When I went to Colorado State University (by no means prestigious) tuition ran around $2,300 [1] and is now almost triple [2] per semester, I could rent a 2 bedroom apartment and live alone for $735, where as that's now sharing a 3 bedroom apartment. Renting the apartment I had is closer to $1,300 per month, or nearly double what I paid. It's not very affordable, whereas I could relatively easily afford it.

[1] http://irpe-reports.colostate.edu/pdf/tuition/Tuition_Fees_H...

[2] https://financialaid.colostate.edu/media/sites/38/2018/05/Un...

Without room and board, University of California fees are around $20k. And none of the college towns have adequate housing, so any sort of housing is absolutely through the roof.

“The University of California is the world’s leading public research university.” [1] So $20k/yr seems like a steal. Meanwhile, if you’re price sensitive then you can go to one of the 26 Cal State campuses for ~$8k/yr (Cal Poly SLO is an outlier at $10k). [2] If you’re really looking to keep costs down, head to community college for two years to finish a Cal State transferable AA, then have guaranteed admission to a Cal State school and only two years there to finish your BS/BA. [3] It should cost <$20k in total to do community college and cal state if you did it in 4 years.

Housing and supplies are still expensive, and _yes_ it’s still very expensive to go to college, but there are affordable options out there for college.

[1] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/uc-system [2] https://www.calstate.edu/attend/paying-for-college/Documents... [3] https://www.calstate.edu/apply/transfer/pages/ccc-associate-...

In my experience, "Research universities" are a joke for undergrad students. All it means for most of them is that their classes will be taught by graduate students because the "professors" are too busy doing research to be bothered with such trivial work.

You need to be pretty lucky in your final years or actually going for masters or PHD to really be exposed to the research side of things.

It's a steal alright, but I cant say I agree with who is coming out ahead.

I guess my point was that the price of a school system that touts itself as a world-leading research university may not be the best baseline for the cost of college—even if it’s a public university system. The Cal State system has always been the “affordable” public option for college in California.

Yeah, that is fair. I guess my gripe is with the idea that research universities charge undergraduates more at all. If anything, most students get a much worse experience and learning environment as a result.

My own experience was that professors who were not currently research oriented tended to have a much more personal interest in actually teaching- not just the material, but in the practice of pedagogy overall.

Compare that to researching professors (or worse, their grad student substitutes) and it is often a night and day difference. All you're really paying more for is often the name on your diploma at the end of the day.

State colleges can be cheaper, but they're not as cheap as they used to be in a lot of places. Many states cut back funding for their universities.

"Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation."

"Between school years 2008 to 2018, after adjusting for inflation:

    * 41 states spent less per student.
    * On average, states spent $1,220, or 13 percent, less per student.
    * Per-student funding fell by more than 30 percent in six states: Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania."

https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...

Many now make room and board mandatory and when you factor that in with tuition, books, etc you can get to $25k total cost even with in-state tuition. I don’t know how common this is exactly but Ohio State does this for freshman and sophomores now.

There's tuition and there's room & board. In my state the tuition is $10K/yr but the room & board is $15K/yr. It doesn't help that the largest public college in my state doesn't have enough dorm rooms for all their students so by Junior year you have to have moved out. Have you seen rent lately? Taken a look at your grocery bill? There are many costs factoring in to the high cost of higher education.