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.
side effects of Boomer economic policies and their ignorance regarding the changes they caused
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.
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.
This is a private school so they don’t get much in the way of direct government funding. State-funded schools are considerably cheaper. I went to Wright State University in Ohio. Right now it’s about $13k/yr in tuition. This is still rather expensive on a global scale.
Why do private schools charge that much? Because people (like you) will pay that much. What about the University of Chicago makes it so that you are willing pay for it? What do you or your son hope to get out of it that a school in your home country (I’m assuming Canada) can’t give him? To compare to Wright State, even for out-of-country students the tuition is less than half of Chicago’s tuition. Is the benefit of going to Chicago worth that much more? If it is, then that is exactly what you’re paying for.
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
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.
Because people are still paying it. That’s how you set the price of things. If people are paying 70k why would you sell it cheaper?
If you can charge for something mandatory (minimum requirement for a decent job, house, healthcare) then you can set whatever price you want for it. You just need to push it to the limit of what people can finance to keep paying for over their whole lives.
Going to a private university certainly isn’t a requirement, and in-state tuition for public universities is much, much lower (but still too high).
because america is the land of profit over humans. its just that simple.
its ingrained in the entire country. if some rando at the top isnt profiting, it must be killed. its the problem with healthcare. its the problem with government (congress). its the reason we are entrenched in a 2-party hellscape.
And if the university of Chicago is that “Chicago school of economics” then this kid is going to come out the other end repesting close to what you said, but as a positive. :(
Is that just America though? Are there other countries where profit isn’t king?
I’m pretty confident the French wouldn’t stand for “rule by profit”
I’m afraid I don’t have good news…
I’d put money down to Kickstart a documentary series where we fly American Redditors (and Lemm users) to Europe to film their reaction when they see that, yes, they still need to pay for items with money (and perform labor to get the money! 😱😱)
I mean, I’m aware that France has a capitalist economy. I mostly meant to say that Americans let capitalists step all over them in many ways that the French would riot over
not that im aware of.
america was founded on this crazy idea of ‘rugged individualism’. that ‘socialism’ is inherently evil. its every man for themselves, and anyone not rich is so because they arent doing it correctly.
its also the reason why even a class full of dead kindergartners is ok as long as we get to keep our guns.
Corporate greed.
Because there’s nothing more American than getting ripped off.
Because Reagan defunded public secondary education. And then instead of fixing that in the late 90s/early 00s, they made school loans non expungable and federally guaranteed, so schools didn’t need to keep their prices low and competitive anymore.
It always goes back to Reagan…
This is the real answer I was looking for in the comments.
Edit: it always goes back to Reagan.
Why did unions lose their power? Reagan threatened striking ATC workers with firing if they didn’t return to work immediately. Suddenly striking workers could be fired.
Why did weed become a life sentence drug? Reagan.
Who demonized the poor on welfare, calling them welfare queens? Who is Ronald Reagan, Alex?
Deregulated Wall street, banking and commerce sector, too.
If there’s a glaring problem with the USA, there’s a very good chance it dates back to RR.
BTW Nancy & The Astrologer is a great name for a band
Jesus Christ, so many people don’t know the real history of what happened while this is the real answer.
To add on to Ronald “Fucking” Reagan defunding universities, he did it because as governor of California he absolutely hated the anti-Vietnam War protests happening on University of California campuses and thought a good way to limit attendance of ‘rabble rousing’ (re: poor) students was to take away their funding. Conservatives nationwide saw this and thought ‘that’s great, we should do that, too.’ and they did.
Thanks Ronnie. You’re the unwanted microwaved dog shit that ruined America 40 years and your stink is still smelled in full force to this day. I didn’t believe in hell, but I hope they made a special one just for you.
The government also ramped up the interest rates on student loans while universities increased the price faster than inflation, I paid around 3-4% in 2008, the lowest was around 2.7% in 2020, currently they are close to 7%. The whole thing should be covered by state and federal taxes we’re already paying to subsidize them, but it just keeps getting worse to squeeze every drop of blood from people who weren’t born with a trust fund.
Yep, this needs to be higher. Since student loans are guaranteed and pushed on all students, universities have been spending oodles of fucking money to justify higher tuition costs, which justifies bigger loans that can never be discharged. The banks win, the schools win, the student lose both academically and financially.
Public universities could actually have stricter requirements on who could go to college, because if it’s already funded by taxes, you don’t want to be throwing money away on students who will fail out of the degree path they’re trying to pursue.
Finally, two words: “Legacy Admissions”
While true overall, University of Chicago is an elite private school with a hedge fund sized endowment with vast majority of students coming from families who pay 70k with two checks two weeks before each semester starts.
This how they stay elite.
secondary --> tertiary?
Sure, I guess post-secondary is the term usually used
I just wasn’t sure if reagan did anything with HS budgets and how that connected with college prices. That guy was such a cancer on the country. Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors altogether
US universities engage in price discrimination between different students.
For public schools, there is different tuition between in state and out of state students. There are also some state government programs based on merit and financial considerations.
For well endowed private schools, the universities will provide scholarships based on a variety of reasons. For students from rich families, those families are generally paying full price and there generally is the implication of additional donations.
This is the reason. Every public school, like University of Chicago, has non-resident pricing that’s typically two to four times higher than in-state resident tuition. Source: used to work at a state university.
The original idea was probably to encourage people to stay within their state and boost the state economy, but greed from the admins kinda changed the nature of things.
Given that state taxes heavily support higher education, it’s not the craziest idea in the world to give lower tuition to those who’ve been paying those taxes their whole lives.
The University of Chicago is private. The University of Illinois Chicago is public. They have the added issue the people definitely use the names interchangeably because they don’t know there’s more than one.
When I worked at the state University, we had lists to check that stuff. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times, not so much. Good catch!
Tuition is also higher for international students.
There’s probably more at play, but the govt is willing to back companies offering loans to cover higher and higher tuition costs, so said companies haven’t got to worry if the loans default or don’t return the full amount - it’s about setting an exorbitant “graduate tax” to keep a permanent stream of guaranteed income for as long as possible.
Higher loans means more repayments, and more money for universities, so they both raise tuition higher and higher to meet the limits of students. as long as banks or govt don’t ever ask for their loans back (which they won’t because it’ll collapse the whole system and possibly the economy with it) the price can inflate at much at it likes.
the same is at play in the UK, only we have “tuition caps” that every university course sets their prices to because there is simply no benefit to charging less, and no downside to charging more. Everyone can get a loan, no one is denied, and the government backs this process because it is essentially being held at ransom.
I know I turned it into a rant about UK education but the financial systems feel very similar. There’s simply too much money held up in a make believe cycle of IOUs that would immediately collapse a huge chunk of the American system if anyone willingly let it pop.
The only problem with this is that eventually it might just pop on its own, and no one will be ready.
Administrative bloat. At my university, if my lab lands a grant, 60% goes to the university and only 40% is used for actual research. There’s a long chain of people whose jobs are to answer emails, and they all need to be paid.
