THAT is something worth protesting.

Thank you for posting OP. We should all be protesting. Perhaps look or articles in the Chronicle for Higher Education (?) to see if there is any talk of this. Students should be protesting tuition as well as administrator pay.

No one is protesting because if you have money, you can pay to go to an expensive school. If you don't, there are plenty of options. Some will give scholarships and some schools on lower tiers will give free rides. If you are upset because some schools cost more and you want to go to those, that's just like the private school argument - sorry, that's not a right.

Pretty soon many states will have free community colleges and more and more students will do that.

Since college costs have risen so much, I wonder if there's a way to elevate the resistance to this. I see people express concern and see a #collegecosts hash tag, but I don't see much action from colleges. I wonder if there's more of a grassroots effort on this issue than I'm just not aware of and could become involved in.
Not all colleges can lower their costs, but a lot can. In fact, the Ivys could afford to stop charging tuition entirely if they wanted. If they stopped raising their sticker prices by 3.5-5% per year, that might put pressure on other schools to be reasonable in their charges. It seems as if there isn't a lot of variation in the sticker prices for highly selective colleges.
Those top-ranked schools (many of which have endowments of more than $1 million per student) also can afford to boost financial aid more, which perhaps might influence other colleges.
Trying to talk to members of college boards of trustees and college presidents might be worth a try (again, for those colleges that realistically could afford to lower costs). What else could be done that's not being done now? Why are students on campuses across the country not holding protests every day about the crazy-high costs they're being saddled with?