College Tuition in 20 Years

[ItsMainelyYou]

@ItsMainelyYou wage stagnation and full time working families not achieving living wages are a HUGE problem, but I see it as arising out of a combination of automation (fewer workers/jobs needed) and overpopulation*, not really because of college tuition.

*For an extreme example, look at the case of college graduates in India. For the most basic jobs, there are hundreds to thousands of well educated people competing for a mere handful of jobs. This was before the pandemic. And as far as wage stagnation, the case in the US isn't as bad as Japan.

I apologize if the impression left was a conflation of the two.
What I said was wage stagnation precludes millions from even dreaming of higher education due to prohibitive costs, not that wage stagnation is caused by college expense.

*Japan offers nationally subsidized healthcare/worker comp insurance and has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The US offers no subsidized healthcare/privatized worker comp and has a minimum wage of $7.25. Japan comes out ahead.
Automation and job as resource/competitiveness is an entirely different issue that isn't directly addressed through providing affordable education.

 

[FL_runner]

If I were a young person today and I didn't have parents who could help, I'd try to go in-state, and I'd live at home if possible. Or I'd go to a community college for the first two years, especially if it was near enough to live at home but the public university wasn't, and transfer for the last two. I think of the dorm experience as a nice extra if you can afford it, but the primary purpose of college is to get an education. I'd probably do the above and get through it by patching together some aid/merit-based scholarships, work, and loans. Even if you don't think you're at the "best" school, you can still make the most of your education by reading around your subjects and using the resources you do have to the max. (Professors, school library, etc.)

Surely many students do it this way? Especially with college costs being what they are now.

Hats off to young people who get themselves a college education when they don't have parents who can help. It really is NOT easy in this country.

One of my sibling did 2 years at community college living at home then transferred to university, and I took my classes at community college while working full time when I wanted to transition to a different career. For my undergrad I went to a state public university and was able to avoid taking out loans between assistance from my parents and working (20 hours/wk during school and 60 hours/wk over summer). I did get some scholarship offers, but none that would make it less expensive than attending a public school close to home when considering all the costs (travel, housing, etc.). Ultimately when I was accepted to medical school I joined the military and have no education debt... but that's a whole other story :

Community college and non-residential higher education are definitely not the "college experience" that has been romanticized- not having deep philosophical conversations and chatting on the quad (ha!) if one takes a practical view of education i agree that focusing on offering low-cost public education with a variety of degree programs, and helping guide students (traditional and non-traditional) to enroll and be successful in them (including flexibility and meeting the students "where they are" in life) is a good way to go. I had great professors and the small class sizes were actually very helpful, as I learned some very complicated topics very well due to the individual attention and accountability. When I was right out of high school I looked at college as a time to do some academic exploration and have fun but I wasn't focused on a specific career field- I really should have worked for a while first, in retrospect, to maximize my time and tuition. I'm grateful I had the luxury to do so and fortunately did not have loans, but that's not an option for many people, especially if they are going for the traditional "college experience" right out of high school.

I do think that allowing young people to sign up for crushing debt loads without knowing if they will ever be able to pay them back is predatory, and young people usually do not have a lot of financial literacy and context to understand how devastating debt will be. I think more people would choose low-cost options or alternate schedule education (i.e. take a lighter course load while working, graduating after a longer time period but being able to pay as you go, potentially working in your field of study to build your resume) if these were options.

I think that student debt is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed (esp preventing more in the future!) but it also seems like wiping out existing student loan debt across the board may be a bit extreme- perhaps implementing a "sliding scale" approach? Or a process for applying for partial or full loan forgiveness?

 

[Jaquette]

Hopefully something will change by then. College costs are already out of control. I know a number of people who graduated 20 years ago and are still paying off student loans today. I can't imagine having to deal with that amount of debt at such a young age.

 

[voce]

So there's still way more support for bailing people out after they make expensive choices/mistakes than support for educating young people to understand personal finance and not make these choices/mistakes in the first place... Classic example of treating symptoms and not tackling the underlying problem.

This kind of groupthink is exactly why our society is stagnating.

 

[Dancing Fire]

So there's still way more support for bailing people out after they make expensive choices/mistakes than support for educating young people to understand personal finance and not make these choices/mistakes in the first place... Classic example of treating symptoms and not tackling the underlying problem.

This kind of groupthink is exactly why our society is stagnating.

Yup, Like telling my daughters not to pay back their mortgage. Just go beg your bank forgiveness.