For the record, I’m not American nor live in the US, but I have a 19-year-old son who started attending the University of Chicago this year, studying economics. Just the tuition itself is $70k. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford it - I still believe it’s an outrageous amount of money to attend college.
Majority of everything in the usa feels like a grift now.
Profit/stockholders > people.
I have clients that move to the USA from overseas that see the USA as “safe”.
Unfortunately I have to warn them against getting scammed left and right since it happens to everyone.
they didn’t used to be
Because everybody believes their bullshit snake oil.
There was a recent post on !AskUSA@discuss.online (https://lemmy.world/post/23087700), feel free to crosspost there too
Gotta make indentured servants somehow.
I mean if you can afford a 70k/tuition you probably already know how economics works…
Let me ask, why are you sending your child to that expensive college and not a local community college?
Because he wanted to go there & we can afford it. Plus it’s ranked as one of the best in the world for economics.
You just answered your own question to why it’s so expensive. While a community college is still overpriced nowadays, it would probably be 1/10th of the cost. But if you’re willing to pay 70k a year then obviously someone is willing to take that much money from you.
Most community colleges are very affordable, if not free with financial aid. At many state universities, many students who are low income can qualify for free tuition.
Because THOSE schools are expensive.
- IN STATE VS OUT OF STATE -
I went to a SUNY (State university) about 18 yrs ago and it was $3,000/semester. Today it’s $3,500/semester, so it didn’t go up by much. I stayed in state so it was lower for me. If you are not from the state it was $10,000/ semester (still on the lower end). Compare that to other people in other schools taking the same major as me. It was about 20,000/ semester for in state. We all ended up at the same jobs, I just didn’t carry the debt.
For the US, staying in state helps a lot. Unfortunately I think the grand idea of moving away and dorming is pushed onto kids by the media. Another comparison, my wife, who also went to school in the same state as me, went to at a CUNY (City University) and it was $1,800/semester. It was a pretty great school and campus, but not a school you’d see in the movies or tv shows. We both chose to stay within our means and not put a burden on ourselves or our families. Today we are very successful with no debt.
- SCHOOLS AS BRAND -
One more thing that drives price, is that schools are also brands now, and you are paying for that. There is peer pressure to get into schools with better awareness. Same reason a kid would rather wear apparel from nike vs walmart. My niece just started college this year and was brainwashed into picking a school she couldn’t afford. They took out a loan and the school end up being horrible for her. She dropped out during the last semester and I was told all the money spent this year was a wash. She’s now going to end up going to the school her family originally recommended to her. There are plenty of schools in the states that are good and wont cost an arm and a leg.
- CLASS FLUFF -
For the sake of keeping kids in school they pack in so many additional unneeded electives. I think I had to take 11 within my first 2yrs and each of my classes was 3hrs long. Some days I would have 9hrs of class. That is not including the down time in between those clases, so I could be there around 11-12hrs on a single day. If you want to keep a part time job to help pay for college, then that may mean you have to take additional winter and summer classes. In a lot of places this isn’t covered during the regular months so you have to pay for more. This fluff is one of the ways they keep bachelors and masters programs to run for as long as they do and at the prices they do. Some of these schools do run expedited programs where if you have previous electives that transfer over, you can do your degree in half of the time.
All the schools rip off the rich to subsidize the middle class. You’re essentially subsidizing a bunch of students who are paying close to nothing.m, because you can afford $70k tuition.
As another example, Harvard is free for anyone whose family makes less than $85k per year. Not just the tuition ($56k per year), but also the housing (worth $13k), food ($8k), health insurance ($1600), books, and a modest living stipend designed to cover things like a computer, commuting/travel, other expenses.
And those who make up to $150k per year are capped at 10% of their income to pay for all that. In the end, the average cost of Harvard for the typical student is about $15,000 per year including housing and food.
In other words, attending Harvard is cheaper than not attending school for anyone whose families make less than $150k, which is basically 75% of the nation. So if you’re actually paying full tuition, you’re probably pretty rich.
Only thing I’ll disagree with is they’re not ripping off the rich, because it doesn’t matter to the rich. They’re killing the middle class though, but that is the way it’s been and the way it will continue to be. You will either be rich (haha, jk) or poor, and that’s the end game.
side effects of Boomer economic policies and their ignorance regarding the changes they caused
My parents paid for me to attend a private university in the late 80’s, for which I’m both extremely fortunate and grateful.
I wanted to do the same for my children, but there was no way. I pay half, my parents pay half, and my kids have very small loans.
I was experiencing significant disappointment that I wasn’t able to pay for my kids’ education the way my parents paid for mine.
At one point I used an inflation calculator to get an idea of how much my education cost in today’s dollars, and it turns out that when it’s corrected for inflation, I’m paying what my parents paid. My kids’ education is more than twice as expensive as mine was if you correct for inflation.
learning is just a sidehustle to the sports franchise they run?
Idk why you phrased that as a question as if it isn’t pretty obvious
Same reason everything in the US is expensive: we have largely unregulated, runaway capitalism which pervades every facet of life. Everything from housing to academia to health care is for profit – not only profit, but for obscene year-over-year increases in profit. Those at the top regularly make money hand over fist even selling basic necessities, and if they don’t continue taking more and more, they’re seen as failures and replaced by one who will.
The cherry on top is that, for the most parts, the citizens no longer have any real power to change any of it.
Around the same time that health care becomes affordable in the US (major hypothetical, of course), it probably means a wind change has occurred such that university costs would also be coming down. But it would be a systematic change.
Corporate greed.
