Tuition Costs Up Again?

[Tre4ISU]

So when the Iowa State Telemarketers call for donations for scholarships then I should just say "NO". Because if I make a donation providing scholarships or even belong to groups that give out scholarships, the additional money will end up just hurting the students. I got that right, didn't I?

No, but you never really do in subjects like these. There's a huge difference between privately funding private scholarships and governmental funding school and making it a "right." Once you make it a right, then the government has an obligation to fund it. Once the government has an obligation to fund it, there's no incentive for anyone to analyze the feasibility of what they're going to do.

Again, how we pay for it isn't a problem, it's a symptom if you think education costs are too high. Figuring out how to reduce costs in education and healthcare are hard, though, and people don't really want to think about it.

 

[Tre4ISU]

Because it's very difficult to predict exactly where you are going to end up, and a college degree has a fair amount of flexibility and training built into it to allow for it.

I had zero plans to teach. Everything I did was research focused. However, the job market when I finished up was more favorable to higher education instruction. I jumped on that, and those courses I took in writing, speech, sociology, psychology, leadership, etc. all helped me to be able to design, set-up, and run a course. The other courses helps me relate to students who aren't really interested in becoming a biochemist. The value is there, but it's not always readily apparent.

All true, but you made the adjustment. A lot of people don't make the adjustment and they end up spending 5 years in college with a degree that leads to a career that makes it very difficult to pay off those loans in a fair amount of time.

 

[SoapyCy]

All true, but you made the adjustment. A lot of people don't make the adjustment and they end up spending 5 years in college with a degree that leads to a career that makes it very difficult to pay off those loans in a fair amount of time.

that's on them, though. just because " a lot of people..." doesn't mean the system should be changed. College is one of those systems where people should meet the standard, not where the standard should be changes to meet the people.

 

[DurangoCy]

Yes. Not optimal, but the people of this country have spoken and we will pay the bill for everyone's medical care and it will all be managed from Washington DC. So be it. Just don't force me into that system. I'm willing to pay twice to maintain choice.

Question: Isn't this what Obamacare currently allows you to do? You can opt out of the system, pay the $700 fee, get a non-conforming policy (catastrophic?) and be on your way? I get the impression that you don't like our current method, but it seems to me like that's what you're describing. Are you thinking the facilities should be different, customer service, insurance, etc?

Curious and not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or not though.

 

[ClonesFTW]

If you're graduating with 100s of thousands of dollars of debt from attending Iowa State you're a moron. Just about anyone can afford 2 years of CC and two years at a state college. Unfortunately too many people think they have a right to attend a 30k-40k/year college and when they graduate with 100k plus in debt they're the "victim" when in reality they're just morons with no common sense.

100% agree here. That said, it's another reason I believe it should be a graduation requirement to pass a personal finance class in high school. Many students simply don't understand the debt they are entering until it's too late. My high school offered one where we learned about loans, savings accounts, basic auto knowledge, and even laundry. Of course no 17 year old is going to admit they learned or liked the course at the time, but I would imagine nearly everyone appreciated the course if you asked them a couple years later.

 

[Tre4ISU]

that's on them, though. just because " a lot of people..." doesn't mean the system should be changed. College is one of those systems where people should meet the standard, not where the standard should be changes to meet the people.

Certainly, but if that's what we're going to say, there is no affordability crisis. It's on people to get out of school with something that will allow them to pay off those loans.

 

[OnlyCyclones]

100% agree here. That said, it's another reason I believe it should be a graduation requirement to pass a personal finance class in high school. Many students simply don't understand the debt they are entering until it's too late. My high school offered one where we learned about loans, savings accounts, basic auto knowledge, and even laundry. Of course no 17 year old is going to admit they learned or liked the course at the time, but I would imagine nearly everyone appreciated the course if you asked them a couple years later.

This is so true. As a current student, I've made my choices and I know what my decisions really cost, and a high school finance course helped.

Another way we can use secondary ed to help ease student debt is by allowing kids to specialize earlier and giving them more career centric courses, emphasizing that one's future doesn't have to involve college. That will also reduce years "lost" to switching majors, and might even make grad school a more popular goal for able students. For me, ideally, it's a total overhaul of the system that resembles the German model, however unrealistic that is in the current climate. The one-size-fits all high school drags down the best students, among other things, as schools have to set a bar that's low enough for most students to clear, or invest heavily dragging struggling students through math and science courses they don't need.

Alternative schools like DSM's Central Academy and Walnut Creek in WDM already work on similar principles.

 

[Stormin]

I took this approach. Finished in 3-1/2 years. Took 18-20 hours per semester and maxed out during the summer as well. Found that I'd make a lot more by finishing quicker and getting into a career than I would taking longer and working during school.

I'm also in the boat that high school grads should have 1-2 years of working full time in a job before going to college. It teaches better habits (8:00 is not actually early for a class) and let's them figure out what they may actually want to do for a living.

Dumb idea working for 2 years after high school. The income works against you in getting grants and subsidized loans. The job will cost you more than what you made. Plus going back to school after working for a couple years is a tough thing to going back to being a student.

 

[SoapyCy]

Certainly, but if that's what we're going to say, there is no affordability crisis. It's on people to get out of school with something that will allow them to pay off those loans.

Your example is people individually changing their majors, extending college, and thus having more loans. Colleges simply cannot accept blame for people being wishy-washy about their major. If people want to take 6 years to graduate so be it, but don't blame school or "the system" for that.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

My son is a Junior at Iowa State. Any tuition increase stinks. The total cost of his college will be so much more than what it cost me when I graduated from Iowa State in 1991. There needs to be some change in general to make college for affordable for everyone.

Iowa State by comparison is less expensive than similar schools we looked at with my son. For example, Purdue is very similar to Iowa State. State school, Engineering, Ag, Education, Vet school.... Below is a comparison of tuition + room/board for 2016-2017

Purdue instate = 10,002 + 10,030 = $20,032
Iowa State instate = 8,219 + 8,356 = $16,575

In our situation, my son must pay out of state tuition which is much higher at $21,583 vs $8,219. Lucky for us Iowa State offered merit scholarships for me being an Alumni and his HS academic achievements. Those dropped tuition down to about $12,000. This made it close enough in cost that he could choose Iowa State and attend the university that I love.

Given all this, I don't think Iowa State is out of line with their tuition increases, but I think there is a much great problem in that college education just costs too much in general. I don't know what the fix is, but something must change or we will see more and more kids attending community colleges or not going to school at all.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to a trade school. I didn't go that route but there are HUGE opportunities there because the supply of tradesman can't even touch the high demand.

 

[Sigmapolis]

How come we treat this like healthcare and no one wants to talk about actually lowering the cost of education? It's always about how to pay for it. I have two degrees and when I stepped into my first job, I knew a little of the science behind it but I should have known way more. I knew even less about the day-to-day aspects of my job. Why? Why did I spend at least two semesters taking classes that didn't relate to my major? Why didn't I, instead, skip that crap, take three years of intense coursework actually relating to Ag Business and Economics, then use those other two semesters as internships as part of a year long internship where I could go through a whole cycle of what goes on with an opportunity to parlay that into a job? That's probably really major specific but that's kind of my point. Why aren't kids pushed harder to get out of there in 4 years if that's what it takes? I was told not to take 18 credits my last two semesters. Why?

My whole point is just that I think looking at funding inflated costs of something is an exercise in futility. The same people will pay these costs in a different fashion at some point.

Three things are pretty similar in this regard...

Healthcare
Education
Housing

...where we always want to talk about the financing or insurance mechanisms in the middle of them but not the fundamentals of supply and demand that set prices.

Trying to control the cost, quantity, and quality of healthcare, education, and housing only by influencing the financial and insurance industries moderating transactions in the middle is like trying to steer a car by dragging an anchor alongside it on the highway.

Public policy is always trying to federalize and "embiggen" its role in moderating transactions, but so much of the underlying supply and demand issues are beyond control (such as demographics) or left to states, local governments, or professional organizations.

It gets kind of messy and our debates get kind of stupid without this in mind, such as when we say "housing policy" but really mean "mortgages," "healthcare" but really only mean "health insurance," and "education" but mostly mean "tuition and student loans."

 

[Stormin]

No, but you never really do in subjects like these. There's a huge difference between privately funding private scholarships and governmental funding school and making it a "right." Once you make it a right, then the government has an obligation to fund it. Once the government has an obligation to fund it, there's no incentive for anyone to analyze the feasibility of what they're going to do.

Again, how we pay for it isn't a problem, it's a symptom if you think education costs are too high. Figuring out how to reduce costs in education and healthcare are hard, though, and people don't really want to think about it.

I was told too many students means higher demand so costs go up.

Now you are telling me that the source of the money is the problem. Eliminate government loans and grants and then only those born into families wealthy enough can go to college as well as a few that are intellectually superior.

That would certainly keep the supply of physical laborers higher. IMO, that is the whole point of Republicans wanting to do away with grants and loans for students of need.

 

[Tre4ISU]

I was told too many students means higher demand so costs go up.

Now you are telling me that the source of the money is the problem. Eliminate government loans and grants and then only those born into families wealthy enough can go to college as well as a few that are intellectually superior.

That would certainly keep the supply of physical laborers higher. IMO, that is the whole point of Republicans wanting to do away with grants and loans for students of need.

Yeah, I mentioned both of those things as contributing factors in my initial post.

The point is, that you can't have it both ways. You can't have everyone be told to go to college, have employers require four year degrees and then provide the payment structure for them to go to college AND have it be cheap. I mean cheap in a macro sense. It will cost someone. Honestly, I have no issue with my college education cost and looking at the numbers having been thrown out earlier in this thread, I would do the same thing.

One other interesting thing to me is when people compare a college education and the ensuing career pay with HS grads and the ensuing earnings to justify that it is a wise decision to go to college and then they talk about how it isn't affordable.

 

[Tre4ISU]

Your example is people individually changing their majors, extending college, and thus having more loans. Colleges simply cannot accept blame for people being wishy-washy about their major. If people want to take 6 years to graduate so be it, but don't blame school or "the system" for that.

I completely agree. I think the system is pretty fair right now and when people make choices like you've mentioned maybe it becomes unaffordable but that's not the fault of anyone else.

 

[alarson]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to a trade school. I didn't go that route but there are HUGE opportunities there because the supply of tradesman can't even touch the high demand.

This always ends up being exaggerated though, by some who want to diminish the importance of higher education.

There's high demand now because of good times. A lot of those jobs tend to be highly affected by economic downturns, and overall that diminishes the value there, as even if you make good money in good times, you may have to balance that against a higher chance of unemployment vs someone with a higher education degree.

 

[Clonehomer]

Dumb idea working for 2 years after high school. The income works against you in getting grants and subsidized loans. The job will cost you more than what you made. Plus going back to school after working for a couple years is a tough thing to going back to being a student.

How many kids drop out of college because they simply didn't handle the transition from high school? The point was not financial, it was being prepared. Think about how the average college student treats morning classes vs how they would after a year or two in the real world. Personally, I would avoid any classes prior to 9:00 AM. Now, I'm at work by 6:00 AM without a second thought. If students went about treating college like professionals treat their career, the success rate of students would be dramatically higher. That alone would save a ton of money.

On a related note, there's always talk about students that rack up a ton of money with degrees that aren't going to earn much. But what about those drop outs that rack up a bunch of debt and leave with no degree? That's an even tougher situation to start out that doesn't get much discussion.

 

[alarson]

One other interesting thing to me is when people compare a college education and the ensuing career pay with HS grads and the ensuing earnings to justify that it is a wise decision to go to college and then they talk about how it isn't affordable.

Because maybe we shouldnt be putting that on the backs of those who are just starting out in life, and should instead be treating it like all of our other education K-12.

At one point, an 8th grade education was ok. We moved beyond that. At one point, a high school education was ok. In the modern economy going forward, especially with increasing automation, just K-12 will not be good enough either. With that being the case, its time to treat it more as standard, and time to reverse the continual trend of states not living up to the per-student funding levels they used to for their universities (the primary reason tuition has risen)

 

[SpokaneCY]

Now you are telling me that the source of the money is the problem. Eliminate government loans and grants and then only those born into families wealthy enough can go to college as well as a few that are intellectually superior.

.

Other than being born wealthy and being intellectually superior, I'd add to that list any person who values a college education will find a way to work for that benefit. I think you leave out the vast majority who don't see college as a right, and don't see college as the realm of the affluent but rather a tangible investment in their lives.

I saved money during various high school jobs then went military for the education benefits. Which public policy model is that?

 

[Tre4ISU]

Because maybe we shouldnt be putting that on the backs of those who are just starting out in life, and should instead be treating it like all of our other education K-12.

At one point, an 8th grade education was ok. We moved beyond that. At one point, a high school education was ok. In the modern economy going forward, especially with increasing automation, just K-12 will not be good enough either. With that being the case, its time to treat it more as standard, and time to reverse the continual trend of states not living up to the per-student funding levels they used to for their universities (the primary reason tuition has risen)

Yeah we shouldn't, you know, put it on the people who decide what they want to go to school for and decide what their career path is. Someone else should do that.

Once we make it standard, like you want, it's just a matter of time until the people who chose lower paying paths start demanding something from the people who hose the high paying path because, 15 years down the road, they saw a much bigger benefit from a standard University education.

At the end of the day, your solution doesn't solve anything. Just more taxes to pay for another federal program with something that people should be considering an investment rather than an experience.

You didn't address my point either. Why do we always see how career earning offset college costs in an effort to encourage college enrollment but then we come back to it not being affordable?

 

[Stormin]

Other than being born wealthy and being intellectually superior, I'd add to that list any person who values a college education will find a way to work for that benefit. I think you leave out the vast majority who don't see college as a right, and don't see college as the realm of the affluent but rather a tangible investment in their lives.

I saved money during various high school jobs then went military for the education benefits. Which public policy model is that?

Government paying for your college. Driving up college costs.

I am kidding. Military deserve those benefits.

One of the reasons for grants and loans is to get a better educated working population which should translate into higher paying jobs. Those higher wage earners should then pay more in taxes because of those higher wages. So grants and loans are an investment which pays for itself.