35 Year old college guide-book

[ucbalumnus]

UC Davis has archived general catalogs dating back to 1946-1947, if you want to look at how courses and curricula have changed. Cost information is also included in the catalogs.

http://registrar.ucdavis.edu/ucdwebcatalog/pdf.html

The 1946-1947 catalog, which actually covers Berkeley for the first 450 pages, lists (for two semesters) a fee of $27.50, books of $25 to $63, ASUC membership of $12.50 (optional but highly advised), board and room of $285.00 to $500.00 for men and $315.00 to $585.00 for women, and miscellaneous of $30.00 to $206.00 for men and $46.00 to $286.00 for women, for a total of $407.50 to $836.50 for men and $453.50 to $1,001.50 for women.

There were additional listed costs, such as lab fees of $1.50 to $34.50 per semester, engineering fees of $20.00 per semester, $2 shoes for women who take PE, $10 for students who have to take Subject A (remedial English composition), and various fees for late filing of registration type documents.

Non-resident tuition was $150.00 per semester ($300.00 per year).

The catalog also says that "Every undergraduate woman under 21 years of age must have the written endorsement of the Dean of Women for her college residence before she will be allowed to file her study list." It does say that living with parents, in houses approved by the university, or in sororities and student clubs is approved, but other housing must be approved by the student's parent or guardian.

Back then, the College of Engineering offered the following majors no longer present: agricultural engineering, economic geology, metallurgy, mining engineering, petroleum engineering. Metallurgy and mining engineering may have later become materials science and mineral engineering, which is presently just material science and engineering. Naval architecture and offshore engineering came and went between then and now, and electrical engineering is now electrical engineering and computer science.

The course listings for math show many more levels of precalculus math courses than there are presently. But there is also a course Math 116 called "Exterior Ballistics", described as "The classical theory of motion of a particle subject to the forces of gravity and the resistance of the air, together with some recent developments." Consider what the "recent developments" were in 1946...

[Dad_of_3]

I was educated overseas at a great school a bit over 35 years ago. Tuition was US$12.50/semester, everyone stayed on campus in single rooms at a similar cost, and 3 meals/day at the cafeteria was about $20/month. US text books at list price were only in the library; there were some overseas editions at a lower cost, but still high for us. The Soviets really did us a great favor by publishing a lot of technical books at throwaway prices to generate goodwill - the 900 page Calculus book by Piskunov was about 50 cents. Dad's salary, also converted to US dollars, was just over a hundred a month, for reference.
When I came to the US on a teaching assistantship, I made just under $400/month plus tuition which was a princely amount. We had a system to pay the college application fees - our seniors picked up the fees for the few applications we sent, and we did the same for our next year batch.

[ucbalumnus]

Originally Posted by Dad_of_3

US text books at list price were only in the library; there were some overseas editions at a lower cost, but still high for us.

Even today, there are paperback international editions of many textbooks with lower prices than the hardcover editions sold in the US, but you may have to look on web retailers to find them, or ask an international student to pick one up for you on his/her next trip home. If the content is actually the same, then the paperback international editions are considered more desirable (regardless of price) by some, due to being lighter and easier to carry around.

[mathmom]

My full professor husband with tenure is obviously at the wrong school too. I made $18,000 a year graduating from arch school in 1982. Tuition was $3000 a semester. They never cashed the check I gave them one semester.

[Dad_of_3]

^ did you turn it over to the state so that it goes into the unclaimed checks fund

[SDonCC]

don't forget that the SATs got recentered, so the scores back in the 70's would be higher today.

Data on Williams?

[MaineLonghorn]

I remember doing all my essays and completing all of my apps on one Saturday evening. A couple hours. No one reviewed. Done and done.

I also found my college essays when I was cleaning out the closet. One on why I wanted to go into architectural engineering, and the other on what I wanted to do after college. I was usually a good writer, but I obviously didn't put much effort into the paragraphs. I KNEW I would get into UT-Austin's engineering honors program, so I didn't have to try. If I applied for the same program now, I don't think I would get into it, even considering that my SAT scorer would be higher.

[bovertine]

Data on Williams?

Williams = Most selective

20% acce[ptance rate
630 Verbal average, 660 math average
17% over 700 verbal
36% over 700 math

Tuiition - 3,055

[johnwesley]

ihs76

Round trip ticket to Europe from NYC in 1976 was $505. Since we just flew for $680 RT last month, guess that's a way better deal now.

RT airfares correlate pretty closely to selectivity growth over the years (weren't they deregulated in the eighties?) This was true particularly for colleges located back east. I don't know what Cass Birnbaum said about geographic distribution among the student bodies but I'm guessing it was the rare Ivy that filled anywhere close to half its seats from outside the Eastern Seaboard.

[mathmom]

I must have been at "the rare Ivy" - at least based on my roommates!

One from France, one from CA, one from St. Louis and one from less than an hour away. At the time I applied my parents were overseas as well, but I was at an East Coast boarding school so probably counted that way.

[JHS]

Me, too. Group of eight on my entryway floor freshman year had three from the Eastern Seaboard (if you count one kid from the Washington DC ghetto), two from the near-Midwest, one from the St. Louis burbs, one from the Chicago burbs, and one from Hong Kong.

[memake]

Here's another voice to say that avg jr faculty salaries in 2012 (at 4-yr colleges) are more like 40-60K, and avg full professor salaries are more like 90-120K. Yes, there are exceptions.

One thing that is different; today, a child with a faculty member parent is more likely to have another parent with a significant income; so 'family income' on average for children from the the academic class is probably closer to having kept up with tuition than it would otherwise appear.

[Pizzagirl]

Chiming in to say that I went to hs in St Louis and I absolutely had classmates/acquaintances who went to Ivies. Really, it wasn't as though there weren't airplanes or anything.

[johnwesley]

^^well, let's put it another way: what would it say, about the ivies that the percent of non-easterners *hasn't* increased in forty years (assuming that's true?)

[Pizzagirl]

My guess - and this is completely a guess, not data based - is that it's a change in the composition of the non-easterners. In other words, the kids from St. Louis I knew who went to the Ivies and similar schools were already kids who were relatively well-to-do, who had educated parents who had attended elite schools and came to St. Louis for business or were originally from there in the first place, for whom getting on a plane to go someplace was absolutely no big deal. My guess is that what the Ivies (etc) have done in terms of outreach is go beyond the east coast but also go lower in the socioeconomic pile.

I will also note that I think there is always a difference in the expansiveness of people at different socioeconomic levels. I went to high school in suburban St. Louis in a more uniformly upper-middle-class community than the suburban Chicago high school my kids attended. The kids in St. Louis were far more expansive in their choices (all over the country) than the Chicago kids have been - because their parents were generally more sophisticated.