In my last facetious piece I spoke about how some were paying for the high cost of higher education. I’d like to follow this with a more serious article on how the cost of tuition has considered outraced our income over the years. For instance my tuition at Iowa State University in 1960 was $125/per quarter or $375/yr. That year I remember my total expenditures for everything, room, board, tuition, cigarettes, everything was just over $1,000. Most of you are aware of the current college costs.
Following is some data I collected this morning.
47% colleges cost less than $9,000/yr
Private college at $35,000/yr
Two year colleges $2,713/yr
Public 4 yr colleges average $7,605/yr
Private non-profit college average $27,293/yr
Public 2 yr colleges average $2,713/yr
[collegeboard.com]
Online colleges range from $23,868 to $30,975 for a two year program ranging in hours for competition from 36 to 53 hrs for an associates degree. [elearningpundit.com] (I’m not sure we are comparing apples to apples here.) I had a great deal of difficulty finding out about B.A. degrees from Phoenix. I refer you to Sami.
(I believe regular colleges require about 16 hrs/ semester or 128 hours for graduation.)
In the 1940’s the average tuition cost per year was under $100.
In the 1960’s it rose to $300 to $3,300/yr depending where you went.
In the 1980’s the national average for tuition room and board was $5,000 to $6,000/yr (University of Colorado Boulder
In other words the cost of education has increased far more than inflation, which is beginning to price students out of college and/or causing them to incur incredible debt. [see nader.org Monday May 27, 1985]
Brigham Young University report the tuition costs in 1960 at $130/semester rising to a current $2,210/semester in 2011. They are heavily subsidized by the church.
Comparing median incomes from 1975 to 2009 [davemanuel.com] the nominal (median) income in 1975 was $11,800 (adjusting that figure for inflation it would be $42,936). In 1909 that changes to $49,777 (no inflation need be reflected.) So, for adjust incomes that means an increase of a little less than $7,000 gained in income over those years.
Tuition at public colleges in 1975 were $599/yr and $2,614/yr at private college. In 2005 public tuition was $10,800 and private tuition was $19,400. [insideout.wbur.org] Citing the same source the median income in 1955 was $4,418 in 1955, $13,719 in 1975 and $56,194 in 2005. (These are not inflation adjusted figures.
One of the reasons for these higher costs is that there are many more students attending college than they did in my day. But shouldn’t that make the cost per student go down rather than up? In industry that’s usually they way it works. The more widgets you make the more efficient you become and the cost per widget goes down.
I heard Garrison Keillor speaking on radio about this, that in his day anyone could go to college if they want and they could work their way through without incurring any debt at all.
Perhaps in those days we just better understood the importance of higher education for our society. And those with degrees were regarded with more respect that today. Who knows?
I have all too frequently heard folk running for office on a board of education whose sole reason for running was to lower costs for taxpayers. Everyone needs to get the best bang for the buck for the educational dollar, but shouldn’t the reason for what to be on an educational board be to ensure good education for our children? And now we have a governor who wipes out the bargaining power of teachers, calling that being fiscally responsible while at the same time he gave away an almost equal amount in tax breaks for businesses.
The costs of education have risen dramatically over the years along with everything else. But our educational systems are becoming less and less competitive with other educational systems in developed countries. We can complain about teacher’s salaries while remaining silent about the obscene salaries of upper management in corporation and a banking system that bets against those they lend to.
Given their value to society I think it almost impossible to overpay teachers. But in a society that has become increasing short sighted we have devalued education and have turned many colleges into trade schools. (but that’s another subject to address another day.) But it is reflective on an increasingly materialistic society where economic values outweigh all other values. The common ethic of today is expediency, not whether some is right or wrong.
This is one of the important issues of our society which get lost in the political rhetoric of today. Think about it my friends.
Efficient-market theory would dictate this result: left to its own devices, theoretically the cost of a higher education will soar until it reaches a point where the cost of the education is roughly equal to the net present value of the lifetime income advantage to be gained by said education. In other words, in the absence of a concerted effort to encourage education through the public sector, the cost of higher education will climb until the cost is at a level high enough that pursuing it reaches the borderline of cost-effectiveness.
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