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2 responses to “Four-Year Colleges’ Tuition & Fees up 4.7% Next Year”

1. 

   kls59

   July 18, 2017

   And look at what Virginia Tech has done, planning for its largest freshman class this coming August.

   The school has more freshmen coming in than dorm rooms available on campus; thus the school is going to ‘pay’ freshmen to live off campus. Or rent housing in Blacksburg for the new students.

   While it demolishes two dorm buildings on the Upper Quad. Does anyone in Burruss Hall know how to do math? or Plan?

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2. 

   LarrytheG

   July 19, 2017

   It’s pretty clear, the availability of “easy” loan money undermines the normal market forces that would keep prices down and foster competition but that does require people readily taking the loans even when it harms their lives financially for years after to recognize that and not take the bait.

   People so badly want the 4-yr College “experience” that unfortunately will take college loans like others take payday loans… even when it cripples them financially for a decade or more after.

   Basically – just about anyone who wants “financial aid” can get it … and do.. and the Colleges, like any business selling “stuff”.. price their product accordingly. The “profits” go to build more stuff and hire more folks to offer more things that would attract more “customers”. Why should they keep their prices low if there is no shortage of people willing to “buy”? It’s like auto dealers selling a “hot” truck that costs thousands more than much less expensive plain jane models.

   No big mystery. We saw this a few years back with the housing bubble.. people were buying houses left and right because loans were almost automatic… and a whole lot of people got whacked..

   Deja vu all over again!

   http://www.consumerreports.org/student-loan-debt-crisis/lives-on-hold/

   The next time someone says it’s better for people to decide how to spend money rather than having it taxed and the govt decide – remember this.

   People do not make necessarily rational decisions .. either. They drive for miles to buy gas a nickle cheaper then turn around and borrow thousands and thousands of dollars more than they have to or should – to send kids to a 4-yr college “experience” .. and the loans will cripple their kids for years after graduation – limiting their ability to buy their own homes and save for their own retirement, get health insurance or send their own kids to college.

   The “solution” is not to get govt to “force” the Colleges to keep their fees to the CPI – .. having the govt trying to control prices is a fail. It’s a proven fools errand.. and the irony is that calls for controlling the price of tuition also comes from folk who claim to be fiscal conservatives.. except when it comes to this.

   Consumers can influence prices but it does require more discipline than driving miles to save a nickle or throwing all reason to the wind and borrowing tens of thousands of dollars, to get their kids into a college like they went to when they were that age.

   Now we see people who make 100K and more in family income.. arguing that it’s the government’s responsibility to keep College “affordable” by…essentially.. dictating price…by “interfering” with how they do business if they don’t keep prices down.

   It’s like people want the Govt to force Ford to sell F-150’s for less … because Ford should not be selling them for more than the CPI… or should not be allowed to make so much profit!

   The government’s role in College should be limited to helping those at the lower economic tiers “afford” a basic college education – at a Community College or similar. If people want “more” than that. If they want their kids to go to a 4-yr living on campus to experience “College life” like they did – and a perfectly commendable and understandable “want”… it does not justify taxpayers paying for it with subsidized loans and certainly not the Govt deciding what it should or should not cost.

   The Colleges know this and they have innumerable ways to evade any efforts to control the price.. it’s a fools errand to try to do so…

   So the proponents of doing it spend their time demanding more “transparency” so that they can then use that info to question what the colleges actually spend money on.. and advocating that there be more “controls” to essentially dictate how much is charged for tuition and what it can be spent on.

   Again – some of this comes from folks who claim they are fiscal conservatives who do not want the govt “messing” with companies… instead of letting them compete in the market…

   It seems that when it comes to College – we have lost our collective minds when it comes to prices and the involvement of govt.

   The solution?

   Fund the student – not the college and fund the student on a strict means-tested basis to provide them with the means to attend and obtain a basic college education with the proviso that more than that – is on them… family financial resources… sweat equity… post-college public service.

   Every kid should get two things:

   1. – a college education

   2. – the knowledge that beyond minimal help for a basic degree – the rest is on them

   there is no number 2 that says the govt should control the price

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