Cost of college has risen over 400 percent in 25 years. That is OUTRAGEOUS!

[nocousin]

Exerpt:

December 3, 2008
College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.
By TAMAR LEWIN
The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

“When we come out of the recession,” Mr. Callan added, “we’re really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.”

Although college enrollment has continued to rise in recent years, Mr. Callan said, it is not clear how long that can continue.

“The middle class has been financing it through debt,” he said. “The scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to college will do whatever if takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”

But low-income students, he said, will be less able to afford college. Already, he said, the strains are clear.

(remainder of article in New York Times online)

[northeastmom]

“The middle class has been financing it through debt,” he said. “The scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to college will do whatever if takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”

But low-income students, he said, will be less able to afford college. Already, he said, the strains are clear.

As an ordinary consumer of higher education, I knew this when I first started looking at schools for my older son and that was 8 years ago. I had sticker shock then, and I was not only looking at private schools!

[northeastmom]

The article in the New York Times said:

"“We think public higher education is affordable right now, but we’re concerned that it won’t be, if the changes we’re seeing continue, and family income doesn’t go up,” said David Shulenburger, the group’s vice president for academic affairs and co-author of the report. “The public conversation is very often in terms of a $35,000 price tag, but what you get at major public research university is, for the most part, still affordable at 6,000 bucks a year.”

I can tell you that our major public research university is not still affodable at 6,000. The commuting student will need to pay nearly double because tuition and fees are about 11,500 at Rutgers University. This does not even include car costs and car insurance to get to school as a commuting student. Just what "fees" include, I don't go because I did not bother to research it.

[JustAMomOf4]

Study: 49 States flunk college affordability.

Study: 49 states flunk college affordability - Education- msnbc.com

From now on I don't want to hear from anyone in California about the high cost of a college education -

This was discussed on "Morning Joe" this am by Joe Scarborough et al. The concensus was that families paying college tuition need a bailout. How true.

[gadad]

I wonder what percentage our monthly home infrastructure costs have risen over the past 25 years? In 1983, I wasn't paying for cell phone service or internet service, and I may not have even had a cable TV bill. Telephone and gasoline were a fraction of the cost they've been in 2008. I bought my first new car that year for $8,000. I wouldn't be surprised if my monthly living expenses have more than quadrupled.

[bonanza]

The problem is, unlike every other industry I can think of, higher education has done very little over the last 50 years to increase productivity. Sure, there have been marginal changes like posting reserve materials on the internet instead of the library and the use of Powerpoint--but essentially there has been very little change in the way education is done. It is very labor intensive and, hence, expensive. And the training of graduate students and their associated expenses is still done and financed the same way. The same is true for research. A student from 50 years ago could go to any university campus today and, with the possible exception of the library, feel right at home. Try that in an auto plant, or a hospital, or a law firm--and the results would be very different.

Something has to change.

[scualum]

What saves California is the Junior College program... which is under siege as we speak along with the UCs and CSUs... Expect CA to drop back to the pack once the current budget issue is resolved

[hazmat]

Measuring Up 2008

[CayugaRed2005]

Bonanza is right to say that education is a much more labor intensive process than most other 'goods'. A computer or a robot can't as easily substitute somebody at the front of the classroom discussing molecular biology as it can somebody who tightens a bolt on an assembly line every fifteen seconds.

I'm really not certain there is a way to control costs within higher education. The reality is that the bulk of higher education is done quite cheaply right now, with both graduate students and underpaid adjuncts. And the excesses of the sector seem to be far and away below the excesses of the for-profit sectors. The presidents of Harvard and Stanford still mostly fly commercial.

What can change is public support for higher education. If you compare the amount of public money used to support higher education thirty years ago to today, today's support is really quite pathetic, especially as we are ostensibly a richer and more prosperous nation today.

We spend a lot of public money trying to keep very old and very sick people alive for another six more months. If these funds were instead diverted to public support of higher education -- e.g. investing in the future instead of wasting money on the past -- I suspect that these tuition increases would be much lower.

[tokenadult]

Thanks for posting the link.

Here are some more links about the issue. The overall picture in the past decade has been that high-ability, low-income students are at a clear disadvantage in the college admission process compared to low-ability, high-income students. (The links below are in approximate chronological order of publication, from oldest to newest.) Neither private colleges nor public colleges bridge this gap for able students from economically stressed families.

BW Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Educ...-affaction.pdf

A Thumb on the Scale | Harvard Magazine

The Best Class Money Can Buy - The Atlantic (November 2005)

The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Recruiting a New Elite

Cost Remains a Key Obstacle to College Access

http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.o...%202-21-08.pdf

Legacies of Injustice: Alumni preferences threaten educational equity--and no one seems to care. - Reason Magazine

Promise Lost: College-Qualified Students Who Don?t Enroll in College (IHEP)

Colleges reach out to poorer students - The Boston Globe

[SlitheyTove]

I'm finding that map confusing. There's a graph at the bottom of each state's detailed report card, showing what percentage of income is needed after financial aid to pay for public two and four year schools. For the US on average, it's 24% and 28%, respectively. For the median of the "best" five states, it's 19% and 15%. Yet for California, the percentages are 25% and 28%. How can California be doing better in affordability than the other 49 states if it takes about the same percentage of income to pay for college?

The site also says that "Poor and working-class families must devote 40% of their income, even after aid, to pay for costs at public four-year colleges" and "Financial aid to low-income students is low. For every dollar in Pell Grant aid to students, the state spends 56 cents."

Looking at New York, which has an "F" grade (though on an upward trend ), the percentage of income needed to pay for public two and four year schools is 29% and 27%. " Financial aid to low-income students is high compared with other states. For every dollar in Pell Grant aid to students, the state spends 88 cents. However, poor and working-class families must devote 37% of their income, even after aid, to pay for costs at public four-year colleges."

Why the heck does New York have a worse affordability grade than California? Is there something obvious I'm missing here?

I agree with scualum that we have yet to see the budget fallout in CA's community colleges. One of my SILs is a CC instructor, and she's waiting to hear about how many of her courses will be left after cuts. I'm wondering if there will also be a domino effect in UC/CSU/CC enrollment due to the economy: more students apply to the UC, pulling back from private schools, resulting in more kids being denied UC admission to their chosen campuses. Those kids then matriculate to CSUs, pushing more to CC's, along with those who were planning on going to CCs and then transferring to UCs.

[oreo45]

Cayuga- Good point about costs at end of life. We need to talk more about using Hospice. It can save a lot of money & offer a more dignified death. But any money saved, I believe, should go toward covering the uninsured or under insured.

[scualum]

The C grade may be short-lived:

Report lauds California as country’s most affordable higher education option - San Jose Mercury News

"But that distinction may be short lived as the state proposes tuition increases at its system of 109 community colleges and eyes budget cuts at its four-year universities."

and

"The state Legislative Analyst's Office has recommended increasing tuition at community colleges from $20 per unit to $26 in January and $30 next school year. Additionally, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting $332.2 million from the budget of California's community colleges."

SlitheyTove's scenario seems to already be in action with the UC/CSU applications both up:

Last Minute Scramble for UC, Cal State Application Deadline - News

"The California State University system had already registered 138,000 applications within the first month of opening the entry period for the fall 2009 semester, making it likely that the CSU's will surpass 2007's record of 515,448 undergraduate applications.

The UC system's 2007 record of 121,005 undergrad applicants will probably be broken as well. The number of applicants last year rose 9 percent compared to the year before."

To make matters worse, the CSUs are likely to put into place a cap on enrollment, forcing more kids down to the CCs

CSU to impose enrollment caps in budget crisis

"Without dissent or opposition, the governing Board of Trustees endorsed Reed's plan to declare "systemwide impaction" of the CSU system due to overcrowding and underfunding. It will cap student enrollment at 450,000."

Community Colleges meanwhile are facing significant budget challenges as cited above....

Seems to me that a lot of kids may get squeezed out...

[bluebayou]

The problem with this article (as many others) is that it ignores NET costs. That 400% increase ONLY affects full pay folks. For example, I think I read that Cornell just eliminated loans for families under $60k. And, regardless of what cc'ers believe, $60k is middle class. Heck, for New Yorkers who attend the land grant colleges, Cornell is a steal.

In it's list 35xx list of colleges, PR has a rather nice list of Unis and LACs sorted by "best value", i.e., net costs. USNews online also has a great sort feature to figure grant/loan ratios.

[dbwes]

The National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education has released its biennial report.
The article points out that certainly (as many posters have pointed out here on CC before), while the middle class may continue to moan about being too poor for full pay but too rich for aid, it still sucks more to be poor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/ed...lege.html?_r=1