Then why has college tuition increased at almost 10x wages over the past 20 years? There is no reason that college tuition should increase faster than cost of living, while the educators get paid, in aggregate, less over time.
The college experience hasn’t changed dramatically for the better over the past 2-3 decades; why has the cost gone through the roof?
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for universities that have bloated up on administration while sacrificing front-line educators.
I thought a bigger drain than administrative bloat, at least for state schools, has been years of steady cuts in state funding. They’re hardly “public schools” at all anymore in that sense.
Mostly federal funding cuts, which forced the state to cover it for a long time. States are running a bit low (unlike the Fed, they can’t print money) so state funding is starting to lag.
That said, there definitely has been a surge in administrative costs over the past couple of decades. Both contribute to the ridiculous increase in tuition.
Hiring MOAR adjuncts will fix this problem!!! /s
Tuition is increasingly being used to fund non-instructional activity on campus (as I said), while state support (in publics) has not kept up with this.
he college experience hasn’t changed dramatically for the better over the past 2-3 decades;
Probably worse. My class sizes have approximately doubled over this period.
federal and state support for higher education has collapsed over the past 20 years. even without adjusting for inflation public money for public colleges and universities has shrunk.
Interesting factoid: up to 71% of the Democratic voters in current primaries, for example in South Carolina, were older black voters, and they (for whatever reason) back Biden. This probably explains why he’s doing so well in the polls despite not being a favorite on internet forums largely populated by younger (and often whiter) voters.
Optimistically, a surge in funding should help alleviate the problem. Cynically, it will make it worse.
So if Feds cover tuition, but require it to cover only direct educational expenses, that would let up on the budget pressure at the state level. But somehow you see this as a problem?
State support took an especially big hit right after the 2008 financial crisis, and continued to fall for the next 5 years. Since 2013 it has been steadily increasing, albeit slowly.
Not a problem, please stop putting words in my mouth, of course I like that idea, but it would only result in free tuition if that’s all tuition was used for, which it isn’t.
Even the Warren plan, which I fully support, recognizes that public universities are state responsibility, and therefore requires partnership between the federal government and the states. That’s the thing I believe the President is not really in a position to offer – if it comes it will come from the Senate and from state legislatures – which is why I don’t see the difference between the candidates on the issue to be an important one, even though increased investment in higher education is so good for people like me.
The Buttigieg idea that free tuition subsidizes the wealthy, an idea BTW first constructed by “progressive” think tanks in the 60s, is wrong because it would apply to any public good, like free fire departments, and neglects the huge net positive for society. However, he wouldn’t actively oppose a plan that came from the states and legislature. The bigger issue is whether he has a revenue plan, like Warren’s, that could pay for it. That’s to me a much more concrete reason to support a Warren or a Sanders over a Buttigieg.
just like millionaires aren’t out riding busses, their kids sure ain’t going to public school anyway.
it further lowers my opinion of pete.
Since it is an election issue:
We are the richest, most powerful and bestest country in the history of the universe!
Yet somehow we can’t do things like health care for all or public college free or cheap for all like pretty much every industrialized country.
hey. freedom isn’t free. in fact, it seems to require sacrificing 99% of your population to mammon.
Couldn’t we have picked a love goddess ? Or the goddess of pleasant mornings and easy living?
Shocking…
Hardly even merits the term “news.” Seems like months since I’ve even heard his name.
They should all go out for a few drinks together.
That’s a lot of dudes who didn’t stand a chance in hell. And one woman.
this dates back to the reagan administration, pre-dating the the problems caused by the great recession. from a 2014 article in the washington post–
" This fall, I’ll be teaching some of the most financially distressed students in America.
At my employer, Ohio State University, student loan debt reportedly rose 23 percent faster than the national average between 2010 and 2012. This is true at state schools across the country. Student debt has risen nationally, and the sharpest uptick occurred at public universities with the highest-paid presidents. From 2006 to 2012, for example, the “average student debt of graduates in the top 25 public universities with the highest executive pay increased 5 percentage points more or 13 percent faster than the national average,” according to one recent report.
Racial minorities face an even more precarious situation. Previous findings show the students I typically teach — African-Americans — are more likely to borrow, and borrow more than the average college student.
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At first glance, the student loan debt crisis appears a problem hatched in state houses and government. In the 1970s, states paid 65 percent of the costs of college. By 2013, states covered a mere 30 percent of college costs. Like students who had to pay more, the federal government seemingly upped its commitment, covering just 10 percent in the 1970s and 16 percent today.
But unmooring these statistics from their political context obscures how national forces shaped the seismic shifts in state higher education and, ultimately, why states give less and students pay more. To fix inequality at places like Ohio State, we should look to federal policy first, and problems with state funding second.
Today’s student aid crisis has its roots in the 1980s. In 1981, the Reagan administration, with a coalition of congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats, pushed through Congress a combination of tax- and budget-cutting measures.
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No federal program suffered deeper cuts than student aid. Spending on higher education was slashed by some 25 percent between 1980 and 1985. In raw dollar figures, cuts totaled $594 million in student assistance and $338 million in Pell grants. Students eligible for grant assistance freshmen year had to take out student loans to cover their second year. For middle-class families, eligibility was changed as well. Low-cost, low-interest, subsidized federal loans were limited to families with household incomes of less than $32,000, regardless of family size.
Effectively, these changes shifted the federal government’s focus from providing students higher education grants to providing loans.
How did college students and their families find themselves in the budgetary crosshairs of the Reagan administration?
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Some in the White House and the Office of Management and Budget argued cutting aid would reduce the deficit, while others averred that less money meant less federal intrusion in individuals’ lives. Still others insisted government support of students upset the natural order of the nuclear family, supplanting parents and their obligation to provide.
These various perspectives coalesced around a shared view: students were “tax eaters … [and] a drain and drag on the American economy.” Student aid “isn’t a proper obligation of the taxpayer,” Reagan’s OMB Director David Stockman told Congress.
Reagan administration Education Secretary Terrel Bell would later write in his memoir that students needing aid were part of the problem, not very different from other “undeserving” Americans, no different than the “welfare queen,” the out-of-work father drawing unemployment insurance, the poor families on Medicaid, the elderly in need of Medicare or even farmers relying on subsidies.
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Elected officials up-and-down the ballot took notice, evinced in Reagan’s landslide 1984 re-election and George H.W. Bush’s (eventually broken) pledge of “no new taxes” in 1988 — that there would be no electoral consequence for cutting higher education spending. In fact, voters were far more likely to punish lawmakers for raising taxes. Elected officials made the political calculus that it was safer politically to divert existing funds from discretionary costs to mandatory costs like health care, prisons and primary education, than raise taxes.
My adopted home state of Ohio is fairly typical. Time and again Ohioans opposed tax increases in higher education in the 1990s and early 2000s, while voting to spend tax money to build four sports stadiums.
It should be little surprise that state support for higher education has steadily declined since Reagan. State higher education funding on a per-student basis is lower today than it was in 1980, and all states but one (North Dakota) are spending less per student today than before the Great Recession. Many of these cuts were steep; in 28 states, per-student spending was cut by more than 25 percent."
