Swap that for a random CA university and we're at $150k (using their numbers!)

If you focus on tuition alone it's cheaper, but room and board do add up, and if you come from out-of-state you're even worse off.

People under-estimate the total cost of school: housing is going to be the biggest expense in CA.

It's insane to think that only a few decades prior, the CSU/UC system was almost entirely covered with pell-grants and student aid if you were from CA, a UC you could cover with just a PT job, or working FT in the Summer.

Now it's entirely impossible to walk out without high 5 to low 6 digits worth of debt even if you live with your parents.

We took the envy of the University system in the US and turned it over to the administrative cronies that came from banks and hedge-funds who monetized it 20 ways from Sunday in order to bleed the students dry and wasted it on bloarted salaries form themselves and more needless things to attract foreign money into the the campuses while gutting the academic programs where ever possible--we used such crappy lab equipment in most of my undergrad it was astonishing where all the money went in student and lab fees.

I went to several CSUs, as well as did summer school or took extra elective at Community colleges to expedite my graduation date and to make up for a lost semester due to a severe car accident, and the level of BS I went through only to see how these leeches operated still makes my blood boil.

I was in an impacted major, Biology, in one of the major 'party schools' in the CSU system and these bastards prioritized admission into the department based on out of state and non-US based tuition rates.

They didn't even hide it, either: they only offered a class you needed to graduate once a year and instead of opening up the section for more students they capped it unless you were from out-of state or out of US and could ten petetion for it based on an 'urgency' basis.

I'm glad they went to Zoom school model, because it shows just how unnecessary 99% of the expenses are and we're re-thinking how we actually educate and accredit degrees.

I got into a well-known University in Europe with a strong AI and ML CompSci program after having founded a fintech startup and my work experience working for a megacorp.

And to be honest, I now realize that my actual worth was way higher even back then (an honors student with letters of recommendation) but I put up with a lot of it because of the 2008 financial crisis that hit me/my family really hard economically as well as the CSUs particularly bad (they cut the budgets hard) and made us all scramble for the doors in order to graduate and try to get into the horrible job market for the few jobs left over.

In short, I will laugh on the grave of traditional academia, which cannot come soon enough.

I understand there's some stigma for community colleges but you can get a great education without getting anywhere near 200K. Won't be Ivy League though.

For example, Stony Brooks costs 10K in tuition per year for in-state residents.

2 years community college: 4 semesters, ~$1,400

2 years university: 9 quarters (took 1 summer), ~$12,500

These are early 2010's numbers in California, not a private university.

I look back and I am pleased with the education I received for the most part, especially in my major (CS)

It's totally doable to end up debt free with a part time job while living at home. Or easily payable after graduation.