<p>The federal government got involved in paying for student’s education.</p>
<p>Easy money!</p>
<p>And it’s not just tuition costs that go up. Everything goes up. Wages, operating costs, new buildings, new programs, tuition etc. </p>
<p>A FREE market can’t work if it’s not left alone. It’s supposed to be competitive. There is supposed to be supply and demand. These things balance out prices and keep them competitive. Once the federal government steps in and starts loaning money to all the college students and providing financial assistance it really becomes a no brainer that costs are going to start to rise and at ASTONISHING rates. Prices have risen because more and more students can pay for it at higher prices.</p>
<p>It’s quite funny actually. We think the government is doing us a favor by paying for our schooling. When it’s not the case in the long run. They are ruining the system by having a hand in it.</p>
<p>Lucie: “Yes, the average net price is relatively low, but only for that population who received FA.” </p>
<p>It’s totally inaccurate to assume that students who did not have calculated need are full pay. If you look at the data in that CDS more closely, you’ll see that UPenn awarded $5.7 MILLION in NON NEED based tuition waivers!</p>
<p>Administrative bloat. Back in the day, there were about 2 professors for every non-teaching administrator; these days, that ratio has been inverted. </p>
<p>As mentioned by other posters, facilities, dorms, and campuses are all much more impressive, which is costly.</p>
<p>Bureaucracy and inefficiency can really only happen when there is not a free market. (Or rather, free markets kill them fairly quickly.) The ready availability of Pell Grants, student loans, PLUS loans, and the like enables tuition to go through the roof: it “hurts” the same to pay more money, and schools will try to siphon as much of that money as possible. </p>
<p>(Does anyone really think that a school will say, “No thanks, we’ll turn down free federal money”? What school is going to surrender in an arms race?)</p>
<p>Basic economics: once you do not compete on price, you compete on quality, and get that quality as high as possible, cost be damned.</p>
<p>ScubaSue: how do you explain the skyrocketing private school tuition, law school tuition, and medical school tuition? Business school?</p>
<p>I think private schools have raised their sticker prices simply because they can for a couple of reasons: </p>
<p>1) there are no state legislatures regulating private school tuitions and
2) As the fraction public school costs paid by students increases, private schools can justify raising their sticker price since we all expect private school tuition to be double-triple public school prices. </p>
<p>I don’t know about law school, medical school and B school. At public universities, are those programs subsidized, too?</p>
<p>^Where public schools are concerned, that is just not true. </p>
<p>If what you said above were true, the PRICE of a public school education would have increased. </p>
<p>It has not. </p>
<p>The price per student is paid by two parties: the taxpayers and the student. Again, that total price has changed very little (an in a significant number of cases, it has decreased. Free money hasn’t changed the actual price…the evidence being that the actual price hasn’t changed.</p>
<p>Where I went to college has gone up 237% since i enrolled in 97. It was worth the cost then, and compared to the prices of schools nowadays, it is still an excellent value</p>
The bigger issue, ScubaSue, is that professional schools are mostly private. If I’m not mistaken, the vast majority of law, medical, and business schools are all private; merit aid is almost non-existent (well, it’s increased since the crash, but that’s only to get warm bodies in the door); and students finance the bulk of their education with federal loans. </p>
<p>In short, the myth that decreased taxpayer contributions are to blame is put to lie by the professional schools, which are skyrocketing in price. Medical and business school cost $80,000 per year. Many law schools are over $75,000 a year, up from $50,000 a year about six years ago (before the feds would lend you 100% of the price of the education, i.e. the cap on federal loans was removed).</p>
<p>And SCUBASue? In order for your hypothesis to be correct, taxpayer subsidies to higher ed would have to be declining by approximately 7% per year, every single year, in order for increased tuition to be the result of declining state support. If, for example, taxpayer support declines 0.5% per year (adjusted for inflation), but prices go up 4% per year (adjusted for inflation), then there’s obviously 3.5% that is attributable to something other than declining taxpayer support.</p>
<p>Let’s talk real numbers. What are they for public universities?</p>
<p>Here’s some real numbers for FTE revenues/Expenditures (total price) at Public Masters Universities between 99-00 and 09-10 (in 2010 dollars) </p>
<p>------------------------99-00-----------09-10
Subsidies--------------7200------------5480
Net Tuition-------------4180------------6440
Expenditures----------11,380----------11920</p>
<p>And, I’ve never said that private school tuition hikes are the result of decreased taxpayer subsidies. Private schools are not supported by public funds, so that doesn’t make sense. I am talking about tuition increases/causes that affect the 80+% of the students in this country that attend public schools. </p>
<p>And, plenty of public schools have law and medical programs.</p>
<p>In our state the legislature has cut funding to education, especially higher ed.
Residents want and expect a certain level of service so tuition goes up.
Increase taxes & perhaps increase funding and tuition will go down.</p>
<p>You can complicate it all you want with numbers and figures and statistics. It’s usually something simple. In this case: The United States Federal Government.</p>
<p>The federal government should have no hand in students’ education. It is not a right.</p>
<p>And maybe it’d be a different story if it was working. But it’s clearly not. The inefficient bureaucratic federal government ruins sectors by putting their money where it doesn’t belong and in turn poisoning the waters of a free market.</p>
<p>Same goes for the hand they have in healthcare.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why the founding father’s didn’t put “Life, liberty, education, healthcare, and the pursuit of happiness” in the constitution.</p>
<p>Collegeguy here’s a newsflash: Public Education NEVER has been a free market. It’s not meant to be part of any free markert system. That’s what we have private schools for. </p>
<p>Your assertion that federal dollars have caused tuition increases is a myth. Until I looked at the numbers I thought the same thing. But not only is there no evidence to support what is referred to as the Bennett Hypothesis, there is considerable evidence to refute that hypothesis. </p>
<p>If what you are saying is true, colleges would be spending more per student right? Again, tuition has gone up, but the price has NOT. There has been very little, and in some cases NO price change. Federal dollars have not caused an increase in the PRICE. </p>
<p>If you are a conservative, this new system is what you want right?—users paying more of the bill and government paying less. What did you think that shift was going to look like from the student standpoint?</p>
<p>scubasue has answered the question for public schools - a big chunk of the cost burden has been shifted from taxpayers to students. Here is some documentation state-by-state for those interested:</p>
<p>First of all, I’m aware that public schools are not a free market. That goes with out saying. Still though, the federal government should not have a hand in schools run by the state. It’s inefficient and I believe the reason for tuition increases. We live in the United States of America not the United STATE of America. The federal government is WAY too big. It plays a role in many sectors, not just higher education. More times than not it leaves these sectors in worse shape than they found them.</p>
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<p>When I say “tuition” I mean “tuition prices”. I’m not understanding the separation between tuition and price you are referring to. By “price” do you mean the price that the student is actually paying? Whereas “tuition” is the cost for that student in total when you calculate in financial aid? </p>