The cost of college

My wife started teaching state college level in 1974. She is now retired, but still is part time to help out. When she started 'staff' or support folks were a small minority as most were 'faculty'. A few years ago the staff slightly outnumbered faculty. They are security, legal, various intake counselors. painters, electricians, HVAC, maintenance and various levels of deans, VPs, ect. It is somewhat similar in primary education and whenever a referendum or add to taxes comes up, the edu board will threaten teacher layoffs, but don't mention staff positions. Also, snobby boomers, have had a rep of discouraging trades, which is too bad and not meeting the need of society. We do have plenty enough lawyers tho!
This is unfortunately true at nearly every institution of higher learning.

There are roughly the same number of professors/student as there was forty years ago, but the number of administrators/student has quadrupled or more.
 
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Depends on which Ivy, what his parents earn, and the financial aid package.

Let me dispel a big myth - NO student at the big Ivies (Harvard, Yale) is getting a “full ride” on merit, despite what you’ll read in the press. With every single kid there being the valedictorian, who should get the merit scholarship?

But they do have generous financial aid. They take the FAFSA, determine parental ability to pay, award the rest as a grant. Parental ability to pay includes a lot of factors, including siblings currently in college, and the award is reasonable. You can pay it - though you might not want to - and it will not break you. Will not touch your retirement savings, or home equity.

80% of students at Yale qualify for some level of aid. Parents who earn less than $80,000/year pay nothing for their kid to go to Yale.


I spoke with a young Harvard student a few years ago. She was from an Indian reservation in Wyoming, first in her family to ever attained college. Her Harvard financial aid support included room, board, tuition, fees, books, a stipend for miscellaneous items like laundry and spending money, and round trip tickets to/from home each semester.

Her parents paid nothing. She paid nothing.


So, if his parents don’t have the means - it costs nothing.

If they have the means, it’s about $74,000/year this year and won’t be going down in the future, so figure roughly $300,000 for a four year degree.
They're paying the full price. He got in through sports and legacy.
 
There are quite a few layers to this problem. I believe the student loan programs have allowed the colleges to increase tuition to the moon. As far as working during school, I agree, but I doubt the kind of job that allows you to work the hours needed to also maintain a decent GPA would even make a dent in one semester of tuition. I graduated college in 2014. I worked full-time while going to school, and worked 2 jobs in the summer in addition to having a side business fixing small engines. I commuted to avoid housing costs. I finished in 5 years, and barely graduated without any debt. There is no way I could do that with today's tuition costs. Both my parents were able to pay for college working a part-time job while also renting an apartment.

I agree that trades are huge right now. The only reason I know that, is my father works for a tech school system. Every kid that graduates is pretty much guaranteed a decent paying job, which shows the need. Meanwhile, when I was in high school, and even middle school, it was drilled into our heads that we HAD to go to college so we wouldn't end up being one of *those* uneducated people who did trades like driving a truck, plumber, welder, etc. Now those people are making more than most college grads, and pretty much any entry level job with a starting salary of $35k has "Bachelor's required" on the job listing...
 
State School - UMass is $35K per year or $140K per 4 years or $420k for three kids.

Private University - We did a tour of Providence college today which is $75K per year or $300K per 4 years or $900K for three kids.

State schools have gone up 5x in 22 years. My wife went to Trinity College in Hartford CT and graduated in 1996 and it was $40K per year meaning private schools have increased 2x in 22 years.

Where does it end?
Granted it’s slightly different, but Purdue’s in-state tuition has not gone up by $1 in the 9+ years that Mitch has been in charge. They’ve managed costs, found alternative ways to help students finance even that meager amount without incurring loads of debt, and brought greater investments in. It’s under $10k a year and is obviously sustainable when state lawmakers are not beholden to the professors demanding ever higher salaries.

State schools are created to help states supply needed local labor pools, and as such, have several ways of making sure new graduates aren’t forced to leave the state to pursue gainful employment.
 
Many healthcare careers have expanded their duties and responsibilities and thus require more education. Pharmacy Techs used to be a one year community college course. Now it’s a two year program with an addition third year of subjects required. Pharmacists used to be four years. Now it’s five with a one year residency.
Inflating requirements as you describe to get the job is a scam. It's piling on more student loan debt so that people are forced to stay in the field. It's similar to what I described earlier in the thread about truck companies sponsoring you for your CDL training and then pressuring you to buy a tractor later. That's because even though trucking has a high burnout and turnover among drivers, you can't just walk away from those tractor loan payments.
 
It would be interesting to see where these monies go considering that some non-tenured professors use food banks to not starve.
 
Many employers have tuition reimbursement that helps keep college costs down. Obviously medical school is on another level thats a unique situation.


I agree that trades are huge right now. The only reason I know that, is my father works for a tech school system. Every kid that graduates is pretty much guaranteed a decent paying job, which shows the need. Meanwhile, when I was in high school, and even middle school, it was drilled into our heads that we HAD to go to college so we wouldn't end up being one of *those* uneducated people who did trades like driving a truck, plumber, welder, etc. Now those people are making more than most college grads, and pretty much any entry level job with a starting salary of $35k has "Bachelor's required" on the job listing...

In the past I was posting paid 1 year apprenticeships for medical equipment repair for a major manufacturer that requires a 2 year degree in electronics here on BITOG. Not the greatest job…. but it can pay very good if you get into field service.

Bottom Line:
No matter what career field / college degree a young person chooses, make sure you can actually make a living after getting into major financial debt and be happy in your career. No job or career is perfect.

I’ve met some people with big student debt $200K (pharmacist and physical therapist) that were not happy in their career.
 
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It would be interesting to see where these monies go considering that some non-tenured professors use food banks to not starve.
I think the answer is pretty easy.. sports programs.
If its a public school you can google the operating budget - its paid by your state and hence public information. I looked through the University of South Carolina once - its an entire system with multiple locations, and nothing really jumped out at me as odd. Its what you would expect - most of the money is on instruction, research, student services, Operations and maintenance. Its a couple billion dollars so I am sure much gets skimmed or wasted, but what govco outfit doesn't.

As for sports, I don't know about all schools but I am pretty sure the big football schools - like all the SEC, etc - sports is a net profit center. They fill stadiums but don't have to pay the players (yet).
 
College should be affordable because an educated society is a civilized society.
it depends on the educators, just as elections depend on the vote counters (to paraphrase stalin).

my late dad was the children of humble polish/lithuanian immigrants. he graduated from high school in 1942. he did the european backpacking tour thingy starting on 6/6/44 on a normandy beach. he returned physically intact to continue his education through a phd in insect biology, to become a professor and dean at umass. as i kid i recall well his worries about the start of the mismanagement of, and indoctrination at, universities. in his generation the tooth-to-tail ratio of teaching facuty to administrators was high. a student was unable to discern the particular political orientation of a teacher. he and his long-gone colleagues, who had high expectations, wore white shirts, ties and a coat to the class, and weren’t necessarily friends of the students, would be aghast today.
 
If its a public school you can google the operating budget - its paid by your state and hence public information. I looked through the University of South Carolina once - its an entire system with multiple locations, and nothing really jumped out at me as odd. Its what you would expect - most of the money is on instruction, research, student services, Operations and maintenance. Its a couple billion dollars so I am sure much gets skimmed or wasted, but what govco outfit doesn't.

As for sports, I don't know about all schools but I am pretty sure the big football schools - like all the SEC, etc - sports is a net profit center. They fill stadiums but don't have to pay the players (yet).
Here's the dirty little secret. Sports programs lose money for virtually every university/college if mandatory student fees for those programs are subtracted. At some unis those fees can be in the thousands per year. TV rights and other such infusions of money don't put those programs in the black if student fees are deducted.

There is no good reason for sportsball to have the influence it does within higher education. Any student who chooses a uni because it has a "great" football or basketball program is an idiot. Any alumni who earmarks contributions to his alma mater for sportsball is likewise an idiot. We worship people who can throw or kick a ball far too much while STEM majors do without and drop out.

That is one of the reasons uni in the US costs so much. Take out sportsball, and uni would be cheaper. Foreign universities do not subsidize massive stadiums and coaches' salaries. Think about this when you wonder about costs and student debt.
 
I think the answer is pretty easy.. sports programs.
Probably for the smaller schools. At many of the large universities, the football and basketball programs bring in so much revenue that they are self supporting and also support the smaller sports, even with the outrageous coaching salaries.

Regardless, public universities are out of whack in so many ways.

EDIT: I see I have somewhat opposing views compared to above, at least regarding the big name universities.
 
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Allow me to throw some facts in here about coaches salaries at the big schools - in most cases, like the SEC (where it occurs and matters), the coaches salary is about $95-100k. They are state employees. That's what the school (state; taxpayer) pays them.

The multi-millions tacked on for their 'contract" is from the big companies that you see advertising all around the school, during the football broadcasts, during the Sunday replay/review shows, etc. These companies are Coke, Golden Flake, the myriad of insurance companies, etc.

Also - many of those millions that Saban, Smart, etc., get go towards augmenting the assistant coaches salaries to enable the head coaches to hire the best assistants they can. The assistant coaches that actually earn a salary from the school/state are along the lines of a retail employee, with the OC/DC positions probably paying about $50k each and being the highest. Most of the assistant coaches aren't even employed by the state (University).
 
Many employers have tuition reimbursement that helps keep college costs down. Obviously medical school is on another level thats a unique situation.




In the past I was posting paid 1 year apprenticeships for medical equipment repair for a major manufacturer that requires a 2 year degree in electronics here on BITOG. Not the greatest job…. but it can pay very good if you get into field service.

Bottom Line:
No matter what career field / college degree a young person chooses, make sure you can actually make a living after getting into major financial debt and be happy in your career. No job or career is perfect.

I’ve met some people with big student debt $200K (pharmacist and physical therapist) that were not happy in their career.
Absolutely. Apprenticeships like the ones you posted are awesome. My previous employer had apprenticeships for kids just out of HS to get IT certifications, and many of those kids were later hired if they were good. The problem we found was recruiting kids. High schools wanted nothing to do with the program, all they wanted was to push college educations. I feel fortunate that I went to an agricultural high school, which really pushed students to explore their interests in different fields. The more exposure people have to different fields the better off they are IMO. The state tech schools allow kids to try a bunch of different trades their first few semesters to allow them to get a feel for what their interests are.
 
College should be affordable because an educated society is a civilized society.
I was waiting for you to say an armed society is a civil society.

In some aspects that might be farther from the truth as we saw that young man from Colorado who had I believe a masters or was working on a PhD cause all that chaos at a movie theater in Colorado during a Batman movie premiere. Sometimes we've got these people who think they're so smart and then they go before a Navy Admiral concerned over a island "flipping over". As far as jobs and education I would honestly say if you love the job that you're doing, you're good at it, and you can't see yourself doing anything else then regardless of where the money is at you will find a way to make it work. As my dad a Vietnam Navy veteran once said to me, "if everybody went and did the same thing then everybody would end up and be at the same place". Everyone on here and around the world has a job and a meaningful purpose we just have to find it. We may find it in our twenties or in our fifties but that's the journey we call life 🧬.
 
I feel an educated individual is a more well rounded individual. I keep running into these dropouts who either dropped out of grade school, jr high, or high school, and they can’t even complete a sentence without dropping f-bombs with every other word. Just total and complete uneducated Neanderthals. Women as we’ll a show men. They’re immature and can’t get their sh** together.
 
Here's the dirty little secret. Sports programs lose money for virtually every university/college if mandatory student fees for those programs are subtracted. At some unis those fees can be in the thousands per year. TV rights and other such infusions of money don't put those programs in the black if student fees are deducted.

There is no good reason for sportsball to have the influence it does within higher education. Any student who chooses a uni because it has a "great" football or basketball program is an idiot. Any alumni who earmarks contributions to his alma mater for sportsball is likewise an idiot. We worship people who can throw or kick a ball far too much while STEM majors do without and drop out.

That is one of the reasons uni in the US costs so much. Take out sportsball, and uni would be cheaper. Foreign universities do not subsidize massive stadiums and coaches' salaries. Think about this when you wonder about costs and student debt.
I won't even try to connect the two, but a walking zombie that can swim fast is a shoe in at the best colleges in my state, whereas a straight A bilingual (learned from scratch in school) student with extracurricular activities, clubs, etc and a high SAT score is not.

Couple that with our state's (and maybe others?) dumbing down of the acceptance rate for low performing counties and you've got quite literally the unfolding of "Idiocracy".
 
I feel an educated individual is a more well rounded individual. I keep running into these dropouts who either dropped out of grade school, jr high, or high school, and they can’t even complete a sentence without dropping f-bombs with every other word. Just total and complete uneducated Neanderthals. Women as we’ll a show men. They’re immature and can’t get their sh** together.
So, uneducated people use profanity to get their point across?

Can’t complete a sentence without it?

They’re Neanderthals?
 
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