I think an instructive model is Grove City College. It is one of those schools which decided to not accept any federal aid (maybe in the eighties?). So all of it’s students cannot get loans. It is a private school, quite selective, and has an annual tuition of about $18k. Yes, I know it has some controversial aspects, but it has managed to provide a solid education for college students for only about twice that as your average state school. So if we want to know ‘how much does it really cost to provide a college education?’ those schools are instructive, I think.
The complaints about the lower cost Canadian schools is that classes are large, at least in the first two years and there is not enough “support”. Smaller classes and all the various types of support that American students expect cost a lot of money.
To paraphrase the immortal Joan Crawford “Life isn’t fair”.
No. I’m not suggesting it should be paid for by the government. I just dislike when people say, that if a student lives at home then room and board are free. Its not free. It needs to be considered when we talk about the cost of college. I think students should be expected to work to pay these costs, but we can’t assume that their work funds can go to college tuition even if they live “at home.”
We need a formalized apprentice system or vocational system. This used to be provided via the unions, I suppose, and is still provided by the military to a degree, but there are few vocational programs in our public high schools anymore or much awareness of where to go for this type of training. And it can be expensive. I know a young man going to gunsmithing school who told me the entire course would cost about $25,000.
Also, I know some on CC think community colleges are a viable option for all students, but they are not. Where I live, I’m not in a community college taxing distinct, so tuition at the nearest community college is about the same as tuition at UT Austin (roughly $10,000 per year). This is in Austin where I think the out-of-district fee is very high. Out of curiosity, I looked into community college coverage in Texas. There are parts of the state where a students can’t live at home and attend CC because the distances are too far. These rural community colleges tend to offer dorms with a COA of about $10,000 per year. That does not sound too bad, but it could be hard or impossible to cover via federal loans, working and maybe a Pell Grant.
College tuition has soared, state funding for higher ed has dropped and wages have stagnated.
Families are already shouldering the costs of their children right before college so it’s not an additional cost. Most college students do commute to college and work st least part time.
I think that certain programs that a state (or the US, in general) feels an unmet need can have board subsidized. Or students who can bring something a college wants. I’d like to see fewer room and board stipends. Sleep away college is a luxury.
but you don’t have to pay for healthcare<<<<<<<<<<<<<
You DO LOL, so over and above income taxation and other mandatory SS type contributions, 7% may well be more than the contributions of a well paid professional with a nice corporate medical insurance package. Again, there is no question that it is a better scenario for lower income people but no healthcare is free, anywhere.
Agreed. One thing not mentioned so far is the several hundred thousand degree seeking students taking all of their classes online, at universities.
I found this article interesting https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Trend19-MegaU-Main
There has been much media coverage of the growth of schools deploying an online strategy. These schools are growing for a number of reasons, but cost is definitely one of them. And student (customer) reviews of some of these schools, like Western Governors U as mentioned in the article, are also generally good. Many see great potential of the online model disrupting higher ed.
British students are averaging higher debt than the USA now, even with what we call tolerable tuition rates. COL in desirable uni locations is $$$. Commuting is only possible for a tiny number of students. So even with fixed tuition costs, uni is a problem.
@Sybylla, yes, everything has to be paid for. I’d consider that a tax. However, I’ll ask again: how common is it for German families to go bankrupt because of a health issue/catastrophe?
In the US, medical bills are the number one reason Americans declare personal bankruptcy.
How many Germans end up homeless because they lost their job?
In the US, according to someone who volunteers at homeless shelters, roughly a third have drug or other addiction issues. Roughly a third are schizophrenics or have some psychological issue. Then the remaining third are normal regular functioning folks who simply lost their job or faced some financial hardship and entered some financial death spiral they could not escape finally ending in them being destitute and homeless living on the street.
I don’t know about you, but I’d sacrifice 7% of my income to live in a civilized society rather than have 7% more to live in a Dickensian society.
@Sybylla, England tuition rates for the English are comparable to the higher end of in-state rates in the US, and I don’t know how you’ve managed to miss it but I’ve heard plenty of complaining of in-state public tuition rates just on this thread.
Part of the problem is the false premise that if everyone goes to college everyone will be successful. It’s just not true. The only model that really works with free or reduced cost colleges is the German model as discussed previously and that model seems to diverge from American culture. There currently are ways to keep college costs down, live at home, go to lesser well know schools, in state colleges or do your first two years at community college. I know, I wouldn’t want to do any of those either.
UCLA’s NPC at https://app.financialaid.ucla.edu/FASEstimator/Dependent.aspx says that a California resident family of 3 with median California income of $67,169 will see a net price of $15,548, or about 23% of income, after financial aid.
Of course, it could be different in some other states. For example, a Pennsylvania resident family with median Pennsylvania income of $56,961 (FAFSA EFC of $5,847) will see a net price of $29,671, or about 52% of income, at Penn State University Park, according to https://cce.ais.psu.edu/netprice-calculator/ .
@Aspiringacademic said:
The math doesn’t work when you just tax the wealthy for desired social programs. It doesn’t even come close.
Countries like Sweden discovered long ago that in order to get a broad range of social programs, you need a broad tax base. The middle class there pays a 52% tax rate, and the maximum rate is 59%. The vast majority in the US would be against these rates.
For most undergraduates, federal student loans are limited to $5,500, $6,500, $7,500, $7,500. Also, according to https://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/percentage-undergraduate-students-borrowing-federal-loans-over-time , 29% of undergraduates borrowed federal loans in any given year (however, 70% do borrow sometime during undergraduate, since some students borrow some years but not all).
Much bigger loans are possible for professional school students (e.g. medical or law). https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/95626/graduate-and-professional-school-debt.pdf indicates that 17% of federal student loan borrowers are graduate or professional school students, but they account for 38% of the dollars.
Seems like a combination of free community colleges like in Tennessee plus four year schools with good financial aid for in-state residents that a few states may have.
Of course, a state that wants to do that needs to figure out how to fund it, since subsidized college has to compete with other state budget priorities like K-12, prisons, and tax cuts.
Re the comments about British fees (which increased quite dramatically a few years back) don’t forget the British student loan system is different (repayments are a portion of income and only start above a minimum income.) This loan system was one of the reasons for the budget deficit worsening and part of why fees subsequently rose sharply (along with just too much pressure on the fiscus from subsidies) … an example of how trying to keep things low cost and affordable can backfire when the numbers just can’t add up.
While living with parents is generally much less expensive than living in the dorm or on one’s own near campus, it is still a parental subsidy to the student, and it limits the student to colleges near where the parents live, making it harder to find suitable ones (even with just basic criteria like cost and academic offerings, never mind the other kinds of “fit” that are a luxury for the self described upper middle class that complains about not getting financial aid).
A generation or few ago, it was more likely that one could self-support (not having to live with parents) on a high school graduate’s paycheck, with a bit left over (or maybe with small student loans) to pay for in-state public university tuition and books (that were smaller at the time). So the student “working his/her way through college” was more likely to have a choice of colleges beyond those commutable from wherever the parents lived. But today’s opportunities are more limited in this respect, since living with parents is more likely to be necessary to afford college.
Students whose parents live in remote or rural areas may be most limited by the lack of options within commuting range. Some such areas are called “education deserts” for this reason.
By speculation, do you mean high speed trading? I am not going into a discussion of the costs and benefits of that, but I will note that if you try to tax it in any significant way, it will largely disappear, along with the taxes you hoped to raise.
Derivatives are a powerful tool that makes news when used badly, but is used everyday in ways that actually stabilize markets. It is huge in agricultural markets, allowing farmers to grow plants or animals with the assurance that they can profitably sell at a later date.
The point is that markets are complex and tightly integrated into the economy. Someone who thinks it is “simple” to generate taxes this way with no impact really hasn’t thought it through.
I don’t think I’m interested in modeling German or British anything. We are doing quite fine in the USA and our grads are the most inventive. Our medical doctors and engineers are spectacular. Plenty of Nobel laureates come our way.
We just need a way to make the state flagship or a large directional free. But you still will have students and parents with the safety school aversion and prestige-o meters out in April every year.
There are states where it is affordable and states where it is not. Look at NJ and GA for comparison purposes. GA uses it lottery system to provide very affordable higher education to its population while keeping taxes in check. And yes, in Georgia it is absolutely possible for kids to put themselves through college without parental support due to Hope and Zell Then look at a state such as NJ where the taxes are high, and secondary education is expensive. The issue is with the state government.