>> The costs increased exponentially compared to what it was.

The cost increased due to government intervention. They wanted more people to go to college so they told lenders they'd guarantee loans for education. They do that by having the ability to take it out of your paycheck for the rest of your life if you don't pay. Anyway, with the flood of money instantly available, schools were able to jack tuition by double digits every year for as long as the want. The place I went has been on a building spree for the last 20 years - it's a whole different place now. Part of that was needed since the number of students has about doubled, so it's not entirely wasteful. But the bottom line is that the "free" money is what caused the rates to rise. I feel bad for that entire generation - they got fucked from all angles financially.

I don't disagree, but where I saw it begin was approx. +25 years ago when business started demanding degrees for jobs that had previously had no requirement, and for career advancement, as well as refusing on the job training. They would pay for expensive tuition and book benefits with no problem though. People began beating the doors down of colleges as this was the only way to enter many careers, or advance to the next level once there. Once this cascade started, the government wanted to make sure there was some kind of equal access to education, so funding had to be made available to allow the less privileged to attend, students or adults. Just my take on it.

School that I went to also has been on a building spree for the past 20 years. I'm sure a lot of the spending is necessary, but seeing things like mega-gyms and amphitheaters being built with student tuition is ridiculous.

The irony is no one will ever be able to afford a gym membership as nice as the gym they had in college because they're too loaded with debt from said college.

Same here. My college has a 30 year master plan on their website, and it's basically knocking down every single building and rebuilding them. They've already knocked down several buildings and what they've replaced them with has been at least twice as big. The gym they built about seven years ago is huge, and fancier than just about every commercial gym in the city.

But.....that being said, I have heard that they lost over half of their government subsidies (it's a private school), and the state has been perpetually 6 months behind on those subsidy payments, so that's at least part of the reason for the tuition increase also.

Who isn't being educated about these options? I was in HS 00-04 and teachers and guidance counselors constantly extolled cheap state school options (which even today are in the $6-8k/yr range including room and board) and community colleges.

Prestige and pride have a lot to do with it. Two degrees from the same school are worth the same if one person was there for four years and one went to community college for two first, but ask the 17 year old HS student who just has to sign a promissory note which one they want to do, and they're going to pick the first option 9 times out of 10.

I grew up relatively poor but was encouraged by my high school teachers to attend a nearby private undergraduate university, which at the time (2005) was $40k/year. Even as a 17-year-old I was worried about carrying a lifetime of debt. My parents weren't involved at all in the situation (neither having gone to college and not particularly concerned with my choices -- long story), so these teachers were the trusted adults I turned to for advice. They universally said, "the degree will pay for itself! Don't worry about the debt!" I did get some financial aid and scholarships, but now 7 years post graduation my total debt is still around $50k, with about $44k of that being federal loans.

Just an anecdote of someone who not only wasn't educated about the options, but actively encouraged to ignore them.

I was in a similar boat, but picked the cheaper state school (which now, btw, is not cheap 15 years later).

I think, realistically, the only benefit I maybe missed out on at a more expensive school is that I could have (completely anecdotally) met a larger, richer network. And now, I would be using said contacts in that network to get me better job(s). For example, I've seen perfectly regular people come out of Cornell and they just mint money.

On the other hand, investing in a network doesn't stop at college, so it can be overcome in various ways.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I got my current job because the owner of the company is the brother of one of my professors.

I guess what I find most disappointing in retrospect was that I wasn't encouraged to research further out from the local area. My original comment may have been a bit hyperbolized in that clearly I knew about state schools, but my idea of what constituted a "state college" was influenced by the three within an hour drive of where I grew up. In my state's college system these three also happen to rank toward the bottom of most lists in terms of job placement and campus quality of life. I toured two of them and wasn't exactly impressed. So belief became that "state college" meant "cheap college", as in the degree would be worthless. Again, this is the naivete of a rural-raised 17 year old.

In the summer before my final year at my expensive university, I did a "Research Experience for Undergraduates" internship thing at one of my state's larger research universities and was blown away by how different (and better) it was compared to the state schools I was familiar with. I was 21 at this point and had a better understanding that even though it was about a 7 hour drive from home, it really wasn't that far away, and if I had known about it when I was graduating high school it would've been doable.

For curiosity's sake, I just looked up what the tuition plus room and board for this state school, and in 2016 it's still less than half of what I paid for my school in 2005.

But that's all in the past. I think I got a decent, though not stellar, education from professors who genuinely seem to care (even now, as I stay in contact with a few), in addition to the networking opportunities. In the end I don't regret it, but I do try to advocate to my younger relatives that they should shop around and take the decision seriously, and of course ask me for guidance should they need it.

Fellow poor student checking in. My experience was roughly similar but I also didn't get any real advice from my high school. Basically left to work much of it out on my own.

You were supposed to meet a rich girl/guy at that college and be set for life. That you didn't understand the real game is whose fault?

I'll keep that in mind for my next reunion.

$6-$8k a year, including room and board...sounds like you're mistaken or haven't paid as close attention as you think. Back when I first went to my state school in 1999, you were right, but now, my school has jumped to $28k a year, in-state, for tuition + room and board. Source: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl...

Also, I'm still paying off the loans from when I went back to school a five years ago. The jump in tuition after 10 years away from school was a major shock when I went back.

Then don't let them. Why is so much money being lent to such people? It's just usury.

That's not what usury means, because it's not illegal and it's not unreasonable high rates of interest. My highest student loan, which is private, is about 6%.

Also, who are you to tell someone that they can't go to a school if they can find someone to lend them the money to do it?

> My highest student loan, which is private, is about 6%.

If you're in the US and you don't think that rate is unreasonable, I'm curious as to why. We're talking about loans that cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy, in a 0% interest rate environment.

2007 was not a 0% interest rate environment.

Oh, that's an old loan. My sympathies.

But I'm paying roughly the same for loans taken out in the last five years. It's irritating.

Maybe the problem is not with the financing but with the product itself. Billions of dollars wasted on zero-sum games is a tragedy no matter who I am and no matter how legal it is.

If it is a zero-sum game, then you should be just as happy to not have an education, as long as you can live in a country where no-one else has one either. If you want to talk about billions of dollars, why don't we get rid of primary and secondary education too?

Speaking of primary and secondary education, I heard that in America people try to move to expensive neighborhoods when they have kids because those have the best schools.

That part is also a zero-sum game, because all parents work harder to afford the best neighborhoods and that makes the price of living in those neighborhoods go up, leaving everyone right where they started only they now work two jobs instead of one.

Decoupling property tax from school funding can help with that. In Universities, a system that is free but only accepts the people with the best grades, IQ, or some arbitrary qualification can help, but brings its own problems.

6% for a US private education loan? How does 9% sound instead?

My best investments are the raises I get when paying off my student loans ahead of schedule.

For the sake of one-upping you, mine were at 10%. Those were the first thing I attacked once I got out of school.

Except that most loans are for things that you can liquidate if you get into financial trouble.

I would probably go the CC route today, but when I was in high school the risk of not being able to transfer into a good school for whatever reason outweighed the cost.

Also the trades.

Everyone going to Stanford will get a tech job in SV, which is nice for about 0.1% of the population, but its a national problem and rando graduate of some state U has at best 50/50 odds of getting a job in their field or working retail/restaurant/bartend work. Better off as a 22 yr old electrician than as a 22 yr old unemployed kid in moms basement.

You have to pick the right trade, though, which requires quite some economic forecasting. Several of my extended family members took exactly this route for the reason you suggest, and they're now unemployed former steelworkers. In retrospect they would've been better off with a university degree, as unemployment rates are much lower for people with degrees. I know people with degrees who got laid off from steel companies too (doing engineering, HR, accounting, IT, various things), but they had a much easier time switching industries to find new jobs.

Most of the building trades have also fared badly (with electrician somewhat of an exception), as wages have collapsed over the past few decades in trades like carpentry and roofing.

I want to say one word to you. Just one word: Plumbing. [quote from "The Graduate"]

:-)

Seriously though: I have been begging plumbers to come and work on a reasonably high-priced project at my house. I reached out to 10+, no one is interested - they are booked for weeks in advance.

> reasonably high-priced project

What would it pay for them?

The one quote I was able to get - $6K, labor only. No more than 2 days of work for 1 person. All plumbers based within 10 min drive.

You're not telling the full story.

$6k got me a 4 hour response of a 5 man crew with an excavator to replace a rusted section of a wastewater pipe, which involved digging 14ft down and demolishing part of my driveway (and pouring new concrete in after it was finished)

> No more than 2 days of work for 1 person.

You'll have us believe a plumber charges $375/hour for this project, based on the $6k quote?

This is not typical, so either your project is extremely difficult or you're not telling us something else.

My brother is a "plumber" but he never took the exam or whatever and got his license. It's the same thing over and over--people with ambition succeed, people who lack it do not. If he had studied and gotten that license he would have been set for life, but no, always the "helper" or taking far lower paying jobs at schools and hospitals instead.

Aren't there programs to retrain workers whose jobs are offshored?

There are Federal programs to retrain and financially assist those who have be displaced by offshoring.[1]

The problem is that these programs are notoriously underfunded (the financial assistance barely helps. It's like 10k a year if you're very lucky), have their resources misallocated, and do just enough to say that they're doing "something". Their funding is also often lumped in with other welfare "handouts". So when people vote against funding "handouts", they vote against helping people who need it most.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Adjustment_Assistance

There are such programs, but their effectiveness and avilability varies widely depending on where you live.

Where I live, we have Second Career Ontario[1]. When I was in college, several of my classmates were formerly highly paid tradespeople who ended up unemployed and unable to find work after the decline in Ontario's manufacturing sector. The Second Career program funding was enough for them to go back to school for a couple of years. To to best of my knowledge, all of my classmates ended up making the transition to a new career successfully.

I've seen programs in other jurisdicitions that provide some funding for retraining, but not enough funding to teach people enough skills in enough depth for them to realistically be able to move to a new career.

[1] http://www.secondcareerontario.com/web/second_career/

Not really

I used to work as a diesel mechanic.

Trades are great, but we, as a society, are not really prepared to deal with them. It's easy for someone working a comfortable desk job to say "those kids should go into the trades" without realizing the following things:

1. Trade jobs often involve non trivial amounts of physical risk.

2. Trade jobs rarely allow you to work until normal retirement age (65 or even 70). I never met a diesel mechanic over the age of 50, and precious few in their 40s.

3. Despite all that, they don't pay as much as your desk job.

If you're going to sit a kid down and give them the option between a physically demanding, difficult trade job or a climate controlled, higher paying desk job, what do you think they are going to choose, realistic or not?

I took the Scared Straight approach with my daughter.

1. On-line loan repayment calculators showing you're monthly payment for years.

2. Youtube videos under the search "I majored in debt".

3. The FAQ on the loan servicer's website; or "Where's all this interest coming from?!"

http://www.studentloan.org/about-us/frequently-asked-questio...

Good approach. It won't sink in unless they see how it has already affected other people. Did she decide to be more modest in her college ambitions after that?

No, you're missing a key point: In-state tuition has sky rocketed because states have drastically cut funding. People who went to state school 30 years ago went to schools that were much better funded by their states.

Yeah I just looked at a couple of nearby state schools that are rated 'selective' by US News (that means they aren't very selective) and tuition is roughly $10,000 per year.

I've heard this a lot but do you have a citation for this? I'm actually open to believing this but I want a link.

FiveThirtyEight had a nice piece on exactly this recently.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-ma...

I'll need some more time to find a great link, but there are a lot when you go state by state. Some states have done a much better job of keeping tuition relatively affordable.

Here is one link: http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-do...

I would also add alternative ways to get into a career. Whether that be through a trade school, code boot camp or technical college that is available in their area.

There is no longer a reason to think that you must go get a 4 year degree in order to have a career and financially independent. Education has evolved drastically over the last 20 years because tuition has gone through the roof.

"The reasonable solution is to educate high school students on the affordable options of in-state universities and community college"

I was an international student in the U.S. and went to a community college and did very well then went to a 4 year college after. I had little choice since $1 USD = $2.5 of my country's currency so community college was a cheaper option especially after having my parent also send my other siblings to college out of pocket. At community college I watched kids(Americans), not all though just waste their opportunity, slacking off in the cafeteria when they should have been at class and eventually getting dropped. It was basically free for them. We international students just wished amongst ourselves that we were given the same opportunity of free schooling at that level. Going to community didn't seem to hurt me in anyway.

>The reasonable solution is to educate high school students on the affordable options of in-state universities and community college.

When the in-state flagship university costs $25k/year to attend, it's not very reasonable.