I don't disagree that we could do more. Stanford is free for the poor / working class if their grades and test scores get them admitted.

What I'm saying is that while the student loan crisis is real, and higher education costs at "big name" schools are ridiculous. That narrative has some unnecessary hype in it.

Specifically, you don't need to go to a "big name" school to get the jobs, state schools are just as good. And state schools (or even better the combination of community college + state school) are affordable for a lot of people.

The $40K number isn't an outrageous amount of money to get on a loan (especially when it is in 8 $5K chunks) If you were going to start a gardening business you could put that down on a used pickup truck and some lawn care equipment.

My concern is people who read "College costs $150K? No way could I ever pay that off!" and never look deeper. That narrative makes for a click baity story but it isn't the whole truth.

Fine. I'd be comfortable paying $2400 a year for a 4 year degree. That's my final offer. I won't go over that. If that's not possible then I don't think I'm the target audience! Which is a shame, because I'd really love the legitimacy that a degree would give. To be very honest, I've always dreamed about going further than that and getting a PhD, then contributing to a scientific field. It's honestly been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. But it's stayed a dream. Real life is harder than your $40k sales-pitch. I absolutely think that's it's possible to pay it off and it's a lot more reasonable than some tuition rates. I'm just saying that if I can't get it for less than $2400 a year, I'm not interested.

You are right that you aren’t the target market, $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elementary school students.

The cheapest working professional option I know of is Western Governors University (WGU). They do “competency based education” which I guess means letting you test out of a bunch of stuff and cost roughly $6700/year. Since you a presumably a practitioner already, you’d finish the program in 2-3 years, getting closer to that $2400/year target.

> $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elementary school students.

That's not evidence. States spend that much, but not because that's what it costs.

Once you add up the cost of the staff, building (and maintaining it), utilities for a huge building, insurance (I don't even want to imagine), supplies like books, and the extra-curricular (band, sports, etc) that the locals clamor for and make a big fuss about if there's ever any cuts - I think you'd be very hard-pressed to provide reasonable quality of education for less than 10k/yr.

Keep in mind that in many school districts the parents themselves are an enemy of education. In the district I grew up in there was a tremendous push to spend tons of money on sports. While we weren't struggling much academically there was definitely better uses of funds that were overlooked due to the pressure.

I've often wondered how that could be improved, but in reality, it's likely that improving the education system will cost more money, not less. I truly hope that it improves and that I'm proven wrong about the costs though.

*Just a side-note. Online education can be cheaper, but I've seen zero evidence it provides any significant improvement in quality of education. Every person I know that was 'homeschooled,' typically through some form of cyber-charter school, had massive gaps in their education. Most notably in math and science.

The core of your argument here seems to be that paying for things that explicitly aren't necessary for an education (like sports) are simultaneously a necessity for education. I don't see how you'd get that past a logician.

$2.5k/year is very low but it is within the realm of the possible. An above commentor pointed out that elementary school students cost ~$10k/year and they require constant supervision and more contact hours than a university student.

The instructor is also much cheaper at an elementary school than for collage classes especially programming classes.

An average 100,000$/year including benefits professor works out to a ~75k/year salary. Teaching 16 credits per semester to an average class size of 25 starts at 4,000$ per year per student. That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc.

But the instructor only needs to be part time and class sizes can be raised to something like 50 without compromising the quality much vs 25. A detailed technical education can be achieved with 13 hours a week in contact hours so you can divide the salary by ~3 compared to 40 hour work week.

> That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc.

A building is mandatory I'll grant you that; but maybe skip the advertising, downplay the admin and go light on the supplies. They invented calculus without anything much more impressive than pen and paper; there is a limit to how many toys are needed. Everyone can bring their own laptop.

People won't be bragging about it to their millionaire friends but it would be cheap and they'd learn enough to do hard jobs. It wouldn't be feasible to do Real Science where lab-work is required, but it'd work a treat for maths, engineering, arts and social sciences which are more about reading papers, talking to people and in extreme cases doing maths.

The 'teaching' is overrated, the value of university is in the controlled assessment environment. That can be replicated for a few thousand each with a few tens of students.

That would make the teacher completely unavailable for grading assignments, answering student questions outside of class, or much of anything beyond simply speaking to students. Someone needs to read all those history essay questions on the test, and then change something when most students get something wrong.

A 50+ person class would similarly limit students from asking questions. At which point you might as well just show videos. Some introductory classes are taught in huge auditorium’s but they still require additional TA’s and don’t work for upper level classes.

Don’t get me wrong, you could simply have an online system with canned videos, multiple choice question tests, and zero ability to ask questions. But, that’s not a collage education.

The core of my argument is that local populations demand those things. High schools didn't start building football stadiums for fun, it was because of local pressures. If you fight that group on this topic, you'll find they will reference a million and one articles showing that sports and music improve student outcomes. Most of those studies and articles have the academic rigor you'd expect of a layperson, but they're convincing enough that they make the case 'think of the children!'

They definitely are not necessary for a quality education outcome. They are, basically, a product of democracy working against the best interest of the people.

*Still, the primary cost drivers are all the other things I referenced. Sports and extra-curricular activities are just one item on the list. The dynamic at the university level is very different. I was only describing the cost of education up to that level, as it demonstrates the cost of actually getting a student to university.

> If you want an advanced degree in a science field, it’s common for your tuition to be paid for in full, and receive a yearly stipend on top of that that’ll cover room & board.

Tell me how and I'll sign up tonight.

1. Receive a bachelors degree while doing the same sort of things you would need to do to get a good job at the end - reasonable GPA, internships and/or research.

2. Apply to PhD programs.

For engineering advanced degrees, and I believe for the sciences as well, usually the professor you are working with will have grant money to pay for grad students which will go towards your tuition and stipend.

If you aren’t working with a professor doing research, you may have the option of being a TA, which would cover your tuition and stipend.

I never went to grad school, so others may be able to provide more detail.

This is correct, there are a lot more funded PhD places in engineering and science than there are in the arts and social sciences.

Of course, an economist would point to the 'opportunity cost' [1] - if you leave a job paying £30,000 after tax to take a PhD with a tax-free stipend of £15,009 the 'opportunity cost' of doing a PhD is £14,991 a year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost [2] https://www.ukri.org/skills/funding-for-research-training/

For my MSEE, my RA position paid (not a lot, but enough for food and rent), and gave in-state tuition. I also TA’d one class which gave me free tuition. So essentially I was paid to go to grad school.

There are several ways to pay $0 for a 4 year degree, including grants, loans and scholarships. Campus jobs like being a TA or undergrad research assistant can help too.

If you want an advanced degree in a science field, it’s common for your tuition to be paid for in full, and receive a yearly stipend on top of that that’ll cover room & board.

If you get a loan, you are not paying $0.

Of course, you’re obviously right. But you’re also not paying anything up front. I took loans for my schooling, and I paid $0 out of pocket.

You get to defer your payment until later when you aren’t in school and do have an income, presumably. Getting a loan and paying $2400 a year is not at all the same thing as having a part time job and paying $2400 a year.

You can, but not in the USA.

Of course you can. An unfunded PhD program in any technical field is a soft rejection.

$2400 is a lower tuition than a catholic elementary school...

If you are in state and get a scholarship, you can go for cheap or nearly free though. Work part time and you can cover Your rent and food

What's wrong with taking out loans in this situation? This is exactly what loans should be for - making a wise investment in your future. This is especially true if you want to get a CS or related degree.

There is a lot of consternation regarding student loans because many students are deluded into getting way in over their heads for degrees that won't end up enabling well-paying careers. That's just not the case with a CS/EE degree at a state school.

I think a lot of the problems stem from issues tangential to this, e.g. Numerous young people are terrible at managing money, delaying gratification and long term planning, committing to a path (often dealing with choice overload).

My local community college is HCC which costs $3,500 a year, and U of H the local university costs $9,500 a year. So $27,000 to get a degree, which is not a lot of money compared to 4 years of time and effort. Assuming you're waiting tables that would be $120,000 in lost wages.

Outside of the potential social or philosophical benefits to going to college, a degree can be looked at like an investment. In the case of Houston, UH has good programs hooked into the petrochemical and banking sector in the city. The Bauer College of Business is well regarded and commodities traders start off at around $100k/year in salary and go far higher:

https://work.chron.com/commodity-trader-base-salary-28291.ht...

The internship program at the university help facilitate a pathway into these kinds of jobs:

https://careercenter.bauer.uh.edu/internships/

Alternatively, the chemical and petrochemical engineering departments are also well regarded. The local paper is only listing the average staring salary salary nationwide, but I recall new local engineering hires making somewhere between $75-$100k:

https://work.chron.com/average-chemical-engineering-starting...

Most seasoned engineers that I know of in the field make in excess of $200k/year and they retire as low millionaires.

The point is that $120k in lost wages pales in comparison to the financial security a degree can provide assuming that one has the appetite and ability for that kind of work. UH and HCC get a lot of grief, but it's a reasonable school that produces good people.

I think in software we have been spoiled. For the most part, degrees are really optional. This is mostly luck as it's possible to do software dev at home (try doing petroleum engineering at home).

Most professions require a degree either by legal mandate, or by essence.

You can easily work part time even with a full course load, and ramp up to full time or more during summers. It’s what I did.

Public loans all qualify for income based repayment. At a state school with in state tuition a CS or engineering degree is almost definitely worth the loans if you're looking for a career change.

If you're actually poor/working-class:

Degrees at SUNY and CUNY are free for residents of New York, and it doesn't take much to count as a resident.