Why You Should Be Outraged By College Tuition Costs

Raise your hand if you know how much the price of a college education in the United States has risen in the past 20 years (since around the time I was in school).

Would you believe me if I told you it has increased over 800% since 1980? The consumer price index rose just 250% in the same time period.

New home prices, which skyrocketed in the early 2000's, rose just 325% - a mere fraction of the tuition increase:

How many other products or services do you know of that can increase at such a rate, when the product offering itself has not improved? Who would still buy a product without any discernible improvements, whose price has increased at more than triple the rate of inflation? Think this doesn't matter to you? Read on.

The price of a college education, which has become mandatory in our competitive society, has increased exponentially in recent years. However, the quality of the education has not improved. Something is wrong when the same good or service increases in cost beyond the rate of inflation. Have class sizes decreased? Well, no. Have they come up with some measurable improvement, such as huge leaps in post-graduate income and job placement ratios? Nope.

If the price of a car was $10k last year, and this year the price is raised to $14k, you could choose not to buy it. You'll buy something else, or continue driving your old clunker for awhile longer. But when it comes to college tuition, we don't have that choice....and, schools know it. It's the most obvious, and yet most undiscovered, price-fixing scheme monopoly in the US economy. 

Every year millions of students graduate high school and head off to college. In basic economic terms, there is a constant steady stream of demand.  So, it's a seller's market. There are too many buyers. The schools are the sellers and we citizens are the unfortunate buyers.

If this country is to remain competitive in the world, we need educated citizens. If we price ourselves out of the market, kids will continue to drop out or avoid college altogether. How does that benefit our country as a whole?

To add insult to injury, out-of-state tuition is typically three times the in-state rate at public universities. Why?

Are the out-of-state students getting a better education? Of course not, they get exactly what the in-state students get. So why charge them exhorbitant amounts for the same product?  How do they justify charging that kind of money and still call themselves "public" non-profit institutions?

Why do we not treat education like a commodity, like everything else? Unlike everything else in this free market society, there is no real competition. The only choice you have is to fork over the cash, or be destined for a lifetime of low wages (studies show the impact of college to be far reaching, as grads potentially earn 10 times more in their lifetime than those with only a high school education).

As a hard working single mom I, like most Americans, struggle to make ends meet on my income. I don't have other resources. While many of my friends are sending their children to the out of state schools of their choice, I don't have that option.

Based largely on his stellar SAT score, my child has gotten lots of recruitment letters from top notch schools around the country offering to waive the admission fee but, even if he could get in, what's the point? We can't afford it.

In the US, the average tuition for a public university ranges anywhere from $8,000-$17,000 year and private is typically $30,000 to over $45,000 per year. Imagine graduating with $180,000 worth of debt, when the average income is around $23k. Tuition is more affordable in Canada. In England, too. And the Netherlands. And France. And New Zealand. And Germany. And Sweden. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

It's become an inverse relationship: as the cost of an education has risen, incomes have fallen and job growth has declined, making the ability to repay money borrowed for college increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

Our system has reached the point of diminishing returns; we've flooded the job market with qualified individuals for which there is not enough supply of well-paying professional jobs. So the return on investment of a college education continues to dwindle, as costs continue to rise.

To be fair, our economy and job outlook are looking far better than 5 years ago, and if we stay along this path, things will continue to improve. But that still does not justify the explosive increase in tuition costs, for which there is no rational explanation. The recession caused a dramatic drop in gifts, investments and endowments — these funds are still well below what they were in 2000. But should our educational system really by funded by individuals? Why, then, am I paying so much in taxes?

Families in France were recently observed protesting in the streets over the cost of college rising, demanding a tuition freeze. Why are we not rising up in the same fashion? 

If you think it doesn't matter to you, because you don't have college aged kids, just remember that the future of our country and it's status as a world leader rests on the shoulders, and wallets, of the young people of today.

Your comments, as always, are welcome