And to add to Kelsmom’s fine comments- some of the “in demand” professions with projected shortages are high cost/labor intensive types of programs.
Nobody wants civil engineers who haven’t worked- in a hands on way- in a materials science lab or a structures seminar where they have to do both the math/theoretical piece, and see first hand how things come together or fall apart. You can’t teach a lab with 800 students. Nobody will hire nurse who has never touched a patient (which requires supervision, not just an online class in anatomy) or a robotics designer whose only experience “building something” is from a high school club.
There may be a vicious cycle between education costs and medical costs.
Both are labor intensive, and compensation commonly includes expensive medical insurance. Medical workers generally must pay for their own education (including with huge loans for some), so they need to be paid enough to make the professions attractive in the face of typical debt. But that drives up the cost of all employees with medical insurance, including many in education.
The use of adjunct faculty may be a way of cutting medical insurance (and other) costs by taking advantage of the oversupply of PhD graduates, so that schools can stretch their budgets for all of their regular employees’ compensation, including their medical insurance.
Let’s see… GA and TN use lottery funds, some states put most price increases on OOS students to keep costs down for in-state students, more on-line class options for state flagships (cheaper), and higher taxes of all types (tourism, corporate, individuals, etc.), are used today.
One of my personal favorites (Deciding to shortening the length of time needed to get an undergraduate degree to 3 years or pay for much cheaper dual enrollment courses/AP Exams for hs students which also shortens undergrad to 3 years) could really help with overall costs (My plan always involved my kids graduating early if I were footing the bill).
Medical costs and education also both highly subsidized (at least for many). Ask your doctor the next time a test or procedure is ordered what it will cost and its very likely he/she will have no idea. How many kids pay sticker price for college? One solution to rising prices is often more subsidies (which as a matter of basic economics actually make the price issue worse). Somehow you need to find a way to creative incentives to contain costs. Much tougher to do.
Vast majority of people pay for their own education. Not sure why medicine is viewed as unique in that regard.
Florida, Tennessee and Georgia all have state lotteries that help fund the scholarships (and other educational expenditures).
In 2016, the Florida lottery sold a record-breaking $6.2 billion in tickets, providing the largest contribution to education for the 2016-17 school year of nearly $1.8 billion.
Lotteries have been shown to be the MOST regressive form of invisible taxation in the US- those tickets are disproportionately bought by people who can’t afford them.
I’m all for letting folks be stupid with their own money (people who smoke who could be using the money they use to pay for cigarettes to eat a healthy diet, for example; people who drink or pay for their drug habit who live in sub-par and unsafe housing) but before we decide that more aggressive use of lotteries is the answer to the question “why can’t low income kids afford a four year college” take a minute to think about it…
Bill Gates isn’t buying lottery tickets and it ain’t because he’s too dumb to calculate his ROI.
What bothers me is not really the price even though it’s really high. What really burns my butter is that state universities receive tax dollars. then when your child turns 18 after paying into the system for the last 18 plus years or more. They did ask you the kick out some more money for tuition. Then when you ask well why isn’t college free. then they say well it’s not really free the taxpayers are going to have to pay for it. But then my question is aren’t we already paying for it via our tax money. Is it college is already getting funded by tax money? it makes you feel like you almost getting double charged for the same service.
Most of your (state) tax money is going to other state government priorities, like K-12 education, prisons, and state government debt service. So the states do not have enough money to make state colleges free for everyone.
The median family income is about $60K. So tuition + board already isn’t much more than 25% of the median income. Housing costs seems to average a little under $9K/year at public colleges. “Self help” (a combination of student employment plus loans no greater than the federal student loan limit) could cover most/all of that amount.
If our goal is that tuition+room+board at an average public college should cost no more than 25% of median-income, then that goal may be within reach. I believe more than one presidential candidate has proposed some kind of plan to eliminate (or greatly reduce) student debt. But that isn’t likely to work unless a majority of voters are willing to accept some combination of higher taxes or reduced spending on other priorities.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22222998/#Comment_22222998 shows the difference between flagship-level schools in different states in terms of what the net price (after FA) will be for students from families with the median household income in the state. In one state, it will be 23% of the income, while in the other state, it will be 52% of the income.
Of course, living at home and commuting to a local state university will cost significantly less (subtract $12k-$20k in living expenses, add back $2k-$7k in living at home and commuting costs, although many parents and students pretend that these costs are $0). But then what to do for students in areas not in reasonable commuting range (commonly rural areas) or whose nearest state universities happen to be highly selective where most students will not be admitted?
@tk21769 That math doesn’t seem right. If tuition was 10k and room and board 9k, that should make the average total cost 19k. I don’t know any public four year colleges where that is true. They may be out there, but they are not in NY, NJ or PA.
Gallentjill- the math is right, in the same way that if I’m standing next to Warren Buffet, our average net worth will be a few billion dollars (Warren plus Blossom divided by two). That in NO way represents Blossom’s assets, or purchasing power. So using average total costs is logically incorrect, especially for high cost states.
Let’s try to find the cheapest (list price for in-state residents) state universities (billed costs for tuition, fees, room, and board only – books, travel, and misc costs would be extra – sometimes several thousand dollars extra estimated):
I am going to keep touting my adopted home state… Our state flagship (UGA) is ~22.4K for tuition, fees, room and board for 2019-2020. Besides GT which is a little over 24K, every other in-state public is cheaper than UGA for in-state students with most ranging from 17K to the low 20’s for the essentials. Since almost all in-state students qualify for either Hope or Zell Miller at UGA, year 1 for most would cost between 12K-16K for tuition, fees, room and board. @ucbalumnus, I am pretty sure you can still find prices under 20K for the same parameters at non-flagship public schools across the entire Southeast and large sections of the Midwest.
So it looks like it is fairly common (but not universal) to find states with <$20k non-flagship state universities. However, those with <$15k state universities (i.e. <25% of the median income) may be less common. Also, these estimates do not include books and other unbilled expenses (e.g. travel).
Obviously, living with parents would typically be cheaper, if an academically suitable state university were in reasonable commuting distance from where the parents live.
However, students who are only slightly above the 3.0 HS GPA for HOPE may want to consider the risk of losing HOPE after the first year due to the 3.0 college GPA requirement and budget accordingly. High school B/B+ students are at a higher risk of becoming college C/C+/B- students than high school A-/A students.