<p>Some bits from the article about CA public educational costs based on research from PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California). PPIC will also have a live webcast this afternoon (noon - 1.30p PST) concerning “Student Debt and the Value of a College Degree”:</p>
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A college education in California is still a good bargain compared with the rest of the nation, but that advantage is rapidly eroding as tuition costs spiral upward and students have to take out more loans, according to a study released Monday.</p>
<p>In 2000, one-third of the state’s freshmen at both private and public colleges needed to take out a student loan, but by 2010 that figure had grown to 45 percent, according to the research by the Public Policy Institute of California. And the average amount of those loans for freshmen shot up 36 percent between 2005 and 2010 to hit $7,800, the study showed.</p>
<p>Some 76 percent of California’s freshmen go to public college, however, and the loan figure for freshmen in the state’s four-year colleges alone was much smaller, at $5,300.</p>
<p>By comparison in the United States as a whole, 58 percent of all freshmen took out loans in 2010. And the average loan size in the nation for freshmen in public colleges was $6,400.
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<p>. . . </p>
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On the brighter side, the study also shows that college graduates tend to earn almost double the lifetime pay of those without degrees, and that gap in pay is only increasing.</p>
<p>Over a 40-year work life, a typical California worker with no more than a high school diploma can expect to pull down about $1 million total. The corresponding figure for a worker with a bachelor’s degree is $1.9 million.
The article doesn’t mention if those figures are adjusted for inflation. If not, then that actually decreases the difference of real amount of income earned despite the nominal increase.</p>
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“You can make what you spend on room and board work a bit, because you can control it, but you can’t control anything about tuition, and it just keeps rising,” said Rudolf-Dib, 19, who is majoring in history and peace and conflict studies. "What we pay now in tuition is an outrageous amount of money.</p>
<p>“When you’re paying $12,000 a year in tuition, it kind of defeats the purpose of a public education, which gets to the fundamentals of a democracy,” she said.
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<p>Read more: [State</a> colleges’ costs seen as bargain - SFGate](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/State-colleges-costs-seen-as-bargain-4573584.php#ixzz2VFtzr7B7]State ”>http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/State-colleges-costs-seen-as-bargain-4573584.php#ixzz2VFtzr7B7 )</p>