<p>someone had asked a few pages ago why tuition in general is this high. I didn’t see this addressed. The reason, as far as I can see, is the availability of easy money through federal grants and loans with very low interest rates. large box colleges started assembling expensive sports teams and building highly extravagant sports stadiums - they need money to support these activities. In one college, I heard the foot ball coach makes more money than the president. Recently there was a debate in congress about keeping the interest rates on student loans at current (artificial) 3% as opposed to letting it go back to 6% or so. Imagine a hypothetical world where there is no government loans/grants of any kind for students and they have to either come up with money from parents savings or borrow from private banks at market rates with collateral - do you think the tuition would be this high in this situation? In in ideal situation, we would have slight quota for the underprivileged minorities and everyone else compete on equal footing.</p>
<p>easy money is ruining everything here. Look what it did to housing. Frankly I don’t like any government initiatives that encourages people to borrow - e.g. mortgage interest deduction, FED suppressing interest rates so businesses/people can borrow to the hilt. if two families with same income and number of kids, with one of then leading a frugal life and saving like crazy for future and the other spending on vacations, villas and boats - when each of them apply for colleges guess who is going to get partial financial aid based on net worth?</p>