There is something very, very wrong with the distribution of wealth.

[hedgehog]

30 years ago, it was possible to get a summer job and earn enough to attend the University at Buffalo (a state school) if you were willing to commute from home. Today that is impossible. The NS Regent's scholarship would actually cover the full tuition. That doesn't happen now. Back then, a very simple computer cost as much as my parents' house. Today a much more powerful computer is going for less than $1000. The first hand held calculator went for $700, now it is $10. I don't think professors are being paid outlandishly more now than they were then.

[SheilaT]

1. Recently I explained just that

to my college attending son, and he found it almost unbelievable that in my youth a summer job would pay tuition, fees, and books at a public university.

The cost of attending public colleges and universities has been systematically shifted to the students, rather than being supported by taxpayers. This is all a result of the Reagan Revolution, when government became the bad guy, and all taxes became bad.

[Lost in CT]

2. How much do you think government loan programs and grants

have contributed to this outrageous inflation in higher education?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. I argue this all the time.

Pell grants are a waste of money. They're a greenlight to college presidents to raise tuition and nothing more. It's free, guaranteed cash for them under the guise of making college "affordable".

[Greyhound]

12. Don't forget that they are also an enormously lucrative corporate welfare program

for the banks and associated financial institutions.

[hedgehog]

6. As long as people could scrape by with loans and grants, they

think the problem is theirs and not the system's.

Hmm, save for the kids' college, save for your retirement, pay off your mortgage, and do all that on a stagnant wage.

[rrneck]

3. I can't say from experience

since it's been a while since I was in college, but while the cost of higher education has been shifted to students, lots of services relating to college have been privatized as well.

Wasn't there a scandal a year or so ago about predatory lending in college loans? And as I recall textbooks have become ungodly expensive for no reason in the last few years. That's not to mention the invasion of fast food chains at the food courts of colleges and universities.

Sounds like another example of the corporate pickpocket shuffle.

[n2doc]

4. It is worth noting that most "State" Universities get next to nothing in State support

In Virginia the U. of Virginia gets about 9% of it's operating funds from the state. University of Oregon is similar, and many State universities get less than 25% from their state governments. This is one reason why tuition has gone up so much. UVa discussed going private but the State owns all the buildings so it wasn't practical.

[sweetpotato]

7. There is something else to consider that I haven't seen mentioned

I work for the same university that I graduated from waaaaaaaaay back in the stone ages of 1983.

Tuition was affordable back then. You actually could work a summer job and be able to pay for school.

Today - not so much. I don't see how parents can afford to send their kids to this school - and it is a state supported university. I'm old enough to have kids in college, and I sure as heck couldn't afford to send them here.

But the one thing that I haven't seen addressed in all this talk about how much school costs - the facilities.

When I was in college here - it wasn't uncommon for several of the buildings to be non-air conditioned. This is the deep south. It is HOT and HUMID here. Unless you were an upperclassman, you could not be guaranteed a dorm room with air conditioning.

Also - there was a cafeteria where we could eat and a snack bar to get burgers and fries.

Today - I look around at the plushness of the campus. When I have questioned why do we need to make our dormitories like fancy apartments and I've been told that the students - as consumers - expect plush dorm rooms, wireless access (we had a plug in corded phone with no answering machine!) and a large selection of eateries on campus, including chain fast food places.

The idea of treating students as CONSUMERS has changed the look and feel of college campuses, in my opinion. When I was in school - granted, in the dark ages - students weren't catered to as I am seeing today.

I'm not sure, but I think upgrading campuses to attract students to the plush surroundings has caused a financial problem. Unfortunately, its going to be extremely difficult to change the attitudes back to "starving college student."

[hedgehog]

8. I suspect that the level of plushness depends on how close the

tuition is to tuition at a private college. My kids are roomed in cement block buildings sharing a room that was originally designated a single.

[rrneck]

14. One of the biggest

selling points at the graduate school I went to was the splended new "fitness center". Olympic sized pool, two floors of weight machines, raquetball courts, and padded running track. It was one of the largest buildings on campus.

[Warpy]

9. Inflation of tuition wouldn't be that big a problem

if wages hadn't been depressed for over 30 years.

That's the real problem. Our wages have been based on inflation in goods produced overseas, not the goods and services produced here. Health care, housing, and universities all seem to be inflating more quickly than anything else only because they're reflecting domestic inflation. Our paychecks have reflected the lack of inflation in overseas goods.

We've been robbed for a lifetime. It has to stop.

[slackmaster]

10. The same shift has happened in California

When I started my undergraduate work at UC San Diego, the resident registration fee was $158 per quarter. A typical undergraduate spent more on books and supplies than on fees. Now I believe it's close to $3,000 per quarter.

Did New York have some kind of taxpayer rebellion like California did? I thought taxes in the Empire State were pretty high. (California's are the highest in terms of rates paid by working middle-class people, and about 10th per capita if you include people who don't pay taxes.)

[MedleyMisty]

11. That's why I laugh when I see Baby Boomers telling people my age and younger

to just go to college so we won't have to get our hands dirty with awful low-paying hard work.

Maybe college was affordable back then, but it's not now. Personally I think one of the major reasons why my husband and I were able to buy a house last year is that we didn't graduate from a four year school so we don't have student loans weighing us down.

[hedgehog]

15. What's really bad is that jobs like welder and machinist are increasingly requiring

an associates degree with accompanying student loans. Wages haven't gone up to reflect the better education required!

[Hello_Kitty]

13. It used to be that public universities were supposed to be affordable

In my state of Arizona, it's in our constitution that colleges, universities, and trade schools are supposed to be "as close to free as possible". The past few years of budget cuts have caused tuitions to skyrocket and when this was challenged in court, the judge found the tuitions to be constitutionally valid because they were still in the bottom 3rd of the country. :grr: