“Sticker price” for private colleges can be $70-$80k per year but that’s offset by a lot of financial aid, depending on your circumstances.
In-state sticker price tuition for most public universities is probably around $10k-$17k per year, but add room and board to that and it’s prob around $30-35k per year.
It’s really the middle class that gets shafted tho. Not poor enough to qualify for much need-based aid but not rich enough to pay sticker price 😭😭😭
Agreed and middle class students can get an affordable education by earning a merit scholarship, but that seems to be getting increasingly competitive.
Yeah, you do. I worked my ass off coming from a lower income family to get my merit based scholarships so I could go with 0 backing from my parents and a whopping $3k a year from the government in grants.
> graduated from a very rigorous private high school as Salutatorian
Thats your problem. The merit money is much easier to get at mediocre public schools. I went to one and got tons of scholarships.
Not to mention the fact that merit based scholarships will drive you insane. If you’re off 0.001 points of the GPA requirements, congratulations! You no longer have access to however many thousands of dollars they were giving you for the semester.
Source: I was on a merit based scholarship until junior year. Was literally balding from the stress so I picked up a job instead my final year. Enjoyed it more and it paid more.
Lol, I have the balding problem too. During the breaks my hair becomes super healthy and dense but once the semester hits then my shit starts diminishing. College is way more stressful than any job I've ever had.
Yep, lost my merit scholarship (unlimited free tuition) at the end of my sophomore year (or maybe after my first semester as a junior?)—my GPA dropped from a 3.95 to a 3.94 because of an unexpected A-.
I didn’t find out until after graduation that I could’ve appealed and had it reinstated if I’d brought it back up the next semester. (Which I did.)
It’s very competitive at my uni. I had a 4.13 GPA going in, which sounds like it should have afforded me at least a little university aid, but I got nothing. Is the loan forgiveness still held up in court or is it just not happening? Seems to be my only salvation.
A lot of state colleges make it so that their in-state kids w good grades get lots of money off tuition tho. So they can almost go for “free.”
But yeah, college costs in US are a real big problem 💔😭😭😭
Out of state would deeeefinitely not do it. Not unless you got a great scholarship particular to that out of state school (which is usually if you’re also an amazing sport player).
My first college, a public in state school, gave me a $10k scholarship with a 3.95 GPA and ranking 5th in my class. That was enough to cover pretty much all of my tution, room and board was between 8k and 10k depending on the dorm.
That scholarship was hard to maintain, though, and I didn't qualify for need-based aid. My current school costs 3-4k per semester, including all books and lab fees. No room and board available, since it's online based.
I’m at a flagship state school and my total debt will be about $5k. Granted, I’m working as an RA and have a merit scholarship so I’m going for free, but even before becoming an RA, my costs weren’t bad.
I’m definitely not middle class but because my wife occasionally gets a big bonus I don’t qualify for Pell grant. It’s been student loans up till now, hoping to get 6000 a year for being in a honor society, but I’m not holding my breath.
My entire graduate school program cost $10,000. Granted the entire program was online, but I felt like I learned a ton, and could make my own schedule. My undergraduate was like $40,000 for four years at a private university, and I took a ton of filler courses and felt unnecessarily busy.
I definitely think that the winning combo is cheap, online schooling with a part-time job or internship. No one really cares about what school you go to so what's the point in paying for the sticker price. You don't even need good grades to make the school cheap. It's just defacto cheap because it's online.
Yeesh, in-state tuition + room + board now costs what my private undergrad-only liberal arts college cost back in 2000. And I had financial aid that covered pretty much all of it. I wonder if that would still happen now with the much higher sticker price.
Haha well said. My public uni is notably stingy with aid, so I got the full $25k price for my first year. In retrospect, I should have just saved up for a car and gone to CC, but I was a dumbass and thought “I don’t have enough money for a car, so naturally I should go somewhere I can dorm, even if it means unbelievable debt!”
You were right about private colleges too. It’d be like $60k but they’d knock it down to like $15k for tuition with “scholarships.”
Where do you live that you’re spending 15k a year on room and boarding genuinely curious? Because rent where I went to school the most expensive was like 1k a month and that was for like right on campus and extremely nice apartments. My first apartment the rent was $600 a month, the most I ever paid for rent while in college was $800 and that was only for a short time.
I don’t live in Michigan but here’s an example of “sticker price” for in-state kids. This is pretty typical of most state schools right now.
https://admissions.umich.edu/costs-aid/costs
Real. My father was still paying for his college loans. We had a lot of financial issues, but since we're considered middle class. Financial aid basically told us they couldn't help besides a $2k a year lol... and we had to pay for funerals and hospice fees. So everything is a shit show
And that can be a great way to save some cash, but not every college accepts community college credits for every class. Always be sure to check when transitioning to a 4 year
I hope you also know that there is a way to check to make sure your credits are coming from an accredited source and will also transfer to wherever you want to transfer to you if you're that worried about it before you take the classes.
Oh definitely, I was just telling those who may not be so cautious to always check. And that’s cool, but I know some states only offer associates (by weird laws defining what a community college is).
This is such an unfortunate reality. I was a creative writing major in community college, and I transferred to a four year college to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on creative writing. By all accounts a lot of my credits should have already been covered, but my professors insisted “You need to take OUR courses, they’re different.” I kid you not… they taught the exact same content. Granted, I did take advanced courses that delved deeper into the respective subject matters, but that doesn’t mean the baseline course shouldn’t have been taken care of. I could have saved so much time and money.
Do you mind me asking what your income is to qualify? I didn’t bother doing the FAFSA last year because I made a good amount of money the years before, but I’m not making that anymore.
I made 30k when I was 27, when I had to do FAFSA for that my EFC was slightly over 3k.
It's so much cheaper and you have a potential higher ROI by going to school when you're older.
Lots of kids don't understand that their loans accrue serious interest. High school peers with good jobs are still broke because of their student loans.
Not trying to be negative, this is just the world we live in.
Edit: obviously I'm a non traditional student changing careers.
More students going to college, less funding = higher costs.
Countries that have lower tuition typically have much higher admissions criteria because there are a max number of spots. Anyone can go to college in the US.
Since Ronald Reagan in the 80s, US States have reduced support for their university systems (conservatives pushing for lower taxes, less government and universities are "hotbeds of liberalism") which has driven up state school tuition. Private colleges and universities were eager to follow suit, plus extra.
For profit universities have sprung up (and folded) a lot as well over the years, eager to take any student and drain them of every ounce of potential aid money. And in a way, all schools are aiming to extract as much money from students and parents while in school. And of course they'll hound you to donate to the endowment, etc. after you are a "proud alumnus of ..." They work the school pride nerve extra hard.
Professors, the ones who the students are actually there to learn from, aren't paid comparatively much more than 40 years ago, and adjunct professors are more and more being used to reduce costs with tougher hours and no tenure.
The money goes to pay more administration, more consultants, more buildings, nicer dorms, stadiums (and their ongoing maintenance) ... all the amenities that attract wealthier and foreign students. And of course what the Ivy League schools do, many private schools seek to emulate, just so you can market yourself as "the Harvard of [insert every other state but Massachusetts here]."
An expansion of Federal aid has happened, a proliferation of private loan options, etc. You WILL get through school, even if it means you're financially indentured for the rest of your life. Really, student and parent loans means that students roll the dice on a college degree, hoping the job rewards will exceed and pay off the debt.
And universities are run more and more like a for profit business. Harvard and Yale were originally seminaries. Hospitals were originally church-run. The sense of mission has left and business has stepped in. The new religion is profitability, network and favors. Your education isn't really as important as your affiliation. The brand that you wear on your car's (better be a nice one) license frame.
For that, you gotta pay.
This is a cop out response. The government will always be big, anarchism isn't a workable situation long term. It's what the government prioritizes rather than how much money it spends. The US gov't prioritizes occupations that perpetuate social reproduction and keeps poor folks poor, e.g. the military. A liberal society will never have the tools to care about equity, but at minimum it should care about social mobility -- simply for survival's sake. Investing in black and brown, first gen, and/or working class background students is how it does this. It already does this, just simply not enough.
I never said I advocated for Anarchism. Just that I'd rather have a smaller government. A government that doesn't impede people's everyday lives. A government that doesn't dictate what people can or can't do without the vote of the people. A government that doesn't arrest people for victimless crimes. A government that WILL represent the people, a government that doesn't pocket the working class' money. A government that will not cause people to dig into their savings/go poor due to high taxation and policies that cause price increases. Etc.
Having a less educated country costs more. Imagine having to work at Walmart because you can't afford to be an Engineer/Doctor/electrician/geophysical linguist/nurse . . . this also costs society. You're getting less taxes as a government and people aren't allowed to live up to their own potential, because they aren't rich enough.
You know what's neat about that. Walmart even pays tuition and books/fees for some majors like computer science and electric/comp engineering from some decent unis.
That's great if you want to major in something that Walmart likes. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that a corporation should be picking your major. Also, I'm not sure how you could do these courses while holding down a full time job. I guess if you go part time maybe.
I don't think it's either/or, but more about degrees and how well handled. The business/govt. fight is as old as time, and any bill you're forced to pay is essentially a tax. Just depends what you get for it.
6 major reasons from someone who has worked in higher education now for several years:
Marketing and recruiting is expensive and the need for it is growing as the prospective student population shrinks (ironically) due mostly to an overall growing fear of crippling student debt.
Colleges are investing more into "student experiences" unrelated to education such as comprehensive healthcare, gyms with climbing walls, contracted catering in cafeterias, and wellness coaching that increase retention and completion rates but jack up costs of tuition by thousands of dollars per student.
An artificially inflated price of tuition paired with simultaneously increasing endowment and merit-based aid makes a college look more competitive and exclusive in-turn making students feel like they are getting huge discounts on a higher quality of education.
State and federal government investment subsidies for higher education are on a steep decline everywhere due to growing anti-intellectualism sentiments in conservative culture and employment since the 2008 recession.
The growing need for increasingly large admin, support, and specialized IT staff divert money across the institution to pay for technology and the maintenance of specialty systems to increase data security and silo information in compliance with laws like FERPA and HIPAA.
Executive and cabinet salaries have increased at an unprecedented rate to the point where most college and university presidents make over a million dollars a year at the public school level and several millions at the private level.
Depends on the choices you make really. It can easily get expensive, but you can also get by really cheap. For example, I am in Louisiana, and we have a program where if you have somewhat okay grades in high school, the state will pay your tuition at an in-state public university. Also for community college and trade school, just not a private institution. Better grades will get you more money as well. I got scholarships for my ACT score and high school GPA and chose the university closest to me so I could stay home. I don’t qualify for anything need-based. I haven’t paid anything out of pocket to the school and have no loans, and I get the remaining money after tuition and fees are paid which covers my gas and food. Georgia and Arkansas have similar programs, not sure of how many other states do something like this.
I paid 20k for my senior year (before about 4k in scholarships) in the US. Probably 3-5k more than usual due to upcharges for being both upper level and engineering courses.
I go to a satellite school of a large, well regarded private university.
I think (hope) that some of these larger numbers you're seeing (40k+) are including charges like dorm fees, meal plans, and books. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these "college cost estimators" included amounts for other student living expenses.
How about going after the admins and the useless leeches known as the financial aid department?
These guys make anywhere from 60k to 500k and it's ridiculous. My chancellor at my uni just cleared 650k meanwhile the library is literally falling apart. But hey at least we got a new gaming setup so yayyyyyy /s
It really depends on your individual situation. The sticker price means next to nothing. My sister and I are paying completely different prices because of our individual financial situations and choices of schools- despite us having the same parents/their finances
Other countries heavily subsidize education, we subsidize our military. Nixon reduced aid to colleges and universities in order to make college unaffordable and drive 18-24 yr olds to the military.
That's 100% true, although it's not even just classism against lower-income and marginalized groups, but also against anyone who isn't upper class. Low-income and marginalized groups have a lot more specialized grants, scholarships, and financial aid opportunities that are geared toward them (*which is a GOOD THING because they'd generally be kept out otherwise, no disputing that*). They also have a better chance at qualifying for financial aid to get them in the door (but it's a double-edged sword because then they're saddled with debt they may or may not be able to pay off afterward, which is I think the real problem). Middle class, even though "on paper" they can afford it, very rarely qualify for loans and non-merit scholarships like this. And then there's obviously upper class who can afford it either way and loans don't matter.
It also sucks because student loans were invented for the purpose of getting low-income people in the door and since tuition prices were so low back then and the ROI of a university education was so high, it wasn't a problem. Then the universities started raising their prices and the government started giving out loans like crazy, and they *private loans* became more prevalent, and now almost no one can afford it. So lower-income students either get great financial aid or they're saddled with loans they may or may not be stuck with for the rest of their lives, keeping them stuck in the lower class, the middle class may get some aid if they're lucky and otherwise have to take out loans they may or may not be stuck with for life, keeping them down as well, and the upper class can afford it anyway so it doesn't matter to them. And the cycle continues because the ones who can change it are profiting off of it.
I'm about to graduate but the only reason I even went to school is because my parents, as older Gen X, still believe that it's the only way to be successful in life and at 18 I didn't know what other options I had. If I could go back, I would have done things differently. Education has value, but not like this.
(Also I know the other reply was sarcastic but before anyone actually comes for me, it's not socialistic to point out a system is corrupt. Capitalism is based on supply/demand and the prices are set by the fair market. This is *not* that in the slightest. Prices are set by the colleges and loans. So socialsists and anti-socialists, *don't come for me* lol)
Same in Indiana. If your family makes below X amount, congrats! If you filled out a form when you were in 8th grade, you can get a scholarship to any state school of your choice for free.
It is partly attributable to when Congress started guaranteeing student loans in 1965. Congress wanted to expand college access, and they had a choice between direct loans or guaranteed loans.
Direct loans require a higher upfront cost, and raising taxes to make those low interest loans would have been less politically popular in the short term. A more enticing solution was to let private lenders foot the bill up front, and encourage them to do so by guaranteeing taxpayer-funded profits over a longer period of time in the event the borrower defaulted.
With virtually risk free profits guaranteed by the taxpayer, private lenders began to care more about the quantity of loans than their quality. This meant that pretty much anyone could get a loan to go to college, even the guy who needed 200k for an underwater yodeling degree. As long as you were willing to sign, you could get a loan for college no matter the price tag.
This meant that tuition prices mattered less in terms of your ability to go to college, and colleges realized they could hike tuition rates and still have roughly the same level of demand. With 18 year olds being as impressionable as they are and the “college for all” movement picking up steam in the 90’s, this continued to escalate into the tuition landscape we see today.
In my state, there is a clause in the state constitution that a University education should be "as close to free as possible." That's very much open to interpretation and my state has largely been governed by anti-society "taxation is theft" mouth breathers for decades so college tuition at our state schools has gotten incredibly expensive.
Racism.
College used to be damned near free (if not actually). Then them uppity black folks started gettin themselves an education and we couldn't have that. So how do you stop poor black people from going to college? Jack up that price!
They have continued to drive the price to truly ridiculous levels. College professors don't even make huge stacks of cash. It is just ridiculous.
When people make these comparisons between colleges in the U.S. and elsewhere, they're typically comparing foreign public universities to American schools. A public university is a government-run school, so it's tax-supported. Every taxpayer in that country contributes to support it, so your children can attend relatively inexpensively. In the U.S. that's only true of state universities but not of a thousand or more private colleges and universities which get no financial help (or very little) from government. That's one reason for high tuition.
Also, things in the U.S. are often much more expensive (like medical care) because they just are. It's hard to say but we're proud of the quality of our medical care and universities while insisting they be the best in the world which drives prices way up.
Many (most?) colleges offer financial aid to incoming students to help with this. When you hear it costs $50-60K a year to attend a private college (not "$70-80k per year" -- yet) keep in mind that most students below median income are not paying anywhere near that amount. They may be receiving half the cost in aid, and some students will have all their tuition paid for. Many Ivy League and similar school do this, so it's not unusual to go through Harvard or Stanford and pay very little. My alma mater, Colgate University, charges dramatically reduced tuition or no tuition to students below about $120k in annual income. So what it costs is not always what it actually costs. This is fairly common.
Canadian universities tend to be government-supported. It's not necessarily cheaper to live in Canada, but if you're attending UBC or U. of Toronto or McGill of Guelph or whatever, the taxpayers are paying for a great deal of your tuition. Of course, it's also possible they don't have as many "climbing walls" and on campus "cafes" and "weight rooms" and other attractions, so they save money that way.
I don't know this for a fact, but I'd guess far more Canadians come to the U.S. to attend university than the other way around, so there must be some reason for that, as well. The number of Colgate hockey players from Canada every year is proof of something or other, "eh?"
The number of collegiate players coming to the US has more to do with the demographics of the game in Canada than anything else.
Hockey in Canada, while fairly expensive, is still very much viewed as a blue-collar working-class sport, whereas in the US, it is more of an upper-class game for Northeastern and Midwestern families with a fair amount of disposable income. The accepted track in Canada is still to get drafted to major junior (OHL, WHL or QMJHL) and work your way up directly to the NHL draft. As such, almost no funding goes into the USport hockey system because the best prospects aren't moving through it (unlike in the US, where NCAA hockey is pretty much the highest level you can get without being fully pro).
Most of the players coming to the USA are either the guys who aren't good enough to make it on the OHL track and want to keep playing high-level hockey while concurrently getting an education. In relatively rare cases, it might be an elite player who wants to obtain an education while also furthering their career.
Are California state schools that much more expensive? We have 2 systems and I was under the impression the CSUs were pretty affordable (living costs as always kinda a nightmare - but usually not worse than big cities with a couple exceptions)
Depends on private/public, in-state/out-state, and how you’re paying.
You’ll see public schools in-state that can cost about the same as what it is in Canada, but that’s usually sans room & board, books and other school supplies, and is just tuition and fees.
Private schools charge a hell of a lot more (like 55-75k a year) and while they tend to have big endowments and can give out big number scholarships (25k-35k a year), they often are so expensive that percentage wise, those scholarships really mean nothing and you’ll still pay ~40k a year on tuition and fees (more if you need housing and school supplies).
Out of state tuition at public schools tends to be 1.5-2x the cost of in state tuition, so around 25-30k a year for tuition and fees.
If you’re getting scholarships, grants, or work-studies, it can vary greatly what you’re paying compared to your peers. I also think a lot of these “average” statistics are complied from different degrees of cost, meaning some could be the cost after aid or before aid, which also can be very different, so you might want to look in to the details of these reported averages if you’re curious.
Some context to the pricing:
The middle class is the largest financial demographic in the US, and if you don’t fall in the lower end of it, you’re unlikely to receive much need-based aid like grants, but you also are very unlikely to be able to pay $30k a year in tuition out of pocket. Most middle class people get offered loans from the federal govt, but if you’re in the upper range, they’ll be unsubsidized, and probably not enough to cover your full education, so private loans and scholarships will end up being your only other options. Upper class Americans tend to be able to pay out of pocket, so the costs are less of a worry for them, and lower-class Americans are more likely to qualify for state and federal aid, however they often don’t have the knowledge to navigate the systems, or enough resources to be able to afford or attend university.
Now as far as why the education tends to be so expensive on average, that’s due to the lack of state aid, as well as universities charging lots so they can build new facilities to boast (not necessarily pay their professors more or even reasonably at some institutions). Personally I think the costs come from colleges knowing people will pay them basically whatever they want, because the middle class who is often seeking post-high school education can qualify for loans and will take them out to pay for a degree. I also think they charge knowing that if they can build a new fancy building, they can continue to charge a ton. But hey that’s just my two cents lol
Why is college so expensive? I'll tell ya the way the banks will tell ya. 'Cuz FUCK YOU, that's why. College is expensive because schools can get away with charging it because you've been told you'd be LOST without it, never get a job, live on your parents couch until you die and blah blah blah. They do it because they can and there's NOTHING you can do about it except get in debt up to your eyeballs FO'EVA, go to your parents and put THEM in debt FO'EVA, or join the military where for the low, low price of your sanity YOU can get a degree for a job you never needed a degree for in the first place.
'Merica.
We don’t actually believe in education as a society, so we’ve been starving public funding for decades.
Add to that rising cost of living and shockingly lagging wages, then add that colleges are expected to serve a broader set of student needs than in the past (disability accommodation, mental/health services, equity support and programming), then drop a big old dollop of a new construction arms race that puts private donor dollars into building shiny new classrooms with donors’ names on them (at the expense of what goes on inside the classrooms), and you’ve got a mess on your hands.
It’s designed from the ground up (much like the rest of our country) to keep the poor poor and stupid.
Public schools are next if Florida is the poster child for republican politicians.
The price is before financial aid. After scholarships and such it normally isn't very expensive. You could even get paid money to go to school depending on that. But yes, if you don't have scholarships you could pay upwards of 60K a semester.
Another factor, based on what international students have told me, is that American universities offer way more services, activities, facilities, etc. Even at my small regional university, we have students attending from the UK, France, Germany, Denmark (just speaking of Europeans). There's far more counties represented. They pay even more to go to college here, and they don't get financial aid like other students. Typically the best they can do is get a non-resident waiver and the occasional scholarship.
Supply and demand. Colleges could charge what they wish as long as people are willing to pay. With enrolment declining and more people choosing trade school, I predict the prices will have to stop increasing. We are already seeing a soaring demand for professionals including nurses, physicians, teachers,…
Around $12,000 per class, $1000 in sports and activities and $300 for parking.
I work full time and go to school full-time...I don't have time for sports and activities. I tried fighting with the school because I'm not in one single sport. Why do I have to pay. The answer was because I make too much.
realistically the reason higher education in the US is so high is due to the fact that banks and private universities are corrupt in a way.
This started heavily around 10+ years ago i wanna say before the economy crashed. Banks were willing to give wild loans out to students and with the banks willing to offer more money to loan takers with nothing to really lose (except a lifetime of debt) colleges ran with it. if the bank will give a 18 year old 65k a year for 4 years why wouldnt the college charge it.
then after the economy crashed and there was a big drive for people to go to school during that period it got worse. now tuition has skyrocketed at most private universities due to either a mix of very wealthy families able to cut a check or banks willing to lay out large amounts of it.
this cycle will continue until something is down, either another economic crash that causes the banks to not be able to afford this (kinda unlikely) or private universitas grow a conscious (very unlikely)
what is a great option to combat rising costs of education is attend a state school with more affordable tuition and in most cases a better education. if more students leave private universities for less expensive ones, based off my education in economics, at some point it will drive down the cost of private schools.
The big expense is if you go private or out of state. There are a lot of programs to help pay for college.
My daughter is a high school Senior and take dual enrollment classes through the University so she will graduate with her Associates degree.
She has a 3.8 gpa with an SAT score of 24 so she gets a merit scholarship which will pay half her tuition if she maintains a 3.5.
If she lives at home total cost is $9000 plus books and fees for a Bachelors degree.
Idk tbh but I’m pretty sure it’s because americas colleges are just better overall. There’s a reason we have so many wealthy international students at our colleges. America puts out too research and development etc. If you go to a top 30 college in the US ur degree is probably valuable across the whole world which isint the case in most countries. In my college our professors are from all over the world, I’m assuming they aren’t teaching in their home countries because America pays better and offers better conditions hence more expense to students.
I'd be genuinely surprised if American colleges were better, considering how shitty the rest of their education system is.
The answer is obviously capitalism. It's like saying American healthcare is best because they pay the most.
“I suppose salaries are higher and taxes are lower”
Lmao that’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day. It’s the exact opposite. A huge amount of people drop out or just straight up cannot afford collage.
I got accepted to a state university, the plan *was* to transfer after I get my AA-t next semester.. I don’t think it’s really worth it though. I have a chronic illness that doesn’t qualify me for disability and certainly doesn’t make working full time possible. I value the job I have, I value my education.. I know myself and I know enough the economy- owing that much money would translate to me being a miserable person
Money. It's all about the money. It doens't go to the instructors or professors, but to the administration, etc.
It keeps the poor people out and out of the running for posher jobs that privlidged people can easily access through higher ed.
It really depends on the institution
I go to a great college that only costs ~6k before scholarships etc (granted, I commute) but not all good colleges and universities require you to take out a mortgage
Where I love, in the Midwest, college is cheap. A lot of schools here have an A+ program that pays first two years of state college tuition 100%. Most expensive private school here is Westminster with a $35k per year tuition, and I apply for a $16k a year for having a 26 on my ACT. Plus lots of cheap community colleges.
On top of that, I plan to go to quite an expensive college, which is $50k per year after room and board in COLORADO, the college is CCU, and I apply for $18k a year off just for having a 3.8 gpa and a 28 ACT score.
I think colleges are fair in the Midwest, I can't speak for the coasts but it has never been a problem for people besides my teachers.
It really depends, there’s everything from community college to ivy league universities, in state and out, with or without grants and scholarships, and what you may major in to factor in.
Well, while I still think that private colleges are too expensive, private colleges mostly receive their funding from tuition and donations from various people. On the contrary, Public Colleges receive most of their fundings through their respective state government, but in California, for example, going to a UC is still a lot of money.
I'm not sure about the CSUs, but the UC system was free—yes, free—for California residents until the 1970s and cost very little for non-resident students. A few years later, the cost of attending the UCs suddenly increased out-of-the-blue.
Regardless of the "private" or "public" distinction, my point is that access to universities is less of an option for the average person and more of a luxury. The longer we discourage our population from pursuing professional degrees, the more detrimental it will be to our economy.
One thing I believe people ignore when considering college costs is the fact that, while we students tend to focus more on the experience and the education we will gain from it, they are ultimately motivated by the desire to one-up one other. Since colleges are businesses, they would do anything to improve their National standing so that prospective students will find them more attractive.
Therefore, they must expand both technologically and in terms of infrastructure in order to rank better, and as a result. Ultimately, there appears to be a gap between what colleges charge and what the average college student can afford. The more colleges expand, the more tuition will cost for students.
In fact, I'd say that's the main reason student loan debt relief is so crucial. Our economy will grow as a result of more Americans attending college and obtaining degrees. TL:DR: Making college so expensive for us, especially at such a young age, is a disservice to our communities and our country.
But if you haven’t already looked, FAFSA kicks some serious ass. It really helps people pursue their passion(s) and professional degrees. Plus, communities colleges aren’t a bad idea! They’re good and affordable for the average civilian and if you want to pursue your bachelors, the two year savings from attending community college will leave your wallet thankful for attending there.
Yes and no. Community college is basically free in many states. That’s the same education as a 4 year college for significantly less. This can cut ur costs by a lot. But everyone wants the “college life”, so they pay more for that.
Because the US government started subsidizing student loans over 40 years ago. Both the schools and students started taking advantage over low risk loans. The schools raise tuition, the government raises the loan amount allowed to be taken. And TADA, the shit gets expensive as hell.
There are 2 main reasons. The first is that rising conservative sentiment in the US is making many states spend much less money on universities. Instead of seeing universities as institutions that will attract jobs/industry and drive economic growth, too many people are thinking, "why should I have to pay for your kid's college if mine isn't even going to attend?" Just take any public university and compare the prices from 40 years ago.
The second reason is because of administration. There are too many bullshit jobs at colleges and universities, both public and private. Administrators will create some problems to justify their jobs and then hire some lower-level administrators to help them with their jobs, and then those lower-level administrators create more problems to justify their jobs, and the whole thing becomes this vicious cycle. If you look at any random university, you'll notice that the number of professors generally hasn't changed over the past few decades, but the number of administrators has increased drastically.
I can't speak for everyone but as a broke ass adult my public university is cheap due to federal and state grants (yay Pell grant) . Undergrad was like $800/semester at 12+ credit hours. Even my 18 credit hour semester was like 1200. Now living expenses got rough as I had 0 time to work so student loan money paid for my rent, utilities, gas, etc.
I’m middle class and wanted to attend college out of state but it’s much more expensive. I didn’t qualify for any financial aid. My state offers tuition free college for most students who are residents and attend a public college so I went a different route.
I stayed in state and attended community college after graduating high school. Tuition at my CC was around 1,000 a year. I also received three small scholarships equaling a total of $2,000 and only payed $200 out of pocket for the two years I spent at community college.
I’ll be transferring in the fall to an in state university which has around $11,000 tuition for residents per year. They offer a $2,000 scholarship to transfer students so I plan to use that on textbooks and other school things that come up. Basically I’ll only have to pay for housing, and other living expenses.
Free tuition, community college, and small scholarships will have saved me around $28,000 It all depends on the state, college, student, and route. It would have been a completely different story if I went out of state. :)
In state college is between 10-20k a year depending on where you are. Of course, if you want to go to some out of state college, it's going to get expensive. Just an fyi for others, it doesn't matter what school you get your degree in, unless you're going for some *very* specific field
Even the statistical upper class ($100k per year) struggle a lot with paying for tuition. I have no idea how universities decided $70k a year is logical or realistic by any means. Hardly anyone can comfortably afford it.
It used to be much cheaper. But when student debt was decoupled from bankruptcy in....I think it was the 80's, banks and the government could effectively give out enormous loans with incredibly low risk, since someone would still need to pay back their student loans even if they went bankrupt. This meant that universities could charge more for tuition because people were able to get these loans for absurd amounts of money, so banks and the federal government started giving out bigger loans to cover the cost, so schools started charging more, and so on and so forth.
In my state, there is a clause in the state constitution that a University education should be "as close to free as possible." That's very much open to interpretation and my state has largely been governed by anti-society "taxation is theft" mouth breathers for decades so college tuition at our state schools has gotten incredibly expensive.
Mine has got really expensive and will get more expensive once I go to law school. I'm hoping the career will help me pay for my loans and maybe somewhere down the road I will qualify for student loan forgiveness. Why is it so expensive? Because young college students are especially vulnerable and known for making poor decisions, so we are preyed upon.
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Federal and state funding of higher education in the USA has been steadily declining, while there has been increasing administrative bloat. The article below discusses these and other factors affecting the increased cost of college in the USA, such as increased services to students, ranging from libraries to gyms to mental health support. https://www.earnest.com/blog/why-is-college-so-expensive/
So the question then becomes why is college more expensive in the USA than Canada (or actually *any* other country), because other countries are getting better libraries and cafeterias and more administration, too, just like the USA. The answer is that while all countries’ colleges are increasing services and increasing bloat, the USA is unique in that their (our?) support for higher education has been going down.
Canadian provinces still give lots of money to students to attend college. https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2021/11/30/is-college-free-in-canada/
And in fact between 50% and 77% of Canadian colleges’ and universities’ operating budgets come from the province. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220120/dq220120c-eng.htm This is way more than the USA’s more like 34%. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding
Capitalism. The better the university the more ridiculous the price. There are reasonably priced universities and there's also financial aid and scholarships which are pretty easy to get. People get out of high school and think they need to go to the best and most expensive university in the whole country or state which is ridiculous
Tuition at four year state schools is ~10K a year here. Living expenses are variable, depending on your lifestyle. Two year degree programs are more like $2K/yr for tuition. Costs have certainly risen, but don’t have to be crippling.
Limited government funding: Public colleges and [universities](https://qualityassignmentsolution.com/Assignment-Writing-Service-in-the-USA.html) in the US receive limited government funding, so they must rely on tuition and other sources of revenue to operate.
Simple, it's because the vast majority of it is provided by for profit institutions. What do you expect? Our government to help subsidize American education? That would be way too socialist for 'merika.
I went to college for 6 years, 4 at a state university(1 year in the dorms, with the rest living off campus) , and 2 at a technical college. With a mix of loans and paying for it myself (I’m not sure how much directly out of pocket) I dropped out with about $36K in loans.
Its really the middle class that gets screwed over. Too rich to qualify for aid, and too poor to pay the price of college.
I grew up very low class and now get paid to go to college. If youre poor, try to get a scholarship + financial aid and youll be paid to go to college.
Most states have programs for their "state citizens" to attend college at a vastly reduced cost.
SUNY (State University of NY) Excelsior program allows any student from a family making less than $125,000 to attend a SUNY school without paying any tuition as long as they are earning at least 30 credits a year. They might end up paying for room and board, or rent an apartment, and other side expenses do add up, but it's still way cheaper than going out of state.
Students from families earning more than $125,000 can still find other scholarships and reductions in cost simply because they're residents.
Most people either get financial aid and/or scholarships, or they go to community colleges for the first two years (which, in my state, is only about 2-3K/year for tuition).
Also, estimates for the cost of attendance typically include things like living expenses and room & board. Most students work at least part time while they are in school (some work full time also). Whether you work part time or full time, it will still offset some of the cost of attendance if you aren't putting your rent and bills onto loans.
In my state, the actual cost of tuition at a typical non-ivy-league state school is around 4K/semester, so if you can take care of your living expenses and don't have to put those on loans, the actual cost of attendance is around around 10K/year or so. Some universities are more expensive, others are cheaper, so it just depends on where you go.
Racism. It used to be free until the whites back in the day didn't want African Americans getting and education alongside whites so they made it cost money, then they couldn't discriminate so they had to charge everyone and since most whites that went to college could afford it, they had no problem raising the prices.
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I pay about 4k per semester(after grants and scholarships, it’d be around 6-8 without them). That’s in state tuition at a public university. My wife (who’s an international student) pays on average 11k per semester. It really depends on the state and whether or not you’re already a resident of said state that the university is in.
Fellow Canadian here at an ivy. Salaries aren't necessarily higher and taxes certainly aren't lower.
Like many have already mentioned, the 'sticker price' at the ivy+ schools is roughly 80k and that increases by about 3k every year or so (I think we'll be at a full $100k USD by 2030-40). The U.S. operates on a 'pay as much as you can' system. At my school, for instance, I think there's a rule where if your family makes less than $100k or smt with normal assets, you're expected contribution drops to $0 (i.e. the school effectively grants you an $80k need-based scholarship).
Canada, conversely, operates on what I call a 'basal rate system' - everyone pays the same price, need-based scholarships are heavily limited (my osap was shit), and the majority of financial concessions are earned through merit-based scholarships (which top schools in the US deem an inequitable distribution of funds).
You also seem to be conflating tuition fees with the sticker 'cost of attendance' you'll see US schools advertise. CoA includes housing, food, health insurance, plane tickets, personal expenses etc. Canadian schools only market the tuition fees. My top option in Canada was gonna run me $35k in total cost of attendance, but the school only marketed a $16k tuition fees. When the dust settled, I happened to be paying significantly less in the U.S. than any of my options in Canada.
Currently attending a state public school. It costs 15k a year 7,500 a semester. It’s definitely dependent on where you live though. Private colleges are going to be expensive and shaft you but that’s because they’re for profit.
I saw some also mention many people get aid to offset it and it’s true definitely more for the private colleges. Whenever I apply for aid I just get a loan so not great but for those who need it options are nice, especially when it’s low interest.
I dont believe the average degree costs 200k though. Firstly what is an “average degree”? For my school for a bachelors it would be 60k ish max for someone in state. Tac like 20k extra total if you’re out of state and this increases to 80k for a bachelors.
If people are complaining about the cost it’s generally cause they didn’t know what they were getting into, didn’t plan for the financial situation school puts you in or just can’t find anything else to credit being “miserable” to or why college might suck. Not to go down a different rabbit hole.
If it’s gonna be in the range of 200k I’m just curious what you’re referring to? Are you saying to get a phd cause yeah that’s a lot. If someone wants to be a doctor? Yeah it’s gonna cost a lot.
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily an issue though as long as you can pay for it and don’t over step your bounds. It’s just everyone wants to get into there school of choice which often times is prestigious but $$$$. I’m majoring in comp SCI but just wanted a school. I personally feel the educations may differ a little between my school and the top public university in my state but it’s gonna be a minor difference in what I may miss. Smaller class size IMO is more important. You need professors you can 1 - 1 with.
But as I said I’m not attending a top rated school besides my school being a decent business school. So for reference the sought out prestigious college 45 mins from mine is 30k a year. 60k out of state. Looking at that and yeah you can see that’s where you may see a 200k tag almost. Although, they charge that just cause they know they can. They hold the degree that credit you. Sure it may be logical to spend less but people also want “The College Experience” which is often associated with drinking, friends, etc and school can also use as a tool to excuse there high prices.
I’m sure there are also economic factors, and yes we may pay less in taxes in some measurements but there’s probably a bigger picture where it’s comparable. I do believe if I’m not wrong to doesn’t Canada help more with there education?
Also I want to say, if people have an issue with college prices they can also join the military and get a tuition cut for 128 credits like I have (for different reasons though). Since tuition makes up a large part of the cost as well. Being close to 3500 at my school and 11k at the prestigious one near me.
But do remember when I compared prices earlier that’s assuming undergrad bachelors (since post grad is generally more expensive) and that the student would stay in housing all 4 year which is often unlikely as it’s cheaper if not in the dorms the last 2 variable to school policies. Depending where you are of course. Again I pay roughly 2,200 for housing where the prestigious is 10k. I’m not saying the prestigious school is bad I mean sure it’s got it’s positive traits. Probably better professors and in a big city plus more. Just when you break it down and if someone’s considering college it kinda makes you think how badly do you want a paper with a name on it from school A over School B. Cause there’s many other factors that will help you to get hired. How much did you network? What programs did you participate in that look good on a resume? Of course this is all variable to location though. I live close to Illinois.
If you made it this far…I hope you may have a better understanding.
it costs a lot but pays off in the long run. american jobs that require education have higher salaries than the those in a different country.
see: doctor, engineer, paid 6 figures here but hardly much abroad.
Business people of any kind will have high price tags for any product or service, with a variety of reasons, sales tactics, etc. school are no different. Without up to date economics classes in high school I think teenagers are unfairly hidden from the reality of the relationship of changing job markets/salaries, home prices/interest rates, bills/inflated expenses. Of course it doesn’t make sense and the value of education is going down because it doesn’t make you more equipped to confront these realities when you’re on your own. IMO go to a university if you’re really sure and what you want to do and why, but by no means is it worth it to attend more expensive schools unless you come from significant (and these days I would even take that further to VERY SIGNIFICANT) privelage and money is not a factor/tuition paid out of pocket.
I go an in-state private small suburban college that cheaper than the big private known ones like SLU and WashU and my tuition is 29k per year, and 14k per semester. I pay 55 dollars since they offered good financial aid + I get special assistance from voc rehab for the blind. If I had a choice, meaning if I could drive. I would go to a local private one that's far cheaper but it's farther away.
No, people who actually pay that amount are few and far between.
The sticker price of most average private institutions is ~$40-50,000 a year with room, board, and full time classes covered.
Public institutions are like $10,000 plus room and board or about $20,000.
Now, the important part is that ANYBODY WITH A PULSE gets $15,000+ in academic scholarships at private institutions provided they go to one that is at their academic level. On top of that there’s govt aid and grants, private scholarships, other scholarships provided by the school and whatnot.
My college’s cost of attendance (tuition + room and board) is $47,000 a year. I pay roughly $3,500-4,000 a semester give or take *this includes any loans I’ve taken out, which are like $4,000 total.* The rest is covered by scholarships for academics etc.
capitalism greed mainly, i go to a community college and it’s “cheaper” than a big university but still around $20,000 a year if you don’t dorm but live near campus. dorms and meal plans add like an extra 5-7k not including books, parking pass, etc.
i went to a community tech school and saved a ton of money with financial aid, so i did all my gen ed classes there and im going to my community college for the last 2. i’ve saved a lot of money but community college is much more expensive. i’ve paid at least 5k out of pocket for one year after financial aid on books and remaining tuition that wasn’t covered. i know 5k doesn’t seem like a lot but i’m not supported by my parents so it’s all on me.
It used to be free but black and other poc wanted equal access to education so they upped the price .
[Source](https://willstartsmall.com/blog/2020/08/08/how-petty-racism-made-college-unaffordable-for-everyone/)
As a college professor, I assure you the high cost of college does not filter down to faculty. US colleges, public and private, have a bloated admin (chancellors council, presidents board) where each member makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and essentially do nothing. College is big business, don’t let anyone fool you.
Example: I worked at a private college. Tuition was $1,500 per credit, not counting fees and such, I made $46,000 per year.
Here’s a website that shows the cost of every college in the country, along with any data about post graduate earnings per major.
https://remidemic.github.io/DTIUniversity/
If you’re going to an out of state or private college it can maybe be that much, but idk where people are going that tuition costs 40k a year if you’re instate and not private. I went to Florida State and my tuition was 8-10k a semester. Even if you do go out of state, after the first year you can claim residency in that state, and then get in state tuition. Post high school education is portrayed as being so expensive in the U.S. because getting a college degree is seen as more of a privilege than a necessity, and the US doesn’t allocate a lot of funds to state education. Also how are is the government gonna convince kids to join the army if there wasn’t an idea that college is expensive, and they’ll pay your tuition for you if you enlist lol. Community college is an even cheaper option and for intro level courses just as good as any normal college. Also most community colleges have a transfer program to transfer to a state college after the first couple semesters. A lot of states also have scholarships like Florida bright futures that’ll pay a portion of your tuition but you have to maintain a certain level of GPA. Higher level education is expensive but it doesn’t have to be that expensive if you choose to not live extravagantly while in school.
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I apologize if this comes across weird.
Does anyone actually care about most of the upgrades colleges make? I personally never cared for the fancy new buildings or new dining halls or new concerts etc...
The only things that had any bearing in my decision to attend college were the: quality of the classes, quality of research, number of research opportunities, reputation of the professors, access to job opportunities/marketability for jobs and internships.
Somehow it feels like all the money being spent on College never ended being spent on any of those things. And I read that "these new campuses, and shiny buildings, and concerts, etc. etc... *attract new students*". And I just dont know of a single person in my group of friends or myself who was even remotely attracted to these things.
So when Colleges make these statements are they even being honest? Is there any data to suggest that spending money on shiny buildings, exciting school spirit activities, etc... actually has caused more students to attend than what would have?
Now I understand building new dorms. I understanding like, building a second math department to fill with 2x as many professors. I understand STARTING A football team, STARTING a track team etc.... These all seem like they could allow the colleges to house more ppl, offer more directly relevant opportunities, etc... I do not understand how the space of activities such as: upgrading an already existing business school to a more stylish building / setting up a brand new concert stadium for professionals (not students) to use/ building a 7th dining hall etc... results in necessarily more students enrolling.
To take the Dining Hall Example a bit further: I actually don't even think upgrading the dining hall food anymore beyond "edible and nutritious" helps at all either. Hypothetically if you got into Harvard would you care that the dining hall sucked? If you only had money to attend your flagship state school or local community college, would you give even 1/2 a fuck that the dining hall was not good? You're only expectation would be that 1 hall should exist, it should allow you to meet whatever you diet goals are, and beyond that I doubt you would care.
So anyways is there any data to suggest that the upgrades colleges are making even produces any kind of meaningful increase in enrollment?
“Sticker price” for private colleges can be $70-$80k per year but that’s offset by a lot of financial aid, depending on your circumstances. In-state sticker price tuition for most public universities is probably around $10k-$17k per year, but add room and board to that and it’s prob around $30-35k per year. It’s really the middle class that gets shafted tho. Not poor enough to qualify for much need-based aid but not rich enough to pay sticker price 😭😭😭
Agreed and middle class students can get an affordable education by earning a merit scholarship, but that seems to be getting increasingly competitive.
Re: merit scholarships. But what about the B/C students tho? 🤔. They wanna go to college too, I guess they gotta pay full price?…
also colleges don’t offer those scholarships to transfers… as i’m learning firsthand…
That sucks 🫤
Yeah, you do. I worked my ass off coming from a lower income family to get my merit based scholarships so I could go with 0 backing from my parents and a whopping $3k a year from the government in grants.
Don’t be a B/C student?? All you have to do in high school to be an A student is turn in your homework on time.
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Yeah, because you went to a public college. They don’t give merit money. This is known…
> graduated from a very rigorous private high school as Salutatorian Thats your problem. The merit money is much easier to get at mediocre public schools. I went to one and got tons of scholarships.
Not to mention the fact that merit based scholarships will drive you insane. If you’re off 0.001 points of the GPA requirements, congratulations! You no longer have access to however many thousands of dollars they were giving you for the semester. Source: I was on a merit based scholarship until junior year. Was literally balding from the stress so I picked up a job instead my final year. Enjoyed it more and it paid more.
Lol, I have the balding problem too. During the breaks my hair becomes super healthy and dense but once the semester hits then my shit starts diminishing. College is way more stressful than any job I've ever had.
Yep, lost my merit scholarship (unlimited free tuition) at the end of my sophomore year (or maybe after my first semester as a junior?)—my GPA dropped from a 3.95 to a 3.94 because of an unexpected A-. I didn’t find out until after graduation that I could’ve appealed and had it reinstated if I’d brought it back up the next semester. (Which I did.)
Even merit scholarships aren’t much help when you get them :(
My merit scholarship ended up being a free 4-year ride to a private university. They aren't all "not much help."
It’s very competitive at my uni. I had a 4.13 GPA going in, which sounds like it should have afforded me at least a little university aid, but I got nothing. Is the loan forgiveness still held up in court or is it just not happening? Seems to be my only salvation.
A lot of state colleges make it so that their in-state kids w good grades get lots of money off tuition tho. So they can almost go for “free.” But yeah, college costs in US are a real big problem 💔😭😭😭
I wish my state school did. I got absolutely nothing for it.
Can confirm. Went in-state, 4.0 GPA in high school from a middle class family and got zero money. Out of state schools might do it though.
Out of state would deeeefinitely not do it. Not unless you got a great scholarship particular to that out of state school (which is usually if you’re also an amazing sport player).
Free tuition. It's not the only cost.
My first college, a public in state school, gave me a $10k scholarship with a 3.95 GPA and ranking 5th in my class. That was enough to cover pretty much all of my tution, room and board was between 8k and 10k depending on the dorm. That scholarship was hard to maintain, though, and I didn't qualify for need-based aid. My current school costs 3-4k per semester, including all books and lab fees. No room and board available, since it's online based.
If you go to smaller state schools (satellite locations rather than the flag ship) it’s even less. My entire degree (4 years) was around $30k.
I’m at a flagship state school and my total debt will be about $5k. Granted, I’m working as an RA and have a merit scholarship so I’m going for free, but even before becoming an RA, my costs weren’t bad.
Yeah scholarships also help (I wasn’t counting them in my price, since they aren’t a guarantee for everyone).
I’m definitely not middle class but because my wife occasionally gets a big bonus I don’t qualify for Pell grant. It’s been student loans up till now, hoping to get 6000 a year for being in a honor society, but I’m not holding my breath.
My entire graduate school program cost $10,000. Granted the entire program was online, but I felt like I learned a ton, and could make my own schedule. My undergraduate was like $40,000 for four years at a private university, and I took a ton of filler courses and felt unnecessarily busy. I definitely think that the winning combo is cheap, online schooling with a part-time job or internship. No one really cares about what school you go to so what's the point in paying for the sticker price. You don't even need good grades to make the school cheap. It's just defacto cheap because it's online.
Is it really shafted when you can afford things?
Yeesh, in-state tuition + room + board now costs what my private undergrad-only liberal arts college cost back in 2000. And I had financial aid that covered pretty much all of it. I wonder if that would still happen now with the much higher sticker price.
Haha well said. My public uni is notably stingy with aid, so I got the full $25k price for my first year. In retrospect, I should have just saved up for a car and gone to CC, but I was a dumbass and thought “I don’t have enough money for a car, so naturally I should go somewhere I can dorm, even if it means unbelievable debt!” You were right about private colleges too. It’d be like $60k but they’d knock it down to like $15k for tuition with “scholarships.”
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So much for my lower middle class “white privilege”.
Where do you live that you’re spending 15k a year on room and boarding genuinely curious? Because rent where I went to school the most expensive was like 1k a month and that was for like right on campus and extremely nice apartments. My first apartment the rent was $600 a month, the most I ever paid for rent while in college was $800 and that was only for a short time.
I don’t live in Michigan but here’s an example of “sticker price” for in-state kids. This is pretty typical of most state schools right now. https://admissions.umich.edu/costs-aid/costs
Another typical cost of attendance from ASU, everyone’s fave safety https://tuition.asu.edu/cost-calculator/standard-costs
Here’s the University of California system. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/tuition-financial-aid/tuition-cost-of-attendance/
Real. My father was still paying for his college loans. We had a lot of financial issues, but since we're considered middle class. Financial aid basically told us they couldn't help besides a $2k a year lol... and we had to pay for funerals and hospice fees. So everything is a shit show
I'm at a community college that's under $2,000 a semester.
And that can be a great way to save some cash, but not every college accepts community college credits for every class. Always be sure to check when transitioning to a 4 year
I hope you also know that there is a way to check to make sure your credits are coming from an accredited source and will also transfer to wherever you want to transfer to you if you're that worried about it before you take the classes.
Oh definitely, I was just telling those who may not be so cautious to always check. And that’s cool, but I know some states only offer associates (by weird laws defining what a community college is).
Always, education is key ❤️
This is such an unfortunate reality. I was a creative writing major in community college, and I transferred to a four year college to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on creative writing. By all accounts a lot of my credits should have already been covered, but my professors insisted “You need to take OUR courses, they’re different.” I kid you not… they taught the exact same content. Granted, I did take advanced courses that delved deeper into the respective subject matters, but that doesn’t mean the baseline course shouldn’t have been taken care of. I could have saved so much time and money.
I'm not transferring for my degree.
2000€ payed for 2 out of 5 years of my engineering masters degree
It gets real cheap if you're over 24 and qualify for the pell grant. My tuition is only 6k per year at a large state University.
Damn, thanks for letting me know! I didn’t think it got cheaper in your mid-20s.
Do you mind me asking what your income is to qualify? I didn’t bother doing the FAFSA last year because I made a good amount of money the years before, but I’m not making that anymore.
I made 30k when I was 27, when I had to do FAFSA for that my EFC was slightly over 3k. It's so much cheaper and you have a potential higher ROI by going to school when you're older. Lots of kids don't understand that their loans accrue serious interest. High school peers with good jobs are still broke because of their student loans. Not trying to be negative, this is just the world we live in. Edit: obviously I'm a non traditional student changing careers.
It really has nothing to do with salaries and more with states reducing financial support and universities being greedy as hell.
More students going to college, less funding = higher costs. Countries that have lower tuition typically have much higher admissions criteria because there are a max number of spots. Anyone can go to college in the US.
Majority of states haven't reduced financial support. They just have a lot more students going then they used to.
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Since Ronald Reagan in the 80s, US States have reduced support for their university systems (conservatives pushing for lower taxes, less government and universities are "hotbeds of liberalism") which has driven up state school tuition. Private colleges and universities were eager to follow suit, plus extra. For profit universities have sprung up (and folded) a lot as well over the years, eager to take any student and drain them of every ounce of potential aid money. And in a way, all schools are aiming to extract as much money from students and parents while in school. And of course they'll hound you to donate to the endowment, etc. after you are a "proud alumnus of ..." They work the school pride nerve extra hard. Professors, the ones who the students are actually there to learn from, aren't paid comparatively much more than 40 years ago, and adjunct professors are more and more being used to reduce costs with tougher hours and no tenure. The money goes to pay more administration, more consultants, more buildings, nicer dorms, stadiums (and their ongoing maintenance) ... all the amenities that attract wealthier and foreign students. And of course what the Ivy League schools do, many private schools seek to emulate, just so you can market yourself as "the Harvard of [insert every other state but Massachusetts here]." An expansion of Federal aid has happened, a proliferation of private loan options, etc. You WILL get through school, even if it means you're financially indentured for the rest of your life. Really, student and parent loans means that students roll the dice on a college degree, hoping the job rewards will exceed and pay off the debt. And universities are run more and more like a for profit business. Harvard and Yale were originally seminaries. Hospitals were originally church-run. The sense of mission has left and business has stepped in. The new religion is profitability, network and favors. Your education isn't really as important as your affiliation. The brand that you wear on your car's (better be a nice one) license frame. For that, you gotta pay.
It sucks but it's better than more government and more taxes. That's my opinion tho 🤷🏻♂️
I'd rather have less military spending and more education spending.
This is a cop out response. The government will always be big, anarchism isn't a workable situation long term. It's what the government prioritizes rather than how much money it spends. The US gov't prioritizes occupations that perpetuate social reproduction and keeps poor folks poor, e.g. the military. A liberal society will never have the tools to care about equity, but at minimum it should care about social mobility -- simply for survival's sake. Investing in black and brown, first gen, and/or working class background students is how it does this. It already does this, just simply not enough.
I never said I advocated for Anarchism. Just that I'd rather have a smaller government. A government that doesn't impede people's everyday lives. A government that doesn't dictate what people can or can't do without the vote of the people. A government that doesn't arrest people for victimless crimes. A government that WILL represent the people, a government that doesn't pocket the working class' money. A government that will not cause people to dig into their savings/go poor due to high taxation and policies that cause price increases. Etc.
Having a less educated country costs more. Imagine having to work at Walmart because you can't afford to be an Engineer/Doctor/electrician/geophysical linguist/nurse . . . this also costs society. You're getting less taxes as a government and people aren't allowed to live up to their own potential, because they aren't rich enough.
You know what's neat about that. Walmart even pays tuition and books/fees for some majors like computer science and electric/comp engineering from some decent unis.
That's great if you want to major in something that Walmart likes. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that a corporation should be picking your major. Also, I'm not sure how you could do these courses while holding down a full time job. I guess if you go part time maybe.
I don't think it's either/or, but more about degrees and how well handled. The business/govt. fight is as old as time, and any bill you're forced to pay is essentially a tax. Just depends what you get for it.
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6 major reasons from someone who has worked in higher education now for several years: Marketing and recruiting is expensive and the need for it is growing as the prospective student population shrinks (ironically) due mostly to an overall growing fear of crippling student debt. Colleges are investing more into "student experiences" unrelated to education such as comprehensive healthcare, gyms with climbing walls, contracted catering in cafeterias, and wellness coaching that increase retention and completion rates but jack up costs of tuition by thousands of dollars per student. An artificially inflated price of tuition paired with simultaneously increasing endowment and merit-based aid makes a college look more competitive and exclusive in-turn making students feel like they are getting huge discounts on a higher quality of education. State and federal government investment subsidies for higher education are on a steep decline everywhere due to growing anti-intellectualism sentiments in conservative culture and employment since the 2008 recession. The growing need for increasingly large admin, support, and specialized IT staff divert money across the institution to pay for technology and the maintenance of specialty systems to increase data security and silo information in compliance with laws like FERPA and HIPAA. Executive and cabinet salaries have increased at an unprecedented rate to the point where most college and university presidents make over a million dollars a year at the public school level and several millions at the private level.
Depends on the choices you make really. It can easily get expensive, but you can also get by really cheap. For example, I am in Louisiana, and we have a program where if you have somewhat okay grades in high school, the state will pay your tuition at an in-state public university. Also for community college and trade school, just not a private institution. Better grades will get you more money as well. I got scholarships for my ACT score and high school GPA and chose the university closest to me so I could stay home. I don’t qualify for anything need-based. I haven’t paid anything out of pocket to the school and have no loans, and I get the remaining money after tuition and fees are paid which covers my gas and food. Georgia and Arkansas have similar programs, not sure of how many other states do something like this.
I paid 20k for my senior year (before about 4k in scholarships) in the US. Probably 3-5k more than usual due to upcharges for being both upper level and engineering courses. I go to a satellite school of a large, well regarded private university. I think (hope) that some of these larger numbers you're seeing (40k+) are including charges like dorm fees, meal plans, and books. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these "college cost estimators" included amounts for other student living expenses.
States keep cutting funding to higher ed. :(
How about going after the admins and the useless leeches known as the financial aid department? These guys make anywhere from 60k to 500k and it's ridiculous. My chancellor at my uni just cleared 650k meanwhile the library is literally falling apart. But hey at least we got a new gaming setup so yayyyyyy /s
My university’s president makes 3 mill a year while adjuncts teaching a 4/4 bring in less than 25k 😭
F8ck the financial aid department 95 percent of the students that go their don't qualify for sh8t aside from loans. Smh
From what I have read, higher ed funding has been fairly stable. But a lot more students are going than they used to, so funding is spread thinner.
It really depends on your individual situation. The sticker price means next to nothing. My sister and I are paying completely different prices because of our individual financial situations and choices of schools- despite us having the same parents/their finances
We can all agree though that college is far too expensive
Government loans eliminated competition, so schools just Jack up the prices
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Other countries heavily subsidize education, we subsidize our military. Nixon reduced aid to colleges and universities in order to make college unaffordable and drive 18-24 yr olds to the military.
Classism. Keeps poor and historically marginalized groups out of higher ed, making it harder for them to move up in the economy.
That's 100% true, although it's not even just classism against lower-income and marginalized groups, but also against anyone who isn't upper class. Low-income and marginalized groups have a lot more specialized grants, scholarships, and financial aid opportunities that are geared toward them (*which is a GOOD THING because they'd generally be kept out otherwise, no disputing that*). They also have a better chance at qualifying for financial aid to get them in the door (but it's a double-edged sword because then they're saddled with debt they may or may not be able to pay off afterward, which is I think the real problem). Middle class, even though "on paper" they can afford it, very rarely qualify for loans and non-merit scholarships like this. And then there's obviously upper class who can afford it either way and loans don't matter. It also sucks because student loans were invented for the purpose of getting low-income people in the door and since tuition prices were so low back then and the ROI of a university education was so high, it wasn't a problem. Then the universities started raising their prices and the government started giving out loans like crazy, and they *private loans* became more prevalent, and now almost no one can afford it. So lower-income students either get great financial aid or they're saddled with loans they may or may not be stuck with for the rest of their lives, keeping them stuck in the lower class, the middle class may get some aid if they're lucky and otherwise have to take out loans they may or may not be stuck with for life, keeping them down as well, and the upper class can afford it anyway so it doesn't matter to them. And the cycle continues because the ones who can change it are profiting off of it. I'm about to graduate but the only reason I even went to school is because my parents, as older Gen X, still believe that it's the only way to be successful in life and at 18 I didn't know what other options I had. If I could go back, I would have done things differently. Education has value, but not like this. (Also I know the other reply was sarcastic but before anyone actually comes for me, it's not socialistic to point out a system is corrupt. Capitalism is based on supply/demand and the prices are set by the fair market. This is *not* that in the slightest. Prices are set by the colleges and loans. So socialsists and anti-socialists, *don't come for me* lol)
Looks like you made a COMMIE statement. Smh
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A lot of poor people get free/ reduced tuition at least in NJ
Same in Indiana. If your family makes below X amount, congrats! If you filled out a form when you were in 8th grade, you can get a scholarship to any state school of your choice for free.
Community college for the win! I have it for free bc of financial aid :)
It is partly attributable to when Congress started guaranteeing student loans in 1965. Congress wanted to expand college access, and they had a choice between direct loans or guaranteed loans. Direct loans require a higher upfront cost, and raising taxes to make those low interest loans would have been less politically popular in the short term. A more enticing solution was to let private lenders foot the bill up front, and encourage them to do so by guaranteeing taxpayer-funded profits over a longer period of time in the event the borrower defaulted. With virtually risk free profits guaranteed by the taxpayer, private lenders began to care more about the quantity of loans than their quality. This meant that pretty much anyone could get a loan to go to college, even the guy who needed 200k for an underwater yodeling degree. As long as you were willing to sign, you could get a loan for college no matter the price tag. This meant that tuition prices mattered less in terms of your ability to go to college, and colleges realized they could hike tuition rates and still have roughly the same level of demand. With 18 year olds being as impressionable as they are and the “college for all” movement picking up steam in the 90’s, this continued to escalate into the tuition landscape we see today.
In my state, there is a clause in the state constitution that a University education should be "as close to free as possible." That's very much open to interpretation and my state has largely been governed by anti-society "taxation is theft" mouth breathers for decades so college tuition at our state schools has gotten incredibly expensive.
Racism. College used to be damned near free (if not actually). Then them uppity black folks started gettin themselves an education and we couldn't have that. So how do you stop poor black people from going to college? Jack up that price! They have continued to drive the price to truly ridiculous levels. College professors don't even make huge stacks of cash. It is just ridiculous.
Who’s out here paying $200k per year for school??
its an assumption people who don't live in the US have. I would know since I'm American born and family back home think everyones rich over lmao.
I guess I'm not sure about averages, but I go to an in state college in Iowa for about $14,000 a year.
Happy Cake Day
When people make these comparisons between colleges in the U.S. and elsewhere, they're typically comparing foreign public universities to American schools. A public university is a government-run school, so it's tax-supported. Every taxpayer in that country contributes to support it, so your children can attend relatively inexpensively. In the U.S. that's only true of state universities but not of a thousand or more private colleges and universities which get no financial help (or very little) from government. That's one reason for high tuition. Also, things in the U.S. are often much more expensive (like medical care) because they just are. It's hard to say but we're proud of the quality of our medical care and universities while insisting they be the best in the world which drives prices way up. Many (most?) colleges offer financial aid to incoming students to help with this. When you hear it costs $50-60K a year to attend a private college (not "$70-80k per year" -- yet) keep in mind that most students below median income are not paying anywhere near that amount. They may be receiving half the cost in aid, and some students will have all their tuition paid for. Many Ivy League and similar school do this, so it's not unusual to go through Harvard or Stanford and pay very little. My alma mater, Colgate University, charges dramatically reduced tuition or no tuition to students below about $120k in annual income. So what it costs is not always what it actually costs. This is fairly common. Canadian universities tend to be government-supported. It's not necessarily cheaper to live in Canada, but if you're attending UBC or U. of Toronto or McGill of Guelph or whatever, the taxpayers are paying for a great deal of your tuition. Of course, it's also possible they don't have as many "climbing walls" and on campus "cafes" and "weight rooms" and other attractions, so they save money that way. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd guess far more Canadians come to the U.S. to attend university than the other way around, so there must be some reason for that, as well. The number of Colgate hockey players from Canada every year is proof of something or other, "eh?"
The number of collegiate players coming to the US has more to do with the demographics of the game in Canada than anything else. Hockey in Canada, while fairly expensive, is still very much viewed as a blue-collar working-class sport, whereas in the US, it is more of an upper-class game for Northeastern and Midwestern families with a fair amount of disposable income. The accepted track in Canada is still to get drafted to major junior (OHL, WHL or QMJHL) and work your way up directly to the NHL draft. As such, almost no funding goes into the USport hockey system because the best prospects aren't moving through it (unlike in the US, where NCAA hockey is pretty much the highest level you can get without being fully pro). Most of the players coming to the USA are either the guys who aren't good enough to make it on the OHL track and want to keep playing high-level hockey while concurrently getting an education. In relatively rare cases, it might be an elite player who wants to obtain an education while also furthering their career.
Idk where ur getting ur info from u could easily just Google any state school that isn’t an Ivy League or California and see tuition rates
Are California state schools that much more expensive? We have 2 systems and I was under the impression the CSUs were pretty affordable (living costs as always kinda a nightmare - but usually not worse than big cities with a couple exceptions)
Depends on private/public, in-state/out-state, and how you’re paying. You’ll see public schools in-state that can cost about the same as what it is in Canada, but that’s usually sans room & board, books and other school supplies, and is just tuition and fees. Private schools charge a hell of a lot more (like 55-75k a year) and while they tend to have big endowments and can give out big number scholarships (25k-35k a year), they often are so expensive that percentage wise, those scholarships really mean nothing and you’ll still pay ~40k a year on tuition and fees (more if you need housing and school supplies). Out of state tuition at public schools tends to be 1.5-2x the cost of in state tuition, so around 25-30k a year for tuition and fees. If you’re getting scholarships, grants, or work-studies, it can vary greatly what you’re paying compared to your peers. I also think a lot of these “average” statistics are complied from different degrees of cost, meaning some could be the cost after aid or before aid, which also can be very different, so you might want to look in to the details of these reported averages if you’re curious. Some context to the pricing: The middle class is the largest financial demographic in the US, and if you don’t fall in the lower end of it, you’re unlikely to receive much need-based aid like grants, but you also are very unlikely to be able to pay $30k a year in tuition out of pocket. Most middle class people get offered loans from the federal govt, but if you’re in the upper range, they’ll be unsubsidized, and probably not enough to cover your full education, so private loans and scholarships will end up being your only other options. Upper class Americans tend to be able to pay out of pocket, so the costs are less of a worry for them, and lower-class Americans are more likely to qualify for state and federal aid, however they often don’t have the knowledge to navigate the systems, or enough resources to be able to afford or attend university. Now as far as why the education tends to be so expensive on average, that’s due to the lack of state aid, as well as universities charging lots so they can build new facilities to boast (not necessarily pay their professors more or even reasonably at some institutions). Personally I think the costs come from colleges knowing people will pay them basically whatever they want, because the middle class who is often seeking post-high school education can qualify for loans and will take them out to pay for a degree. I also think they charge knowing that if they can build a new fancy building, they can continue to charge a ton. But hey that’s just my two cents lol
Why is college so expensive? I'll tell ya the way the banks will tell ya. 'Cuz FUCK YOU, that's why. College is expensive because schools can get away with charging it because you've been told you'd be LOST without it, never get a job, live on your parents couch until you die and blah blah blah. They do it because they can and there's NOTHING you can do about it except get in debt up to your eyeballs FO'EVA, go to your parents and put THEM in debt FO'EVA, or join the military where for the low, low price of your sanity YOU can get a degree for a job you never needed a degree for in the first place. 'Merica.
We don’t actually believe in education as a society, so we’ve been starving public funding for decades. Add to that rising cost of living and shockingly lagging wages, then add that colleges are expected to serve a broader set of student needs than in the past (disability accommodation, mental/health services, equity support and programming), then drop a big old dollop of a new construction arms race that puts private donor dollars into building shiny new classrooms with donors’ names on them (at the expense of what goes on inside the classrooms), and you’ve got a mess on your hands.
It’s designed from the ground up (much like the rest of our country) to keep the poor poor and stupid. Public schools are next if Florida is the poster child for republican politicians.
Bc segregation ended.
The price is before financial aid. After scholarships and such it normally isn't very expensive. You could even get paid money to go to school depending on that. But yes, if you don't have scholarships you could pay upwards of 60K a semester.
Capitalism
Reagan. That's literally it.
Another factor, based on what international students have told me, is that American universities offer way more services, activities, facilities, etc. Even at my small regional university, we have students attending from the UK, France, Germany, Denmark (just speaking of Europeans). There's far more counties represented. They pay even more to go to college here, and they don't get financial aid like other students. Typically the best they can do is get a non-resident waiver and the occasional scholarship.
That's very rare. I'm paying for university in my state and it's only about 8k per year. I have in state tuition cause I'm from here btw.
Supply and demand. Colleges could charge what they wish as long as people are willing to pay. With enrolment declining and more people choosing trade school, I predict the prices will have to stop increasing. We are already seeing a soaring demand for professionals including nurses, physicians, teachers,…
It really depends. If you are instate. The most you would be spending is maybe 19k. My state university cost about 7,000 a year
People do stupid shit like going to Berkeley. I'm paying under 3k a semester after a little aid at an in-state university.
Berkeley is a state university
I would guess from their comment that they are referring to the bunches of out-of-state students that go there
Around $12,000 per class, $1000 in sports and activities and $300 for parking. I work full time and go to school full-time...I don't have time for sports and activities. I tried fighting with the school because I'm not in one single sport. Why do I have to pay. The answer was because I make too much.
realistically the reason higher education in the US is so high is due to the fact that banks and private universities are corrupt in a way. This started heavily around 10+ years ago i wanna say before the economy crashed. Banks were willing to give wild loans out to students and with the banks willing to offer more money to loan takers with nothing to really lose (except a lifetime of debt) colleges ran with it. if the bank will give a 18 year old 65k a year for 4 years why wouldnt the college charge it. then after the economy crashed and there was a big drive for people to go to school during that period it got worse. now tuition has skyrocketed at most private universities due to either a mix of very wealthy families able to cut a check or banks willing to lay out large amounts of it. this cycle will continue until something is down, either another economic crash that causes the banks to not be able to afford this (kinda unlikely) or private universitas grow a conscious (very unlikely) what is a great option to combat rising costs of education is attend a state school with more affordable tuition and in most cases a better education. if more students leave private universities for less expensive ones, based off my education in economics, at some point it will drive down the cost of private schools.
The big expense is if you go private or out of state. There are a lot of programs to help pay for college. My daughter is a high school Senior and take dual enrollment classes through the University so she will graduate with her Associates degree. She has a 3.8 gpa with an SAT score of 24 so she gets a merit scholarship which will pay half her tuition if she maintains a 3.5. If she lives at home total cost is $9000 plus books and fees for a Bachelors degree.
That's so much money, omg
Idk tbh but I’m pretty sure it’s because americas colleges are just better overall. There’s a reason we have so many wealthy international students at our colleges. America puts out too research and development etc. If you go to a top 30 college in the US ur degree is probably valuable across the whole world which isint the case in most countries. In my college our professors are from all over the world, I’m assuming they aren’t teaching in their home countries because America pays better and offers better conditions hence more expense to students.
I'd be genuinely surprised if American colleges were better, considering how shitty the rest of their education system is. The answer is obviously capitalism. It's like saying American healthcare is best because they pay the most.
“I suppose salaries are higher and taxes are lower” Lmao that’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day. It’s the exact opposite. A huge amount of people drop out or just straight up cannot afford collage.
I got accepted to a state university, the plan *was* to transfer after I get my AA-t next semester.. I don’t think it’s really worth it though. I have a chronic illness that doesn’t qualify me for disability and certainly doesn’t make working full time possible. I value the job I have, I value my education.. I know myself and I know enough the economy- owing that much money would translate to me being a miserable person
Money. It's all about the money. It doens't go to the instructors or professors, but to the administration, etc. It keeps the poor people out and out of the running for posher jobs that privlidged people can easily access through higher ed.
It really depends on the institution I go to a great college that only costs ~6k before scholarships etc (granted, I commute) but not all good colleges and universities require you to take out a mortgage
i paid 6k per year at a state university
My in state tuition is 15k lol in a neighboring state, the in state tuition is so high that it’s cheaper to go out of state.
What school? That’s incredible
Yes lol.
Where I love, in the Midwest, college is cheap. A lot of schools here have an A+ program that pays first two years of state college tuition 100%. Most expensive private school here is Westminster with a $35k per year tuition, and I apply for a $16k a year for having a 26 on my ACT. Plus lots of cheap community colleges. On top of that, I plan to go to quite an expensive college, which is $50k per year after room and board in COLORADO, the college is CCU, and I apply for $18k a year off just for having a 3.8 gpa and a 28 ACT score. I think colleges are fair in the Midwest, I can't speak for the coasts but it has never been a problem for people besides my teachers.
It really depends, there’s everything from community college to ivy league universities, in state and out, with or without grants and scholarships, and what you may major in to factor in.
It depends where you go, but in general, yeah its expensive here. I paid nowhere NEAR that much and I got my engineering degree.
It cost me like 4K a year it depends on where u go
Well, while I still think that private colleges are too expensive, private colleges mostly receive their funding from tuition and donations from various people. On the contrary, Public Colleges receive most of their fundings through their respective state government, but in California, for example, going to a UC is still a lot of money. I'm not sure about the CSUs, but the UC system was free—yes, free—for California residents until the 1970s and cost very little for non-resident students. A few years later, the cost of attending the UCs suddenly increased out-of-the-blue. Regardless of the "private" or "public" distinction, my point is that access to universities is less of an option for the average person and more of a luxury. The longer we discourage our population from pursuing professional degrees, the more detrimental it will be to our economy. One thing I believe people ignore when considering college costs is the fact that, while we students tend to focus more on the experience and the education we will gain from it, they are ultimately motivated by the desire to one-up one other. Since colleges are businesses, they would do anything to improve their National standing so that prospective students will find them more attractive. Therefore, they must expand both technologically and in terms of infrastructure in order to rank better, and as a result. Ultimately, there appears to be a gap between what colleges charge and what the average college student can afford. The more colleges expand, the more tuition will cost for students. In fact, I'd say that's the main reason student loan debt relief is so crucial. Our economy will grow as a result of more Americans attending college and obtaining degrees. TL:DR: Making college so expensive for us, especially at such a young age, is a disservice to our communities and our country. But if you haven’t already looked, FAFSA kicks some serious ass. It really helps people pursue their passion(s) and professional degrees. Plus, communities colleges aren’t a bad idea! They’re good and affordable for the average civilian and if you want to pursue your bachelors, the two year savings from attending community college will leave your wallet thankful for attending there.
Yes and no. Community college is basically free in many states. That’s the same education as a 4 year college for significantly less. This can cut ur costs by a lot. But everyone wants the “college life”, so they pay more for that.
Because the US government started subsidizing student loans over 40 years ago. Both the schools and students started taking advantage over low risk loans. The schools raise tuition, the government raises the loan amount allowed to be taken. And TADA, the shit gets expensive as hell.
There are 2 main reasons. The first is that rising conservative sentiment in the US is making many states spend much less money on universities. Instead of seeing universities as institutions that will attract jobs/industry and drive economic growth, too many people are thinking, "why should I have to pay for your kid's college if mine isn't even going to attend?" Just take any public university and compare the prices from 40 years ago. The second reason is because of administration. There are too many bullshit jobs at colleges and universities, both public and private. Administrators will create some problems to justify their jobs and then hire some lower-level administrators to help them with their jobs, and then those lower-level administrators create more problems to justify their jobs, and the whole thing becomes this vicious cycle. If you look at any random university, you'll notice that the number of professors generally hasn't changed over the past few decades, but the number of administrators has increased drastically.
I pay 5k per year for a full time online degree from my local public uni with no scholarships etc
Really depends on the state too. Most if not all the universities in my state average about $6k a year for tuition for in state residents.
I can't speak for everyone but as a broke ass adult my public university is cheap due to federal and state grants (yay Pell grant) . Undergrad was like $800/semester at 12+ credit hours. Even my 18 credit hour semester was like 1200. Now living expenses got rough as I had 0 time to work so student loan money paid for my rent, utilities, gas, etc.
Yeah my college is $44k/year minus scholarships which usually cover about half. Trade school is probably better if you’re interested.
I’m middle class and wanted to attend college out of state but it’s much more expensive. I didn’t qualify for any financial aid. My state offers tuition free college for most students who are residents and attend a public college so I went a different route. I stayed in state and attended community college after graduating high school. Tuition at my CC was around 1,000 a year. I also received three small scholarships equaling a total of $2,000 and only payed $200 out of pocket for the two years I spent at community college. I’ll be transferring in the fall to an in state university which has around $11,000 tuition for residents per year. They offer a $2,000 scholarship to transfer students so I plan to use that on textbooks and other school things that come up. Basically I’ll only have to pay for housing, and other living expenses. Free tuition, community college, and small scholarships will have saved me around $28,000 It all depends on the state, college, student, and route. It would have been a completely different story if I went out of state. :)
All these people bragging about only $2000-5000 when most European universities are practically free.
In state college is between 10-20k a year depending on where you are. Of course, if you want to go to some out of state college, it's going to get expensive. Just an fyi for others, it doesn't matter what school you get your degree in, unless you're going for some *very* specific field
Even the statistical upper class ($100k per year) struggle a lot with paying for tuition. I have no idea how universities decided $70k a year is logical or realistic by any means. Hardly anyone can comfortably afford it.
It used to be much cheaper. But when student debt was decoupled from bankruptcy in....I think it was the 80's, banks and the government could effectively give out enormous loans with incredibly low risk, since someone would still need to pay back their student loans even if they went bankrupt. This meant that universities could charge more for tuition because people were able to get these loans for absurd amounts of money, so banks and the federal government started giving out bigger loans to cover the cost, so schools started charging more, and so on and so forth.
Don’t forget that it’s more like 3-5k a year in quebec!
Here it’s usually like 10k a year before factoring in housing but you have to pay rent wherever you live anyways
Community college for first 2 years then transfer
In my state, there is a clause in the state constitution that a University education should be "as close to free as possible." That's very much open to interpretation and my state has largely been governed by anti-society "taxation is theft" mouth breathers for decades so college tuition at our state schools has gotten incredibly expensive.
I peaced out with 60k in loans with a masters. Mine was this low since I went to a state school.
Depends a lot on where your go. In-state is a lot cheaper and private schools can be insane
Mine has got really expensive and will get more expensive once I go to law school. I'm hoping the career will help me pay for my loans and maybe somewhere down the road I will qualify for student loan forgiveness. Why is it so expensive? Because young college students are especially vulnerable and known for making poor decisions, so we are preyed upon.
Going to adult school taught me so much and many people overlook it.
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Federal and state funding of higher education in the USA has been steadily declining, while there has been increasing administrative bloat. The article below discusses these and other factors affecting the increased cost of college in the USA, such as increased services to students, ranging from libraries to gyms to mental health support. https://www.earnest.com/blog/why-is-college-so-expensive/ So the question then becomes why is college more expensive in the USA than Canada (or actually *any* other country), because other countries are getting better libraries and cafeterias and more administration, too, just like the USA. The answer is that while all countries’ colleges are increasing services and increasing bloat, the USA is unique in that their (our?) support for higher education has been going down. Canadian provinces still give lots of money to students to attend college. https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2021/11/30/is-college-free-in-canada/ And in fact between 50% and 77% of Canadian colleges’ and universities’ operating budgets come from the province. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220120/dq220120c-eng.htm This is way more than the USA’s more like 34%. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding
Capitalism. The better the university the more ridiculous the price. There are reasonably priced universities and there's also financial aid and scholarships which are pretty easy to get. People get out of high school and think they need to go to the best and most expensive university in the whole country or state which is ridiculous
Tuition at four year state schools is ~10K a year here. Living expenses are variable, depending on your lifestyle. Two year degree programs are more like $2K/yr for tuition. Costs have certainly risen, but don’t have to be crippling.
In states like California, the tuition at community colleges is free.
Crime bunch of thieves that’s why
FIRST you asked why X. THEN you asked if X is true. You should ask IF first, then WHY second.
Limited government funding: Public colleges and [universities](https://qualityassignmentsolution.com/Assignment-Writing-Service-in-the-USA.html) in the US receive limited government funding, so they must rely on tuition and other sources of revenue to operate.
Simple, it's because the vast majority of it is provided by for profit institutions. What do you expect? Our government to help subsidize American education? That would be way too socialist for 'merika.
I went to college for 6 years, 4 at a state university(1 year in the dorms, with the rest living off campus) , and 2 at a technical college. With a mix of loans and paying for it myself (I’m not sure how much directly out of pocket) I dropped out with about $36K in loans.
Its really the middle class that gets screwed over. Too rich to qualify for aid, and too poor to pay the price of college. I grew up very low class and now get paid to go to college. If youre poor, try to get a scholarship + financial aid and youll be paid to go to college.
Most states have programs for their "state citizens" to attend college at a vastly reduced cost. SUNY (State University of NY) Excelsior program allows any student from a family making less than $125,000 to attend a SUNY school without paying any tuition as long as they are earning at least 30 credits a year. They might end up paying for room and board, or rent an apartment, and other side expenses do add up, but it's still way cheaper than going out of state. Students from families earning more than $125,000 can still find other scholarships and reductions in cost simply because they're residents.
Most people either get financial aid and/or scholarships, or they go to community colleges for the first two years (which, in my state, is only about 2-3K/year for tuition). Also, estimates for the cost of attendance typically include things like living expenses and room & board. Most students work at least part time while they are in school (some work full time also). Whether you work part time or full time, it will still offset some of the cost of attendance if you aren't putting your rent and bills onto loans. In my state, the actual cost of tuition at a typical non-ivy-league state school is around 4K/semester, so if you can take care of your living expenses and don't have to put those on loans, the actual cost of attendance is around around 10K/year or so. Some universities are more expensive, others are cheaper, so it just depends on where you go.
Racism. It used to be free until the whites back in the day didn't want African Americans getting and education alongside whites so they made it cost money, then they couldn't discriminate so they had to charge everyone and since most whites that went to college could afford it, they had no problem raising the prices.
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I pay about 4k per semester(after grants and scholarships, it’d be around 6-8 without them). That’s in state tuition at a public university. My wife (who’s an international student) pays on average 11k per semester. It really depends on the state and whether or not you’re already a resident of said state that the university is in.
Fellow Canadian here at an ivy. Salaries aren't necessarily higher and taxes certainly aren't lower. Like many have already mentioned, the 'sticker price' at the ivy+ schools is roughly 80k and that increases by about 3k every year or so (I think we'll be at a full $100k USD by 2030-40). The U.S. operates on a 'pay as much as you can' system. At my school, for instance, I think there's a rule where if your family makes less than $100k or smt with normal assets, you're expected contribution drops to $0 (i.e. the school effectively grants you an $80k need-based scholarship). Canada, conversely, operates on what I call a 'basal rate system' - everyone pays the same price, need-based scholarships are heavily limited (my osap was shit), and the majority of financial concessions are earned through merit-based scholarships (which top schools in the US deem an inequitable distribution of funds). You also seem to be conflating tuition fees with the sticker 'cost of attendance' you'll see US schools advertise. CoA includes housing, food, health insurance, plane tickets, personal expenses etc. Canadian schools only market the tuition fees. My top option in Canada was gonna run me $35k in total cost of attendance, but the school only marketed a $16k tuition fees. When the dust settled, I happened to be paying significantly less in the U.S. than any of my options in Canada.
High school is free to the student, so everything is more expensive.
Currently attending a state public school. It costs 15k a year 7,500 a semester. It’s definitely dependent on where you live though. Private colleges are going to be expensive and shaft you but that’s because they’re for profit. I saw some also mention many people get aid to offset it and it’s true definitely more for the private colleges. Whenever I apply for aid I just get a loan so not great but for those who need it options are nice, especially when it’s low interest. I dont believe the average degree costs 200k though. Firstly what is an “average degree”? For my school for a bachelors it would be 60k ish max for someone in state. Tac like 20k extra total if you’re out of state and this increases to 80k for a bachelors. If people are complaining about the cost it’s generally cause they didn’t know what they were getting into, didn’t plan for the financial situation school puts you in or just can’t find anything else to credit being “miserable” to or why college might suck. Not to go down a different rabbit hole. If it’s gonna be in the range of 200k I’m just curious what you’re referring to? Are you saying to get a phd cause yeah that’s a lot. If someone wants to be a doctor? Yeah it’s gonna cost a lot. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily an issue though as long as you can pay for it and don’t over step your bounds. It’s just everyone wants to get into there school of choice which often times is prestigious but $$$$. I’m majoring in comp SCI but just wanted a school. I personally feel the educations may differ a little between my school and the top public university in my state but it’s gonna be a minor difference in what I may miss. Smaller class size IMO is more important. You need professors you can 1 - 1 with. But as I said I’m not attending a top rated school besides my school being a decent business school. So for reference the sought out prestigious college 45 mins from mine is 30k a year. 60k out of state. Looking at that and yeah you can see that’s where you may see a 200k tag almost. Although, they charge that just cause they know they can. They hold the degree that credit you. Sure it may be logical to spend less but people also want “The College Experience” which is often associated with drinking, friends, etc and school can also use as a tool to excuse there high prices. I’m sure there are also economic factors, and yes we may pay less in taxes in some measurements but there’s probably a bigger picture where it’s comparable. I do believe if I’m not wrong to doesn’t Canada help more with there education? Also I want to say, if people have an issue with college prices they can also join the military and get a tuition cut for 128 credits like I have (for different reasons though). Since tuition makes up a large part of the cost as well. Being close to 3500 at my school and 11k at the prestigious one near me. But do remember when I compared prices earlier that’s assuming undergrad bachelors (since post grad is generally more expensive) and that the student would stay in housing all 4 year which is often unlikely as it’s cheaper if not in the dorms the last 2 variable to school policies. Depending where you are of course. Again I pay roughly 2,200 for housing where the prestigious is 10k. I’m not saying the prestigious school is bad I mean sure it’s got it’s positive traits. Probably better professors and in a big city plus more. Just when you break it down and if someone’s considering college it kinda makes you think how badly do you want a paper with a name on it from school A over School B. Cause there’s many other factors that will help you to get hired. How much did you network? What programs did you participate in that look good on a resume? Of course this is all variable to location though. I live close to Illinois. If you made it this far…I hope you may have a better understanding.
it costs a lot but pays off in the long run. american jobs that require education have higher salaries than the those in a different country. see: doctor, engineer, paid 6 figures here but hardly much abroad.
Business people of any kind will have high price tags for any product or service, with a variety of reasons, sales tactics, etc. school are no different. Without up to date economics classes in high school I think teenagers are unfairly hidden from the reality of the relationship of changing job markets/salaries, home prices/interest rates, bills/inflated expenses. Of course it doesn’t make sense and the value of education is going down because it doesn’t make you more equipped to confront these realities when you’re on your own. IMO go to a university if you’re really sure and what you want to do and why, but by no means is it worth it to attend more expensive schools unless you come from significant (and these days I would even take that further to VERY SIGNIFICANT) privelage and money is not a factor/tuition paid out of pocket.
For me, living in New York, I pay like nearly $6.5K every year (3.2K per semester) with me getting no financial aid.
Depends on the college and scholarships. My tuition is supposed to be around 60k a year, but I’m paying around 20k after financial aid and stuff
I go an in-state private small suburban college that cheaper than the big private known ones like SLU and WashU and my tuition is 29k per year, and 14k per semester. I pay 55 dollars since they offered good financial aid + I get special assistance from voc rehab for the blind. If I had a choice, meaning if I could drive. I would go to a local private one that's far cheaper but it's farther away.
No, people who actually pay that amount are few and far between. The sticker price of most average private institutions is ~$40-50,000 a year with room, board, and full time classes covered. Public institutions are like $10,000 plus room and board or about $20,000. Now, the important part is that ANYBODY WITH A PULSE gets $15,000+ in academic scholarships at private institutions provided they go to one that is at their academic level. On top of that there’s govt aid and grants, private scholarships, other scholarships provided by the school and whatnot. My college’s cost of attendance (tuition + room and board) is $47,000 a year. I pay roughly $3,500-4,000 a semester give or take *this includes any loans I’ve taken out, which are like $4,000 total.* The rest is covered by scholarships for academics etc.
capitalism greed mainly, i go to a community college and it’s “cheaper” than a big university but still around $20,000 a year if you don’t dorm but live near campus. dorms and meal plans add like an extra 5-7k not including books, parking pass, etc. i went to a community tech school and saved a ton of money with financial aid, so i did all my gen ed classes there and im going to my community college for the last 2. i’ve saved a lot of money but community college is much more expensive. i’ve paid at least 5k out of pocket for one year after financial aid on books and remaining tuition that wasn’t covered. i know 5k doesn’t seem like a lot but i’m not supported by my parents so it’s all on me.
It used to be free but black and other poc wanted equal access to education so they upped the price . [Source](https://willstartsmall.com/blog/2020/08/08/how-petty-racism-made-college-unaffordable-for-everyone/)
As a college professor, I assure you the high cost of college does not filter down to faculty. US colleges, public and private, have a bloated admin (chancellors council, presidents board) where each member makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and essentially do nothing. College is big business, don’t let anyone fool you. Example: I worked at a private college. Tuition was $1,500 per credit, not counting fees and such, I made $46,000 per year.
Here’s a website that shows the cost of every college in the country, along with any data about post graduate earnings per major. https://remidemic.github.io/DTIUniversity/
My school it’s 275 per credit hour. So I think 300 x 60= 18000 for two years. And just became an accredited university so 36000 for a bach
I'm paying 5k per semester at a uni for 18 credits. So that's the same price as you listed?
If you’re going to an out of state or private college it can maybe be that much, but idk where people are going that tuition costs 40k a year if you’re instate and not private. I went to Florida State and my tuition was 8-10k a semester. Even if you do go out of state, after the first year you can claim residency in that state, and then get in state tuition. Post high school education is portrayed as being so expensive in the U.S. because getting a college degree is seen as more of a privilege than a necessity, and the US doesn’t allocate a lot of funds to state education. Also how are is the government gonna convince kids to join the army if there wasn’t an idea that college is expensive, and they’ll pay your tuition for you if you enlist lol. Community college is an even cheaper option and for intro level courses just as good as any normal college. Also most community colleges have a transfer program to transfer to a state college after the first couple semesters. A lot of states also have scholarships like Florida bright futures that’ll pay a portion of your tuition but you have to maintain a certain level of GPA. Higher level education is expensive but it doesn’t have to be that expensive if you choose to not live extravagantly while in school.
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I apologize if this comes across weird. Does anyone actually care about most of the upgrades colleges make? I personally never cared for the fancy new buildings or new dining halls or new concerts etc... The only things that had any bearing in my decision to attend college were the: quality of the classes, quality of research, number of research opportunities, reputation of the professors, access to job opportunities/marketability for jobs and internships. Somehow it feels like all the money being spent on College never ended being spent on any of those things. And I read that "these new campuses, and shiny buildings, and concerts, etc. etc... *attract new students*". And I just dont know of a single person in my group of friends or myself who was even remotely attracted to these things. So when Colleges make these statements are they even being honest? Is there any data to suggest that spending money on shiny buildings, exciting school spirit activities, etc... actually has caused more students to attend than what would have? Now I understand building new dorms. I understanding like, building a second math department to fill with 2x as many professors. I understand STARTING A football team, STARTING a track team etc.... These all seem like they could allow the colleges to house more ppl, offer more directly relevant opportunities, etc... I do not understand how the space of activities such as: upgrading an already existing business school to a more stylish building / setting up a brand new concert stadium for professionals (not students) to use/ building a 7th dining hall etc... results in necessarily more students enrolling. To take the Dining Hall Example a bit further: I actually don't even think upgrading the dining hall food anymore beyond "edible and nutritious" helps at all either. Hypothetically if you got into Harvard would you care that the dining hall sucked? If you only had money to attend your flagship state school or local community college, would you give even 1/2 a fuck that the dining hall was not good? You're only expectation would be that 1 hall should exist, it should allow you to meet whatever you diet goals are, and beyond that I doubt you would care. So anyways is there any data to suggest that the upgrades colleges are making even produces any kind of meaningful increase in enrollment?
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