How the heck did this happen ?

Oculus Spirit [97734]

TigerPulse: 100%

Posts: 64871

Joined: 7/13/02

Simple. There is a market for higher education.

Jan 4, 2020, 11:33 AM

AND there is a supply. The demand is there. Always. Now when you toss in lottery money for scholarships, that does not bring down the cost. It increases it because there are only so many slots available for students. Has Clemson tripled its student population in the past 20 years? No, just their tuition. So if you have new money funding more students, you can increase the additional tuition needed per student to get the same caliber of students (class ranking and academic standards) and keep the same overall number. If today's student enrolling at Clemson has the same standards the university demands for attendance, then you know right off the bat they have X amount of scholarship money. So you know you're getting the scholarship money anyway, so you jack up the price to cover the increase in lottery money and keep the market the same.

This is why government intervention into free markets almost always results in higher costs. When there is a finite supply, and a growing demand, they will always jack up costs to keep the overall burden the same, in order to maximize revenues. You see this in medicine as well. BILLIONS roll into medical providers from the government. Then you have billions more through insurance. The demand is there and ever increasing. So costs skyrocket as well.

Take a look at college campuses and hospitals. Every ###### one of them is building, getting fancier, and bigger. Cheap debt also helps with this. Student loans at low rates have pumped trillions more into colleges. Point is if you make it easier financially to attend college, the price will jump accordingly to make it equally as difficult as before to attend.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

enrollment at Clemson is exactly the same now as it was when I attended, but it is also a lot harder to get into with higher application rates, so I think you got it backwards.

Like I said, access to government backed loans for higher education have been around since the 1960s, so why the recent spike in prices over the the last 20 years?

a part is due to the fact that states are subsidizing the tuition cost less and less every year. It also costs money to renovate and replace buildings while schools are in competition with one another for the top students. I mean there are 5 decades worth of fans here that lived in Johnston. You think kids would actually want to live in them now? I barely recognized the campus the last time I was up there.

I paid 4k out of state a semester in the nineties and had my loans paid off by 30. I feel sorry for the sacrifices kids have to make now. If your dream is to become an elementary school teacher, you will be paying off your student debt for the rest of your life. If you want to become a software engineer, then you will be fine.

gubmint student loans***

Re: gubmint student loans***

Simple. There is a market for higher education.

Re: Simple. There is a market for higher education.

Re: Simple. There is a market for higher education.

Re: Simple. There is a market for higher education.

money supply went up

Re: money supply went up

Two major things....

Re: Two major things....

Well I couldn't afford to live on campus and my parents

It’s really just #1 and it’s all about structural changes in the economy.

Re: How the heck did this happen ?

Odd they left off scholarship money from that list.

Politicians on both side using federal money to buy votes.

TigerBoard POTD