Of course, the actual redistribution of wealth and income over the past few decades has been upward to the top 0.1% with some to the rest of the top few percent. But scions of the top few percent make up half of the students at elite private schools, so perhaps it is no surprise that they add amenities and raise prices to target this market, while using financial aid discounts for the rest of the students.
Also because those courses tend to have fewer students, so the faculty:student ratio is much higher.
Well I’m an adjunct so it’s more like cheese crumbs in my case. Some of us are not benefiting from the current system…
About amenities: they aren’t making colleges expensive. Perhaps they’re perpetuating the problem, but they exist because college is already expensive and they need to woo consumers. Yes, students are consumers. If I have a choice btwn two equally expensive universities (assuming I can afford both in this fantasy scenario) then you can bet your behind I’m going to pick the one with a free gym or apartment-style dorms.
You can also bet that I would rather pay 3x less for a university that doesn’t have these things. But they don’t exist. Oh, maybe they exist in other countries. Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of being able to afford that. (How truly awful it must be to be forced to go to college thousands of miles away, where one could get an education and experience a different culture at the same time!)
But the fact is, in the US, going to college has been sold as “an experience” at least since the 70s. It’s about much more than just getting an education. You can’t sell an entire generation on this idea and then 1. expect them not to believe it, and 2. blame them for costs. That’s insane.
I find it completely understandable that parents not “move out of the NE” because of jobs or an underwater home or whatever. But also highly amusing that thier KIDS shouldn’t “have to” move to flyover country or (shudder) the south to get a better college deal than is available in the NE.
[quote] our biggest yearly expense BY FAR is teacher salaries and health care
My husband has a small business and the cost of insuring his employees has grown at a rate far higher than inflation or cost of living
[/quote]
Interesting on health care. I wonder, if we ever moved to a healthcare model where employers didn’t pay for so much of it, what might happen to college tuition (and cost of anything produced by people with health insurance from their employers, actually).
But the fact is, in the US, going to college has been sold as “an experience”"
And yet the average American college student – not the children of CC posters, but the AVERAGE sutdent --goes to a low-frill state u with a necessary part-time job or debt as part of that “experience.”
College has been sold as one thing - but for the majority it’s something else altogether.
“Oh, maybe they exist in other countries”
In Europe, where most universities and colleges are no-frill/no-dorm/large-lecture-class style that would horrify plenty of Americans, the concept of “college EXPERIENCE” doesn’t exist. (Well, at Oxbridge it does… but most other places - not so much. You live at home. You go to lectures. You pass exam. Repeat.)
Re: In Europe. I know, that was my point. My point is also that while I would love this, I can’t afford to go overseas.
I know what the average student does; I’m at a CC atm. But that doesn’t negate the fact that those driving the university economy do buy into the experience. OP isn’t angry that her child won’t get an education. She’s angry that her child won’t get an exclusive experience.
@Quietlylurking I empathize with you and understand what you’re saying. Who knew that college and housing costs would be where they are now? It’s risen so much more than COL increases. I’m in California and we are taxed to death for just about everything (including farting cows no kidding). I swear it seems like every month I find out about a new tax on something.
For the upper middle class two wage earners it seems like merit is the way to go to make college affordable. Our family received zero federal aid and had to rely on scholarships and grants in order to send our S to college. Had he not received the outside money our back up was our in-state California schools which are great. Our local ones, SDSU and UCSD are $7,400 and $13,500 respectively for yearly tuition. Now that’s a bargain for the quality of education at these institutions. It just so happened our S wanted to go to school in the Northeast and he earned an opportunity to go there. Thankfully it is costing us less to send him there than our public universities.
In your case, what’s wrong with SUNY schools? They are affordable.
@austinmshauri Well said!
@Sue22 Show me where UCONN or UMASS cost 14K to attend… You must be looking at tuition and don’t realize that the fees added (plus r&b) bring the price for these schools very close to 30K. Which is 3x as high as it was 25 yrs ago.
@suzyQ7 is correct some schools, OU and UMASS are notorious for this, have a laundry list of mandatory “fees” in some cases fees can actually be MORE than tuition. These school do this so they can claim a low “tuition” You need to look at COA not just tuition.
Thanks for the well-written commentary. We are Southern upper-middle-class parents (although, we’re both from the Midwest), and we also struggle with the same issues you raised. Our advantage is that the South has very low taxes. Our disadvantage is that public primary education here is more spotty, and the public colleges cost more than in areas that provide better college tax funding. I went to the sort of public college in the Midwest that was great for low-income people, like myself at the time – only $1,000 a year. I never felt all that fulfilled by my education, but I got the basic bachelor’s and considered myself lucky to be able to work my way through college with zero financial assistance from my parents. Now that my husband and I have built some equity and have decent-enough incomes (nothing that allows us to feel affluent – we still drive 17-year-old cars so we can afford our kids sports activities), we wonder how our kids will afford college without substantial academic scholarships. Even the local private college, which is decent, but probably unknown in the NE, would only give us a financial aid discount that leaves us paying $35,000 per year. Public colleges in our state are great - especially for STEM majors, but they’re such vast party schools, we would like to steer clear of them. I still find it hard to believe that all of these colleges are so unaffordable for today’s middle class kids and so uncomfortable financially for two income professional families. No one should have a house mortgage-size college debt for a bachelor’s degree.
As an ‘outsider’ (not from NE and hardly spent any time there), this is something that struck me as odd about the NE when we were touring schools last year. I’ve have spent my entire adult life in the West and when I think of ‘good’ universities, I mainly think of public universities, both univ of xyz and xyz state universities. I remember thinking, ‘Huh, you just don’t that much about Univ of CT, Univ of MA or Univ of RI etc’. Probably they exist, but I couldn’t tell you where they are except Univ of MA since it is next to Amherst and we visited Amherst. But I can tell you the city of every flagship university in the West and Midwest, plus all the big UCs. I remember thinking that it was so odd that the NE didn’t seem to have the same strong public system as in the West.
If the common feeling about the NE big publics is that the publics are 2nd/3rd tier, I can understand the anger. You get priced out of the private schools that your own generation went to and there is not a well-regarded public system to go to instead.
Why is that anger so hard to empathize with?
I mean where I live housing pricing are going through the roof and the middle class are getting priced out. You also have gentrification going on. If I repeated the arguments in this thread to someone priced out of my city, it’d go like:
‘Prices are out of control! I can’t afford to live where generations of my family have lived!’
‘You’re being entitled! The market doesn’t owe you anything. Just move to the podunks where it’s cheap!’
‘But I want to live where we always lived and in our vibrant communities and where we have connections.’
‘Nobody owes you anything. Suck it up and stop whining. And remember to be grateful because others have harder lives than you. You’ll appreciate the podunks when you get there. I grew up there and it’s fine.’
‘We’ll adapt. What choice do we have? But I don’t want to move and I’m angry that my family is priced out of the city and now will have a long commute in for work.’
‘It’s you fault you didn’t save more over the years. Just be grateful you make enough to buy/rent a home at all outside the city.’
‘Great. Thank you for your empathy, now I’ve even more angry.’
@austinmshauri You are fortunate to have the experience you had as a former low income student. I am also a former low income student who went to HS in one of the poorest cities in the nation. I ended up at an elite public university but not without experiencing some snobbery and outcasting along the way. My friends were other low to middle income students and the very few upper income friends I did have were bridged by my middle class friends.
^^ @liska21 very good post!! I spent the last few days with my girlfriends commiserating about this topic. Two of us live in SoCal and the other in the Bay Area where you’re considered ‘poor’ even if you make $100k 
@liska21, I grew up in the Upper South and now live in the (Far) West, and even before my oldest started her college search, I could tell you something about the flagship Universities of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and probably Maine (as well as Buffalo) without thinking too hard about it. Not great detail, mind, but certainly as much as I could have told you about the flagship Universities of, say, Wisconsin and Oregon and Michigan.
This idea that the Northeast has utterly abysmal public universities is, to me, simply bizarre. You want below-par public universities? Come visit my state (Alaska)—and even there, students can get a decent education at one of our publics if they work at it. Most of the Northeast’s public universities are a couple notches above that, at least, plus they have a bunch of private options ranging from painfully expensive to decently affordable that people in
most of the country don’t have—so really, I don’t get the bellyaching from any New Englanders about local higher-education options. At all.
I too am angered by the “I am poorer than you and so more deserving” stance. Some people have low income for good reason. They do not inherently hold the higher ground and there is no reason that they should graduate without debt while the children of people who earned more money have debt. We all talk about economic diversity but seem to not to care if the upper middle class student becomes a rarity or impoverishes his family to attend.
@violaine
“But that doesn’t negate the fact that those driving the university economy do buy into the experience. OP isn’t angry that her child won’t get an education. She’s angry that her child won’t get an exclusive experience.”
And do you honestly not see how lame and entitled this sounds? Being angry that you may have to send your child to – gasp! shriek! – a public university? At a time when The MAJORITY of Americans don’t have $500 in savings; 21% – 21% !! – of our children are living in what’s considered poverty; and tens of millions just found out last week they could lose their health insurance.
What kind of a rock has she been living under that she didn’t know that America today is not the America of her (privileged) youth?
This is the very definition of being clueless.
“Some people have low income for good reason. They do not inherently hold the higher ground and there is no reason that they should graduate without debt while the children of people who earned more money have debt. We all talk about economic diversity but seem to not to care if the upper middle class student becomes a rarity or impoverishes his family to attend.”
- I don't know what you mean by "for good reason". I'm kind of afraid to ask, but you want to punish a poor student who proves, often despite hardships, that they are quite capable of delivering the stats and abilities to qualify for a need blind private school? So, because their parents are poor "for a good reason", the child should be punished and have their options limited despite being capable?
- Upper middle class students are most definitely NOT a rarity on college campuses - public or private. Schools are full of them.
We don’t tell poor families to choose the Toyota. Why is it ok for upper middle class families to accept less, but not poor ones? They can’t afford these expensive colleges but everyone tells them to apply anyway and get aid. Why is that fair and why are the upper middle class who want the same thing the subject of finger wagging?