Last year about 7.5 million people attended public 4 year institutions and about the same number attended public two year institutions. Around 5 million attended private institutions. Over the last 25 years there has a been a steady decline in the public funding of public higher education on a per student basis.

Higher education is a large market and there are many, many forces at play. Blaming a single item is too simplistic an analysis.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.70.a...

The number of students is irrelevant. The government will secure your student loans and the only way you can get rid of them is to die. When a school can basically decide how much money they want, wave a magic wand and the money arrives in their bank account, it's going to skyrocket exactly like it has.

The number of students at public institutions vs. private institutions does matter. You do not know much about how higher education works. Public institutions generally can't just raise tuition as they see fit. They usually need the approval of state governments. Tuition has gone up at public institutions as state funding has gone down.

"People became price-inelastic."

Isn't it the opposite? The tutution became increasingly inelastic. Consumers would technically be more elastic given the higher credit available.

"A good's price elasticity of demand"

Yeah, so the tuition is more inelastic, not the people.

technically, it's demand that is meant here by what's elastic (or not). there's also a price elasticity of supply (eg, if tuition goes too low, some colleges will close).

the way the GP used the term was understandable to me, and how I'm used to seeing it used. it's basically shorthand for 'people's [demand for college degrees] became price-inelastic'. if you want to use it differently in your communication, it's up to you. just remember that people might understand something other than what you meant.

Federal loan limits for the first year of undergrad are $5,500 for dependents and $9,500 for independents, so they can’t be blamed for a single year costing $100K.

Private loans aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy.

What is your price elasticity for your childrens' future?

Your comment highlights what I personally think is some of the reason for the extreme tuition increases: too many people believe that college is the singular best path for their children's future.

Including, unfortunately, the vast majority of employers and human resources people those children will encounter when attempting to get a job.

It (still), mathematically is.

The return on the investment of a college degree is absolutely worth it.

What's becoming much less clearly worth it is the value add of going to an elite school over a state school.

I don't have kids, but I believe it. I have several close family members whose biggest regret is that they didn't go to college.

College was/is/remains one of the biggest factors in determining incoming levels and general success in life.

I can think of a much better use of 400k. I went to community college and a cheap state school and I make good money.

Colleges don't refund you if you can't finish or get a decent job afterwards.

The system as is doesn't make alot of sense. Just running though Harvard's cost calculator, if you have a family income of 300k you're out 86,666$. Drop that down to 175k and it's only 26k.

Given how bad the tax rates are at that level you might as well have one parent play golf all day.

300k is a very reasonable amount for two typical people. After income taxes takes 100k off top( assume a high tax state like Hawaii), you're talking about spending more than 1/3rd of your take home on one child's education.

> 300k is a very reasonable amount for two typical people.

It's literally four times the median household income of the US. (And even after inflation, bananas still don't cost anywhere near $10 two decades on after that joke was made). This sort of statement is a bit out of touch if you ask me.

Here's where I'm certainly willing to accept that I'm a bit out of touch - I don't have children. So my question is, how much would you be willing to pay if you thought something would give them a significantly better future?

How will anyone have an extra 86k on a 300k a year salary ?

The numbers just don't make sense. I don't have kids so I'll probably cross that bridge if I get to it, but there's a limit.

You can have a great future with community college + state school.

If I math this out right $300K - $100K taxes (your estimate) - $86K tuition = $114K which is still a lot higher than the median household income (which I'm pretty sure is still pre-tax). That said, I think you are onto something - these schools are for the elite; not the merely well-to-do or below.

I also went to state school, so I'm not really dissing the thing, though people here would probably laugh at me if I said how much money I make, so maybe your mileage may vary on that one. But my perception (which could certainly be mistaken) is that the elite degrees actually have a huge premium, which is why there is so much competition for them.

114k isn't going very far in an expensive city. Plus a ton of people aren't doing great.

For example in LA the average income is only 76k.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/losangelescityc...

At that point you'll never be able to afford to buy a home which used to be a Hallmark of the middle class.

It wouldn't be possible for a family making 300k to pay a mortgage in LA and send a kid to Harvard.

Then they'd have to choose one or the other. My parents told me in no uncertain terms that there was no money to send me to private school, so I didn't apply to them; I'm also quite allergic to debt.

I had a paper pointed out to me recently that I found enlightening.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5222535/

> The recent proliferation of studies examining cross-national variation in the association between parenthood and happiness reveal accumulating evidence of lower levels of happiness among parents than nonparents in most advanced industrialized societies.

It seems that the pressures we place on parents as a society have grown as we've advanced. I certainly am not built to deal with that kind of stress, and given the dropoff in fertility, I think that that's a more common view these days.

I took a much different route. I barely got out of highschool ( although I was at the point where I would of taken a GED test and walked out).

Then I did well in community college, couldn't afford my last year of college, dropped out. Worked for a very cool startup for a bit, and I was making a very respectable salary without a degree.

Eventually I finished my degree at a very cheap state school, but it hasn't really mattered. My major is in some unrelated non sense. Gets me past HR filters though.

Ultimately I just really love programming, I learned enough to get my first job with an old laptop. I reckon anyone with a 100$ laptop ( install Linux on whatever you can find on eBay) can learn programming for free.

My real belief is college is a nice to have, but shouldn't be required to start a career. If anything I think most people should take a bit of time to work and figure out what they enjoy before commiting to school.

>This sort of statement is a bit out of touch if you ask me.

Just a bit? It's wildly out of touch, $300,000/year is literally the 95th percentile of income for families[1]. Dude called income that's more than 95 PERCENT of the population "a very reasonable amount for two typical people."

Fucking hell!

[1] https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

So, sure, it's on the high end of things.

But what's your definition of "reasonable"?

Income is not a bell curve, but one standard deviation on a bell curve goes up to the 84th percentile, and two standard deviations go up to almost the 98th.

It's not a reasonable income to expect, but it's a reasonable income to have.

The issue here is if you make more you're problem in a HCOL area.

An adult making 150k with a partner who makes a similar amount is not rich in a city like NYC. I broke down the math above, but in no universe does the typical upper middle class family have an extra 86k per year to spend on school

Come on, dude. Get real.

Just tell your kids you aren't going to pay for Vanderbilt and they'd have to go somewhere cheaper if you are footing the bill. Plenty of options. My parents told me if I wanted to go to college I was completely on my own.

If I ran the world I'd completely get rid of the expectation your parents should pay for college.

Right now tons of people who's parents just refuse to provide financial information don't get any aid at all. This is very common if you have a bad home life. I fell into this category.

I grew up on welfare and I'm at the level were if it worked out with either of my last 3 partners we'd be at 300k or more. Life is funny...

I think this adult was expected to save up a lot of the college money before the child turned 18.

> What is your price elasticity for your childrens' future?

This is a silly question.

Silly answer: I would want my kid to be able to retire happily. If college debt prevents that, let's ditch it.

Student loans became non-dischargeable. That broke the market.

exactly, make them dischargable and observe gigantic changes. Incentives, incentives, incentives

Wanna share why having loans make people price-ineslastic? Mortgages are a thing and people aren't indifferent to house prices.

Mortgages don't qualify for income-based repayment schemes or forgiveness for govt/nonprofit employees.

Mortgages must be paid on time or your lender will foreclose on your home and liquidate it to pay off your debt.

That is impossible to do with an education. Add in loan forgiveness and income based repayment from the sibling comment, and the fact that a mortgage is securitized by collateral and it’s almost like a student loan and a mortgage have nothing in common aside from being loans.

This problem would be solved immediately by making student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The easy money would evaporate and a lot of colleges would have to figure out how to make money on lower tuitions.

Yes with loans that cannot be written off in bankruptcy, the lenders don't need to do due diligence and are incentivized to loan out as much money as possible. More money causes tuition to go up.