<p>Well I can see 5% increases ove rthe next few years but in 18 years I expect the college bubble will burst. If you have a spare hour watch this:</p>
<p>[THE</a> COLLEGE CONSPIRACY - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Probably not the best video to show in a college forum.</p>
<p>^^^^
That video makes me very fearful for today’s generation of college students, my kids included. </p>
<p>Time to regroup and form a new gameplan.</p>
<p>College debt is the new house debt.</p>
<p>Furnishing upsscale apartments with student loans?
Buying Cars?</p>
<p>I’m not totally sure actually but of course the figure could be higher than what we are expecting in 18 years. It could be double or triple but this depends on the situation of economy and politics by that time.</p>
<p>zobroward - I wasn’t speaking of college tuition, I was replying to samiamy who was speaking of the local public school district. Please be sure you read before you comment. Thank you.</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages when I was in college, there was talk about how tuition would grow and no one would be able to afford college in 20 years and how the bubble would burst and something would have to be done, blah, blah, blah…well, it’s 20+ years later and yes costs have gone up but so have salaries and if you compare apples to apples and job to job from 20+ years ago to today, that ratio has been pretty constant over time. You can’t just look at the “average salary”, you have to look job to job so a middle management position at Company A in 1980 to a middle management position at Company A in 2012. When I was going off to college my Dad was making 45,000/year-very respectable salary for where we lived. That same job today pays 150,000–same job, same educational requirements, same company. The school I attended had a COA of $15,000. Our DD is looking at that same school and the COA is now $45,000. COA back in 1980 was 33% of my Dad’s gross, it would now be 30% of gross for that same exact job.</p>
<p>The college landscape will look vastly different in 20 years with the explosion of credible, respected online alternatives that compete with residential institutions. I believe there will no longer be a typical four-year college experience, as many students will mix online courses from home with limited in situ training. Whatever it looks like, there is no escaping the price pressure that this competition will place on college tuition. No way can it continue to outpace inflation.</p>
<p>SteveMA, that’s a good anecdote but does not reflect reality for the vast majority of the middle class, as evidenced in an abundance of statistical data that shows college costs have soared relative to wages over the past three decades. There are plenty of reasons why your dad’s particular job may be valued higher today than 20 years ago but the reverse is true for some occupations.</p>
<p>[Sad</a> chart of the day: College tuition v. median wages | The Lookout - Yahoo! News](<a href=“Sad chart of the day: College tuition v. median wages”>Sad chart of the day: College tuition v. median wages)</p>
<p>[InflationData:</a> Education Inflation](<a href=“http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp]InflationData:”>http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp)</p>
<p>wildwood–again-compare apples to apples. Sure, the median wage may not have risen as fast but also consider an increase, huge increase, in the lower income jobs (manufacturing, etc.), especially by immigrant groups in the nation and that skews those numbers. Look specific job to specific job and the picture is vastly different. Even paced with inflation numbers, it still isn’t apples to apples. The comparisons you posted mean nothing really. What did your Dad do when you were in college, how much was he making, how much does that job pay. Compare that percent of income to his income to the same college you attended to the costs today as a percent of what that exact same job pays today.</p>
<p>Inflation from 1986 to now is 115.06% versus college cost inflationary rate of 498.31% BIG difference. This is not talking about wages this is about inflationary rate. </p>
<p>“College tuitions soar each year, advancing far in excess of the inflation rate. The overall inflation rate since 1986 increased 115.06%, which is why we pay more than double for everything we buy. On the other hand, during the same time, tuition increased a whopping 498.31%. See chart below.”</p>
<p>[InflationData:</a> Education Inflation](<a href=“http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp]InflationData:”>http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I can understand why you would want to compare average wage growth with tuition growth, but comparing on the case of one job and one college makes no sense. Even worse, you’re simply speculating at what the job would pay today. Why do you think average starting wage of college graduates over time vs. average cost of college over time is not an appropriate measure?</p>
<p>17 years ago, I looked at the college costs and projections and said that there was no way they would go that far. It was insanity. And I was right; they’ve gone up even more and even with this economic recession we’ve been suffering, with high unemployment, and investments gone under, home values low and credit tight. </p>
<p>So, clearly my predicitions were way off. There is still stiff competition, worse even, for spots at some of the most expensive schools and not a hesitation about paying for them by many families. </p>
<p>My father was a civil service employee and I went to a private college on financial aid. Yes, I can look up exactly what he would make today, and exactly what that college charges this upcoming year. What’s scarier is that awards like the NMS, are still at the same dollar amounts as 40 years ago. Part time earnings have cone up about 3 fold, but what made a nice dent in the tuition just doesn’t do it any more if students try to earn and save money for college. I had enough stashed to pay my first year from babysitting and working summers at menial min wage jobs. How many kids can do that these days going away to a private college?</p>
<p>The jobs I was talking about were to make a living. fast food, clerk etc</p>
<p>college is dumb. Way too many people are getting college degrees. Our prez wants even more ppl at college. Somethin has to change. College degree is not worth that much but if more and more employers are only willing to hire college degrees people will be forced to get that useless piece of paper.
On top of it subsidizing education may not be the best idea either.
We need to stop thinking from our hearts and treat education as any other product</p>
<p>“You would be amazed at the number of people who have such a small amount saved,” said Greenberg.</p>
<p>If college expenses continue on their current trajectory I don’t see how one could save enough for 4 years of state school, even if you do all the right things and open up educational accounts, if interest rates stay as low as they are currently. Our own account did so poorly interest-wise that we wouldn’t have done much worse if we had stuffed the money in a mattress for 18 years. The only good deal out there for the rest of us that I can think of are the pre-pay in-state tuition plans where you pre-pay for 4 years of current tuition to be used when the child goes to college in the future. However, I am lead to believe that it’s only feasible if your kid attends an in-state school and also only if your state even offers such a plan. And that’s assuming the state hasn’t become insolvent by then.</p>
<p>no dont use educational accounts because the school knows that you have to spend that money on them so you will get much less aid if you save through educational accounts. You put a lot of money in retirement and into paying off credit cards debts</p>
<p>HERE’S THE DEAL:</p>
<p>(Yes, I put it in caps because I think actually know what I’m talking about)</p>
<p>The college tuition increase is directly tied into the sovereign debt expansion that is replacing the private credit bubble that just exploded.</p>
<p>There are two major places that new credit is going:</p>
<p>(1) Healthcare</p>
<p>(2) Education</p>
<p>Education and healthcare prices will not stop going up until the government <em>stops</em> running massive deficits.</p>
<p>It appears that everybody is going to continue to increase prices on (1) and (2) until they are <em>forced</em> to stop because the government is no longer issuing ginormous amounts of debt.</p>
<p>It appears that the government will only stop issuing this debt when it is forced to do so because the debt issuance system stops working.</p>
<p>They are going to issue as much credit as humanly possible now that they can issue debt in the 0% to 1.5% range.</p>
<p>A few people have blamed tuition increases on declining state funding. As long as colleges continue to waste money on the things described below, I hope that funding continues to fall.</p>
<p>[Less</a> Academics, More Narcissism by Heather Mac Donald - City Journal](<a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0714hm.html]Less”>http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0714hm.html)
HEATHER MAC DONALD
The University of California is cutting back on many things, but not useless diversity programs.
City Journal
14 July 2011
Californias budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone, the university systems vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month, in advance of this weeks meeting of the universitys regents. Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.</p>
<p>Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion. This position would augment UC San Diegos already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellors Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Womens Center.</p>
<p>The Fed’s zero interest rate policy is just as much of a threat to future college affordability as are the runaway tuition increases. [The</a> Downside of the Fed’s Zero Interest Rate Policy - Economic Intelligence (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/04/30/the-downside-of-the-feds-zero-interest-rate-policy]The”>http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/04/30/the-downside-of-the-feds-zero-interest-rate-policy) </p>
<p>“How much will college cost in 18 years? A 4 year degree is estimated to be priced at $375,167.67 for students enrolling in 2030 if tuition increases 7% per year.” [The</a> Future Cost of College and Savings Plan Calculator](<a href=“The Future Cost of College and Savings Plan Calculator”>The Future Cost of College and Savings Plan Calculator) This is based on a 2012 assumed tuition of $25k. Put in your own assumptions and see how nasty the scenarios look.</p>
<p>My D calculated the cost of her piece of paper. It was $1200/square inch the heavy gauge paper diploma was printed on.</p>
<p>STEM degree-loss of 4 years wages while in school=no job/no job prospects=approx 225K behind a high school graduate working right out of High School.</p>
<p>She said finding a job is like looking for Waldo who decides to no longer wear his red stripe shirt.</p>
<p>hylyfe: The President didn’t say more people should go to college. He said more people should have some type of post-high school training - whether it’s a traditional college, vocational training, etc. And I agree with him. College may be vastly overpriced but it’s pretty hard to make it in this world with just a high school degree.</p>
<p>East Coast schools are facing a decrease in the number of high school graduates each year. Many adult students went back to school to try to wait out the recession, but now have moved on (and used up their debt capacity). That will mean lower numbers of adult students in the next few years. As a result, there will be much more competition among colleges for students, and the colleges will have to become more price-competitive. Many have already increased their merit and need aid, and some have reduced their sticker price of tuition to compete.</p>
<p>The problem is that savings and CDs typically pay 0.000001 percent interest. Stocks are still risky. The best bet is probably to put college savings into a 529 plan in an account that stresses blue chip stocks with high dividend yields.</p>
<p>The major reason why state funding has decreased for higher education is because health care costs are consuming much higher percentages of state budgets. If we can control health care costs, there will be money available again to properly fund public colleges.</p>