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.
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.