Despite sticker prices, the real cost of getting a degree has been going down
184 comments
·February 23, 2025BrenBarn
Like others mentioned in comments, the article entirely neglects to address the distinction between grants and loans, talking only about "financial aid". If you have to pay back a loan later, that's still part of the cost.
The article also switches back and forth talking about different timeframes. It starts off by talking about tuition trajectory since 2014. Usually when I hear people lamenting the increase in college costs, they're talking about a much longer timeframe, like since the 1970s. And indeed the article says:
> This pricing strategy took hold in the early 1980s. Since then, Levine has found, the sticker cost of attending a four-year public or private university—tuition plus fees and room and board—has almost tripled after adjusting for inflation.
But then in the next paragraph:
> Only students whose families make more than about $300,000 a year and who attend private institutions with very large endowments pay more than they did a decade ago, Levine said.
Those are two different timeframes. Either may be useful, but you can't support a statement like "well costs haven't really gone up" by just cherry-picking random numbers from decades apart.
The last two paragraphs of the article talk about colleges "advertising their value proposition" and how they "can’t afford to push students away". This smacks of a corporate viewpoint towards higher education that makes me suspicious of the whole piece.
drillsteps5
This reads like part of a PR campaign by some college-related interest group to try to influence public opinion. Prices have been and continue to rise. They say the prices stopped rising because inflation (meaning prices continue to rise but if you take inflation into account they do not), but I have not seen the numbers. There's like gazillion ways to measure inflation, if you use the one where it's 20% a year that might be true, but it's just a cop-out.
Also, maybe less people go into prestigious and expensive unis and go into less expensive ones, which brings the average down?
I look into the colleges for my kids right now and honestly unclear how I can afford putting 2 kids through reasonably good schools. Govt tells me I should be able to afford to pay about $80K per year for 4 years, and I do not see how I can do that without getting HELOC/second mortgage and tapping into my retirement savings. I just do not see how these prices are reasonable or go down.
jalk
I guess you skimmed the article, as inflation is not the main argument, but rather that most people don't pay the "sticker" price, but get various "discounts"
vkou
Somehow, I don't think turning the finances of education look more like the finances of the American healthcare system is the big win they think it is.
drillsteps5
I re-read the article and stand (partially) corrected.
>Since 2014-15 school year the cost attending a public four-year university has fallen by 21 percent, before adjusting for inflation.
Not sure how the cost is calculated though. The cost will be tuition, room and board, fees, less scholarships/grants (effectively college lowering the price to get the customer in), less various loans. If the loans are excluded from the cost this is not accurate, this is still the money the school will be getting, and the student will be paying. Also notice 2014-2015 and ONLY public four year school qualifiers (cost at private colleges continued to go up, although, according to the author, less then inflation).
> Once tax benefits are factored in, according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis, the average American is paying the same amount for tuition as they were in the 1990s.
Yeah no, this doesn't read like an honest analysis but as an attempt to drag the facts, kicking and screaming, to align with the author's agenda.
Mountain_Skies
That's nice for those who get the discounts. Terrible for those who are being discriminated against.
paulpauper
yes, this 100% . the discounts , scholarships, etc. make a big difference. This is why a college college degree is a better deal then the doom and gloomer naysayer pundits insist. With federal student loans, you are borrowing at close to the prime rate, but for average people, not hedge funds. This is a great deal assuming you graduate. Even 'soft' subjects from middling schools confer a ROI.
eszed
> close to the prime rate
Where do you get that? Federal loans are currently 6.5% for undergraduate, 8-something% for graduate. Private loans are higher than that.
bloomingkales
Yeah. How come none of their other articles have this at the bottom:
Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Per wiki:
With assets of approximately $14 billion, Hewlett is one of the wealthiest grant makers in the United States.
Hmph. I guess the millions of successful college graduates are not providing enough positive PR mindshare, so they had to go buy some. Can't wait for their fine tuned LLM.
DoctorOW
William and Flora Hewlett are both deceased FYI.
XajniN
Send them to Europe. There are many good and reasonably priced universities in Germany, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, France, etc.
cjpearson
The sticker price arms race will continue until the incentives change. Having an absurdly high listed tuition price is simply effective advertising, even if almost nobody actually pays that price. Surely the most expensive colleges must be the best.
Colleges know that outside of a few suckers, few will pay the full price even if they have the money. So they offer massive discounts to get you to sign. To help seal the deal, they will market the discount as something special for you based on your "merit". "Normally we charge $75k, but since you're so awesome we can give you a $30k merit scholarship." Sounds like you're getting a great deal as long as you don't find out that the actual average charged tuition is $35k and you're actually the one getting milked.
dugmartin
We are going through this now with our youngest. All the private schools are $85k+/year but every one of them has offered a merit scholarship that brings the price down to around $5k above the public schools. Such a great deal.
null
newsclues
How do you change incentives when the people in charge of the incentive system have a interest in maintaining the status quo?
HarryHirsch
By outside forces, of course. Women entered the legal profession in the 1920's, but wages did not catch up until the Equal Pay Act was enacted under the Kennedy administration. There were plenty of labour market arbitrageurs profiting from the game, but the Civil Rights movement proved stronger.
anonym29
Unfortunately, all of the labor market arbitrageurs went away, and now we're stuck in this weird economy where women get paid 83¢ on the dollar for identical work performance, in an economy that is deeply entrenched in boundless corporate greed, and yet no major companies appear to have effectively capitalized on the free, automatic, statistically-guaranteed 17% ROI that's just sitting on the table by replacing men with women. I guess our laws against unlawful gender discrimination in hiring must be so strict that no large companies have ever been able to do it at scale without getting caught and fined, no? How else do you explain for-profit companies turning away free money?
whiplash451
This is typically where the government steps in.
drillsteps5
It did. It is part of the system. This is how it works.
1. Colleges set exorbitantly high prices.
2. The government-supported system assesses families' ability to pay though FAFSA process, where you submit your tax returns (not that you have to, IRS is government as well) with your wage/business income, then list all your assets (minus retirement accounts such as 401Ks) and liabilities. Then the FAFSA spits out your expected contribution, TELLING you how much you can afford to pay for your kids education.
3. Colleges and government then use this number to determine how much "financial need" you have. They can "meet your financial need" by letting you pay less than the sticker price (it's called "need-based scholarship"), or allow to take loans on favorable terms to close the difference between the sticker price and your ability to pay (that they determined). More often it's a combination of the two (depending how desirable college is and how good of the student they perceive your kid to be).
atom-morgan
Isn't that exactly why we're in the position we're in? Near universal financial aid driving up prices?
999900000999
Gen z grew up hearing stories about their older cousins or even parents going $100,000 in student loan debt for nothing.
Now all of a sudden the colleges are like, well technically we can get that down to 85,000 of student loan debt for an English degree. Don't you want to come to college and have a lot of fun!
I still think college is a net positive for most people, but you seriously need to evaluate where you're at and decide what you want to spend. Unless you get into a dream school, or something extremely specific for your major almost everyone should go to community college .
The reason why is if you have a bad year at community college and you just don't want to do it, you're only out a few thousand dollars versus 20 or 30.
Second, when you're ready to transfer you should have a good idea of what you actually want to do and then you can pick a college appropriately. Optimistically you'll graduate with half the student loan debt .
You can have just as much fun going to a cheap community college, and then a cheap state school. And outside of a small handful of outliers the net results are going to be the same. If you get in the Harvard, go ahead and go to Harvard. But if you get into Billy's weird expensive private school, that's not worth the money.
Between birth rates dropping and student loan reality, we're going to see an absolute tsunami of small school closures. Which isn't good or bad, it's just a sign of the times.
While I'm ranting, I absolutely resent this notion of college being necessary to obtain an upper middle-class lifestyle. It's just not, and I know this from personal experience despite finishing college years later. You end up putting a lot of people in a really nasty loop, you can't afford college unless you have money, and you can't earn money unless you go to college. That also justifies indefinite debt loads, so what you have to go $200,000 in student loan debt. The nice salesperson said you're practically guaranteed a six figure job when you graduate!
You graduated into a bad economy and end up working at Vons. Sucks to be you, by the way Sallie Mae expects your first payment in 60 days. May the odds be in your favor.
toast0
> The reason why is if you have a bad year at community college and you just don't want to do it, you're only out a few thousand dollars versus 20 or 30.
Depends on the state. When I was in college, California community college was very affordable, but when I transferred to a Wisconsin school to get a 4-year degree, I learned there that WI community colleges charged the same price per credit hour as UW. Things may have changed since then, but at that time, if you lived in WI, you may as well go to a UW if you can get accepted, cause a community college wouldn't save you money.
jart
There's no point in going to university anymore when you can just go straight into big tech. If you're doing anything mathematical, your late teens and early twenties are going to be some of your most productive years. Why should universities benefit from those years when they don't do frontier research anymore and have degenerated into quasi religious institutions that hand out credentials to anyone with a pulse in order to get rich shackling you with debt? Big tech will literally give you money to be educated.
ndiddy
> There's no point in going to university anymore when you can just go straight into big tech.
Assuming wanting to work at big tech is a goal, I'm not aware of any of the big tech companies recruiting for entry level roles outside of colleges. The "boot camp"/"hire anyone with a pulse" period was a ZIRP era anomaly.
999900000999
In the free money era the only boot camp grads who I know got jobs already had 4 year degrees.
If you got lucky you got a junior dev or QA position at a small dev shop. Unless you were some kind of known prodigy no one got a FAANG job out of highschool with no degree or experience.
mixmastamyk
No one (statistically) is getting hired for a coveted job today without a degree. The first thing they check; without and you go straight to /dev/null.
paulpauper
High school, in the past, prepared people for college, so those who were not cut out already had a clear indication during high school. But due to dumbing-down and grade inflation, they now learn the hard way during college.
you can't afford college unless you have money, and you can't earn money unless you go to college.
not really. there are tons of scholarships and other assistance. hardly anyone who goes to college is writing $30-100k checks.
zamadatix
College graduation vs dropout rates have been trending in the opposite direction than this take would suggest though. It could be because to be secondary education being better than you say or because colleges experienced the same kinds of changes. Either way though, the numbers suggest fewer people are finding out they aren't actually cut out for college after graduating high school.
bluGill
High school is often sending the best kidsto college with half their first year done already with AP classes.
Spivak
Colleges don't really take AP courses in the way you're describing. I took every single AP and dual credit course in HS I was offered and a few more I wasn't. Did you know schools can just order the test for you without the class? Anyway, I went to uni with 80ish credit hours which "coincidentally" didn't count for any of my major classes or electives.
So the AP as a means of saving $$$ loophole has been hard closed.
vidanay
Between AP and dual credit, my kid should graduate HS with somewhere around 30 hours of college credit.
anonym29
A lot of those scholarships are locked along racial and gender lines. Immutable traits that, as a society, we have decided, as a foundational principle, are an unfair, unjust, unkind, and uncivil basis to discriminate upon. Equal representation is great. What's not great is producing a system that's so financially unsustainable for working class people that they're told to go solve what is framed as a merit-based challenge in exchange for money, but the qualification criteria for some crazy high percentage (something like 2/3rds, if my memory serves correct) of the challenges exclude certain cohorts of people based on demographic traits they have no control over, including race and gender. It's just a very unbecoming look for a progressive institution, it feels like we're deliberately trying to relive the racial and gender conflict of the last century by continuing to deliberately view all human interaction through the lense of race and gender, and framing race and gender filters as "merit" filters, almost as if to suggest that you can be a fundamentally flawed person by having the wrong chromosomes or ethnicity, rather than by viewing human interaction through the lense of interacting with actual individual people, who all have incredibly rich, deep, unique lived experiences that are not defined exclusively by demographic traits.
I believe it's this point of view that leads to the common perception of higher education among the actual working class - that the American college experience was once something great, but got so watered down in pursuit of ideals other than education that it has essentially turned into a big summer camp for the adolscent offspring of the rich to extend the "party" of youth for a little bit longer, hopefully increasing their social credit score in the process, with actual learning being a "nice to have" along the way.
tbrownaw
> framing race and gender filters as "merit" filters
Do you have examples? I haven't gone systematically digging into this, but the general impression I've gotten is that this sort of explicit demographic filters are largely associated with the "equity" crowd rather than the "merit" crowd.
bloomingkales
extend the "party" of youth for a little bit longer
Extending the party of youth is roughly one of the benefits of social welfare. When we took the children out of the factories in the 1920s, we extended their youth. When we sent them to college, we extended their youth. When we economically constrained them with high real estate prices, we extended their youth.
Extending youthhood is fine, so long as we do it appropriately. For example, if we did it right, someone entering retirement enters a new youthhood of carefreeness. If we do it wrong, someone enters youthhood in theirs 20s as a dependent of their parents. There's a lot of wrong versions of the last thing I said, where people are kept children in academia to be parented indefinitely by tenor.
It's delicate. We want to provide as much youthhood as possible in a good way, if we can.
As to your first point, you can only be speaking of white men. To this I'll say, white men that come from the same economic situation should have access to the same scholarships. That's a easy one to fix. If you are working class then you are working class, this life is hard enough already.
999900000999
>not really. there are tons of scholarships and other assistance. hardly anyone who goes to college is writing $30-100k checks.
What was all this student loan forgiveness talk about then? Scholarships apparently haven't been cutting it, otherwise there wouldn't be a trillion plus of outstanding student loan debt.
johnnyanmac
I had plenty of scholarships and even the GI bill covering me. But I still ended up with 40k in debt at a state school (note that I took 5 years in college).
Luckily, software jobs in the beginning of my career was a strong market, so I aggressively paid them off early into the pandemic. About 3-4 years post grad. But I know that's not the normal story.
paulpauper
My point still stands though. The idea is people get jobs and pay the loans back.
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HPsquared
Also a person with a degree in a subject (years of sunk cost) often feels pigeonholed into that field which may not be enjoyable, well-paid or require you to move to hunt for a job in the field. All negative outcomes.
wakawaka28
Those are negative outcomes, but they aren't the worst tradeoffs if you study something worthwhile.
lapcat
The word "loan" doesn't appear even once in the article, which I find bizarre and confusing. It talks about "financial aid" multiple times but doesn't mention how much of that aid is in grants and how much in loans. If the loans have to be paid back later, that doesn't truly lower the cost of college attendance.
readthenotes1
This is nothing more than an advertisement for the loan organizations. The secret that colleges should stop keeping is that you are taking on indentured servitude by attending.
grandempire
I grew up in a different class than most of my peers. It’s interesting to see how many of them are willing to go all out for their kids when it comes to college. Touring many schools, application prep, savings accounts, meal plans, etc.
It sometimes seems as this support comes out of nowhere after years of not being involved in their child’s life.
So my question is what motivates this? Are they right? Is it really important for their kids future to go to a top 70 instead of 130? (I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money)
Is this based on college being a good time in their life and they are projecting that experience? Do they feel obligated to “finish strong” in regards to parenting?
The attitude of my parents is to make sure the degree will lead to a job, and then find a local and cheap school to get that credential. I believe there may be taboo class issues around this topic that are not vocalized.
csa
> Are they right?
Maybe
> Is it really important for their kids future to go to a top 70 instead of 130?
There are definitely rough cutoffs. Using your ballpark thresholds, yes, there can be a big difference in 70ish and 130ish in terms of opportunities. The big issue is whether the student will avail themselves of these opportunities.
> (I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money)
Oh, definitely not true unless the student avails themselves of the available opportunities.
At top 5, it’s only worth the money (assuming that you’re price sensitive) if the student does one or more things like uses the school alumni network, develops a robust network in school, works with top tier researchers, accesses unique learning opportunities, goes into fields that only pull from these schools (e.g., investment banking, consulting, etc.), tapping into the varsity athlete network, and other things like that.
If they just go and get a degree and then do whatever they were going to do if they had gone to State U, then it’s wasted money.
The classroom education at the top 5 universities is largely not that good. Smaller liberal arts colleges do a better job of classroom education, imho, if thats what someone is looking for.
> Is this based on college being a good time in their life and they are projecting that experience?
Maybe.
There’s probably a lot of intuitively knowing that it’s better to go to a good school without necessarily knowing what about going to a good school makes it matter.
> The attitude of my parents is to make sure the degree will lead to a job, and then find a local and cheap school to get that credential.
Smart, but very limiting if you have ambitions beyond being a middle manager.
> I believe there may be taboo class issues around this topic that are not vocalized.
Class issues, yes. Taboo… I’m not so sure.
grandempire
> unless the student avails themselves of the available opportunities.
I was imagining it in personal terms. I would have paid any amount of money for myself because I believe it would have worked for the reasons you mentioned.
> knowing that it’s better to go to a good school without…
That’s likely.
> but very limiting if you have ambitions beyond being a middle manager.
Say more. That kind of thing sounds worth paying for.
> Taboo
For example, someone might secretly think state school education was a waste of time, but not want to talk bad about their peer’s schooling. Or want their child to socialize with other well-to-do families.
csa
> Say more. That kind of thing sounds worth paying for.
I’m not sure what you have in mind.
I’m assuming “get a local and cheap degree that gets you a job” means going to a community college and a directional school (at best).
The whole mentality behind this thinking is “I’m going to be the best worker bee I can be”. Worker bees cap out at middle management. When you go to schools like this, you are surrounded by future worker bees, that will probably be your mentality, and that will almost certainly be your social circle. It’s hard to escape worker bee status in that context — possible, just hard and not probable.
Note that there isn’t anything wrong with being a worker bee. The world needs a lot of them.
Upper management, owners of big businesses, politicians, etc. are thinking about how to utilize worker bees to accomplish goals grander than “getting a good job”. It’s a very different way of thinking. It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s foreign to most people who aren’t surrounded by it.
Note that I am not referring to a flagship state school, which usually produces the majority of your local and state leaders (see below).
As a side note, this worker bee phenomenon is in play at elite schools as well. The worker bees get “good jobs” as analysts at investment banks, entry level positions at consulting firms, or (later) associate positions at good law firms. They do their worker bee thing, make the principals a lot of money, and then plateau / wash-out mid-career when they realize that they don’t have the social capital it takes to be a rainmaker. Some folks adjust and do well for themselves, but others don’t.
So to address your comment about being “worth paying for”, it really boils down to a few things. Does the student already have a lot of social capital that they will be able to build on top of? If not, are they socially capable enough to do the things they need to do (mostly build social networks that will let facilitate them being rain makers and/or power brokers later in life)? This is a lot to ask of a kid who is not already part of the upper-middle class or higher (e.g., the capital class).
If a student is just going to go to college, play video games in their dorm room, maybe roll in the hay a bit, and be an average student with a mediocre degree, then paying for a top 5 school (or even a flagship state school) largely is not worth it, imho.
> For example, someone might secretly think state school education was a waste of time,
As long as the “state school” is the flagship school or the A&M school, then this would not be a smart thing to think. Exceptions exist (e.g., UCLA), but these are largely known schools.
It all gets back to how the student utilizes the opportunities presented to them.
> but not want to talk bad about their peer’s schooling.
Probably a good idea in general.
> Or want their child to socialize with other well-to-do families.
Well, this is a smart move for building and/or maintaining social status.
That said, outside of the northeast corridor and California, the state flagship school probably produces waaaay more local and state leaders (business, political, etc.) than top 5 schools. I’ve definitely heard of people having limited access to their state power scene because they went to an Ivy instead of making the right connections at State U.
Edit:
Note that there are other scenarios that make elite schools good.
If you want to become an academic/researcher (I suggest not doing this unless you know someone who will give you the “inside baseball” version of being an academic), the elite schools give folks advantages that state schools don’t.
If you are in a STEM field and you want to meet other super smart and super motivated folks to work with in STEM later, then elite schools can be a good deal. But again, we are back to social networking.
If you want to go to an elite law school or certain grad schools, I actually recommend most people go to State U. For most majors, the effort required to be middle of the pack at an elite school will put you at the top of State U. A super high gpa and recs saying that you’re one of their 1%er students ever are worth way more than being merely above average (e.g., 70th percentile) in a pool of very motivated and intelligent people.
It’s rough listening to folks at Ivy graduations who busted their butt to get into an Ivy and do well (but not top of their class) moan about how they are ending up at the same good-but-not-great law school as their buddy who had zero stress before and during college. Note that the Ivy grad may be better prepared for law school (maybe), but one has to wonder if the stress, money, and effort were worth it.
HEmanZ
Attitudes around college in the US are really fascinating to me, because I’ve found they vary a lot from region to region and I think really reinforce class divides. I grew up in an area/class where my parents and their friends believed:
- All universities and even community colleges are equally good, except for maybe the Ivey league schools they’ve heard about, but no one actually goes to those.
- All majors are equally good, except whatever makes you a doctor, which is the best.
- Colleges on the east and west coast are very bad because they are purely for liberal indoctrination
- The highest earning career path from college is becoming a doctor, and if you become a doctor you are very upper class.
- what is majoring in finance? Is that like being a bank teller?
- what is studying computer science? Is that like working at Best Buy?
Once I got to college and met what I now think of as “the American urban professional class” I found a completely different set of beliefs, where college rankings were do-or-die, everyone wants their kid to go into finance, consulting, or tech, or get an MBA, and everyone seems to inherit large corporate networks from their parents.
I’m sure this has all sorts of culture war implications. I know the politics of the community I grew up in has more to do with distrusting/disliking the urban professional class than any wholistic political ideology. Probably both groups should learn something from each other.
jackcosgrove
I just searched for "best predictor of career success" and found a bunch of conflicting results. Open networks, conscientiousness, grit, intelligence, class, etc. This is actually reassuring, since if there were a known path to success everyone would crowd into it. Curiously I didn't see any articles or studies saying "it's partially random" because no one wants to hear that.
I think academic prestige is best understood as a safety net. It won't guarantee success, because nothing can, but it can do a decent job preventing failure. In that respect the parents are right. Academic assistance is a way they can convert financial resources into something that can't be taken away from their children (and isn't subject to the gift tax limit).
That said it's easy to go overboard, and many do. Unless you want to work in a small number of careers that have target lists of schools they recruit from (which again is because the credential is a selling point to clients, not because the education is better), there is no difference between a public university and a prestigious one.
To the extent parents know that prestige is signalling all the way down, and does not imply being better at what you do or knowing more about your subject, they do have some inside perspective compared to the population at large.
koolba
> I just searched for "best predictor of career success" and found a bunch of conflicting results. Open networks, conscientiousness, grit, intelligence, class, etc. This is actually reassuring, since if there were a known path to success everyone would crowd into it. Curiously I didn't see any articles or studies saying "it's partially random" because no one wants to hear that.
I'm not sure which is the best for career success and it's incredibly difficult to quantify your parents network effect, but conscientiousness, intelligence and grit make for a very happy life. You'll naturally gravitate toward intellectually stimulating things, work hard at them, not care about meaningless things around you, and enjoy every minute of it.
quesera
> but conscientiousness, intelligence and grit make for a very happy life
OK, but do you think these traits are primarily the results of nature, nurture, luck, or individual practice?
grandempire
> Academic assistance is a way they can convert financial resources into something that can't be taken away from their children (and isn't subject to the gift tax limit).
This is a really good summary. The end result is a permanent, non-transferable, protection with strong resistance to “inflation”.
> they do have some inside perspective compared to the population at large.
Would that advantage manifest as playing into the system - looking for opportunities for signaling? Or discounting - finding good education with less signaling value.
jackcosgrove
> Would that advantage manifest as playing into the system - looking for opportunities for signaling? Or discounting - finding good education with less signaling value.
Good question! I think that can play out both ways, ultimately based on how wealthy the parents are. If money is no object, play the prestige game. If you are middle class and know the rules of the game, maximize value.
For example, I am acquainted with parents who are teachers at a prestigious private school. Their child attended said school because of subsidized tuition, and then attended college in an honors program at a state university in the middle of the country. He was paid to attend! The parents are fully abreast of all the studies on the effects of education, both being teachers and being in the middle of the college admissions frenzy that goes on in these schools. So they know how the game works, and they are playing it to the max for value.
On the other hand, at this school are children from generational wealth who play obscure sports from an early age to give them an edge in admissions. The children never need to actually earn a living, and the target school admission is seen as a defense of a family legacy and bragging rights for the parents - pure prestige.
rafram
> I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money
Is it, though? Of course people who go to Harvard et al. do well afterwards, but many of them came from wealthy families and were bound to do well no matter what. If you’re poor, Harvard [1] is less likely to make you rich than UC Riverside [2].
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...
antasvara
Which measure are you going off there? Because I see the "Chance a poor student has to become a rich adult" metric at 41% for UC Riverside and 58% for Harvard.
There is the "overall mobility" metric that favors UC Riverside, but the way that's being measured would seem to skew in favor of whichever college has students in lower quintiles (a top quintile kid can't move up 2 quintiles).
rafram
Ah, you're right, I misread. But 41% vs 58% isn't a big enough difference to pay "any amount" for IMO - and the gap is much smaller with other public universities like Irvine (55%) and SUNY Binghampton (54%).
grandempire
Money is not the same as status, and opens different job opportunities like key government officials . I would be more interested in a survey that includes whether the participant was satisfied with their career trajectory
silvestrov
I wonder how many of those peers that can evaluate the quality of the teaching itself.
I'm guessing a lot of people (especially those without an university education) look at how impressive the buildings and facilities are because those are the status signals they understand. I don't think many check how large percentage of lessons are run by assistants.
So too many US colleges end up being 80% overly expensive hotel and 20% education.
BigGreenJorts
Because the 80% overly expensive hotel is precisely what you're paying for. Quality of education is a bare minimum requirement. The rest is the people you'll meet. Be that your neighbors in the expensive hotel or the professors you'll work with, or the activities that will bond you with those people.
BrenBarn
Well, I think that's half right, in that "how large percentage of lessons are run by assistants" isn't necessarily a great measure of "quality of teaching" either. In some cases the TAs may be better teachers than the professors.
grandempire
It’s well understood that teaching quality is a small part of the package value, so I dont even know if it matters for this decision.
kevin_thibedeau
I know someone who is a guidance counselor at an ultra elite high school. He globetrots every year to a plethora of institutions that are desperate to attract those students. All presumably because they want the alumni bucks when they have their own children. For a certain class, higher education serves an entirely different purpose.
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lumost
Lack of involvement can come from multiple issues. I don’t spend as much time with my kids as I’d like. Partly so that we can have good education, a decent home, activities, and college without stress.
The push into college is kinda the last hurrah for parents to set their kids up. Taking it seriously helps the (soon to be adult) kids take it seriously, finding a good fit can have an outsized impact on what they do next.
I do wish we lived in a world where we could be both involved and supportive of future endeavors. I grew up in a lower middle class home. College involved atrocious debt while my parents were uninvolved as … they were still busy working.
Why can’t we have time for ourselves in society?
grandempire
I think this a poor justification for uninvolvement. All families need resources - so satisfying that can justify all your time. But for many people on this forum that does not occupy all their time and attention, except for brief exceptions. What differentiates quality of upbringing is not resources. So working harder at your white collar job does not make you a better parent.
lumost
I don’t think it makes me a better parent, apologies if that was how it was interpreted.
The point is that there is no other alternative. My observation, at least in tech - is that the expectation of greater than 40 hours of work per week is ever present. There is no choice to earn less, take it easy, and have more time for other pursuits. If both parents are under this expectation then there are fewer hours to be involved. A break of 1-2 years will be held against you in future interviews.
From talking with other parents, this is a common conundrum across industries. No one feels that they have enough time to be a good parent.
More concretely, what work arrangements do you have or are aware of which allow you to cap the hours worked while affording a livable home life?
crazygringo
One critical point the article doesn't clarify:
Is the reduction in price entirely due to discounts, or is it also counting student loans that have to be paid back?
Because it keeps using the term "financial aid" throughout, but financial aid includes both grants/scholarships and loans.
And if the amount you have to pay immediately is going down but the part you have to pay after graduation is going up by the same amount, that's not necessarily good news.
It's bizarre that the article doesn't address this distinction at all. I want to believe the total price (including loans that need to be paid back) is going down -- but with student debt ever-increasing, I'm suspicious.
ghaff
A lot of elite universities in particular have given financial aid for ages if you were at the lower half of the parental income scale or thereabouts. But my recollection from the 70s is that upper middle class at least pretty much paid sticker. Today, my understanding is that sticker (for undergrad at least) is largely a fiction that few people (at least non-international students) pay.
Which
cjpearson
Yes, it is largely a fiction. For private universities (the ones typically with the high sticker prices) 16% paid the full amount in 2019-2020. For public schools the number is 26%. [0]
[0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ignore-the-sticker-price-...
grandempire
The international students are definitely whales for funding.
parsimo2010
Just in case people haven't heard this, here is my straightforward advice (for those in the US considering college):
1. Unless you have schools falling all over trying to recruit you, go to an in-state public university. By "trying to recruit you" I mean schools literally flying you out to visit and offering you full scholarship because you are an ungodly talent in whatever you do (sports, music, etc.). Schools mailing you letters and offering you $5k doesn't count, that can't offset the cost of private or out of state tuitions. For most middle class people, the jobs you'll be getting don't care about whether you went to UNC or VT, or K-State, or whatever- public state universities are kind of all judged the same and it's not worth the extra cost to go out of state.
a. If you want to really get a good deal, go to a community college for a year or two and live with your parents, then transfer to the state school when you have done your core classes and are ready to focus on your major.
b. Still apply for scholarships even if you're going to a state school with in state tuition. Pretty much anyone can swing a few grand in grants and scholarships, and if you get a job (or are lucky enough for your parents to pitch in) you can graduate debt free. Being debt-free from a state school is far better than having $40k or more in debt from a private school with moderate name recognition.
3. Definitely don't go to a small private liberal arts college. I have good friends that teach at these kinds of schools, and while they are a nice community to work in, they are a bad deal for students. People are starting to figure this out, smaller liberal arts colleges are at higher risk of shutting down. They unite the costs of a private school with the faculty the size of a community college, with the uncertainty of not knowing if your school will be open in four years to give you a degree.
If you do #1 above you'll have done the common sense thing and you'll really appreciate it as an adult when you hear your coworkers complaining about their mountain of debt from their college that sounded cool but turned out to be kinda crappy.
drillsteps5
Really good advice.
In my state our state college actually has agreements with number of community colleges where they guarantee transfer once you complete pre-defined number of classes with reasonably good GPA (3.5 I believe). Saves you a TON.
I'm curious to know how to find other scholarships not necessarily advertised by the school. I read the "1000 scholarships" book or whatever it's called, their points weren't very practical, or maybe I didn't look hard enough...
100% for liberal arts colleges. I do not hate liberal arts education, but if you charge so much for education knowing there's very limited number of jobs your graduates will be fighting for, and how low their wages will be, that borders on scam.
BrenBarn
> I'm curious to know how to find other scholarships not necessarily advertised by the school.
One of the biggest things to keep an eye out for is scholarship opportunities from local organizations (i.e., scholarships whose eligibility is "open to all students who graduated from high school in ABC County"). The key bonus here is that the local eligibility restrictions mean you're competing with a relatively limited pool of applicants. Of course this bonus is lessened if you come from a big city, although on the flip side bigger cities are more likely to have more foundations offering such scholarships. In my experience many people tend to look for scholarships at the school they're going to, and they look at ones you can find in the "1000 scholarships" type books which tend to be large national ones, but they're not so aware of scholarships that are based on where you're coming from, not where you're going to.
These scholarships often aren't huge dollar amounts, but if you combine it with the advice about picking affordable schools, it can have a meaningful impact.
eszed
As a graduate from and former professor at small private liberal arts colleges, #3 is spot-on. Don't even consider it.
The rest of the advice is excellent, as well. Unless the world is very, very different ~15 years from now (and God, I hope it is), this is what I'll be telling my kid.
BrenBarn
Great list. There is one useful sidebar that probably isn't on the radar for most high school students but is important to remember:
* Never under any circumstances go to a for-profit college.
thayne
> This means that there’s often a chasm between the published cost of attendance, or sticker price, and what people actually pay once financial aid is factored in, or the net price.
Maybe it's different now from when I applied to colleges, and it's anecdotal, but coming from a middle class family with a 4.0 GPA, I didn't qualify for financial aid at most of the colleges I looked at. I could get some merit based scholarship money, but not enough to make a significant dent in tuition, much less total cost (including food and housing). My parents' income was too high for me to qualify for financial aid, but they didn't have enough money to afford for me to go to the colleges I wanted either, and even if they could, they wanted me to pay for college myself. As a result, I ended up going to a much cheaper, less prestigious college, rather than the more prestigious ones I initially wanted, in order to avoid mountains of student debt.
drillsteps5
I (the parent) am in the same position as your parents were. Unfortunately the middle class families are the ones screwed by the system. The poor get financial help (deservedly so), the rich can pay the sticker price so they don't care, but the middle class do not qualify for much financial help AND the cost of attendance is very significant. I want what's best for my kids but I also want to have something saved when I'm unable to work anymore and need money to sustain myself.
javagram
I came from a middle class family (both parents college educated with white collar jobs) and received significant financial aid offers from multiple colleges (2 decade ago). A mix of grants and subsidized federal loans.
I think it depends a lot on the family’s position within the middle class. Upper middle class families will not be eligible for financial aid, while members of the lower middle class have significant non-merit based aid available.
underseacables
It would help improve things if universities, not the government, was responsible for student loan debt. Schools have no incentive to lower costs when they have no liability
Free link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-if-college-got-cheape...