Statistics show that in most colleges and universities 80-90% of professors vote Democrat. The balance is in the schools of business and engineering. So, kids are being indoctrinated by liberals to become liberals. At the same time, the very institutions that foster this ideology are putting the screws to the students.
The rise in higher education costs, though, are anything but measured.
Ray Franke, a University of Massachusetts, Boston, professor of education agrees. He says, “If you look at the long-term trend, college tuition has been rising almost six percent above the rate of inflation.”
Between 1994 and 2014, tuition fees at a four-year public university have risen 110%.
Future projections are even bigger.
For a private school, four-year tuition in 2015 was $134,600. In 18 years, that could surge to $323,900.
For a public education, it is much the same. A four-year, in-state school will see an increase from $39,400 to $94,000 and two-year community and private institutions will rise from $77,400 to $186,400 for that degree.
In less than 20 years, that will be a jump of almost 140% across the board.
So what’s going on here?
How does something that once rose at a snail’s pace skyrocket, on average, faster than almost every other consumer service?
Much like the many private hours of study and hard work it takes to earn a degree, there’s a lot more happening below the surface than many realize.
Writing a yearly check that equals the cost of a new car doesn’t sit well with many. At least with the automobile, you know you’re getting an engine, four tires and the ability to get from point A to B and back.
But what about the tuition? What goes into that yearly chunk of money and why does it seem to keep taking a bigger and bigger bite from everyone’s wallet?
Supply and Demand, Demand, Demand
Once upon a time, heading off to college and attaining a four-year degree was a luxury. More often than not, a high school diploma was all that you would need to enter the job market and build a very comfortable career.
That is no longer the case. Universities know that.
Going back to 1950, 7.3% of the male population and 5.2% of the female population had completed four or more years of college. In 2016, those numbers had climbed to 33.2% of males and 33.7% of females.
That seems like a steady, methodical progression. In the same time frame though, the world, and what it takes to get ahead and be successful, have changed dramatically.
So too has the perception of a college education.
Once viewed as places that only the elite had the resource and reason to attend, the job market of today has made it seem a requirement to meet any level of success.
This changing market allows colleges and universities to lay out whatever tuition fees they deem fit and still pull large pools of ready and willing students.
But don’t universities have to compete for those students? And if so, wouldn’t that mean lower tuition?
While that seems a viable presumption, landing a student nowadays takes a lot more than just being Mom or Dad’s alma mater.
University administrators are not business people. Yet they run huge businesses. Most college boards that oversee the business are not business people. Like your local school boards they are people who would never be named to a corporate board. With zero checks and balances and unlimited demand for students budgets get bloated with things like climbing walls and muti-million dollar salaries for coaches. Government backed student loans will cover the inflation in tuition and room and board, so who cares?
As assistance from the Federal government and states fails to keep pace with tuition costs the students pay more and more. Get this, the student loan balance is now $1.5 trillion vs. total US credit card debt of $675 billion and $1.2 trillion in mortgages when the bubble burst.
Bottom line, blacks are now realizing the Democrat Party has owned their vote for decades while doing noting to earn that. Kids graduating from college today are in student loan purgatory. Their quality of life will be impacted negatively for the next 20 years. Like blacks, the very liberals who brainwashed them for four years put the screws to their futures.
One of my hot button issues. In fall 1973 I (well my father actually) paid $200 for a semester at the University of New Mexico. Putting that in perspective, my books that semester cost more than my tuition ($212).
According to the UNM website, tuition and fees for Fall 2018 will be $7899.43. Fortunately I got value for my education dollars and can figure out that is an average annual rate of inflation, compounded over 45 years, of slightly more than 8.5%.
The one item Americans purchase which has a very similar inflation rate over the long term is Health Care.
In both cases, the Government attempts to make it “affordable” by throwing money at the problem and has interfered in a major way with market forces.
Affordable is government speak for “I hear the price but I don’t want to pay that, but I still want it, so somebody should force the mean capitalists to make the price lower”. Like “Affordable” housing, or “Affordable” day care, etc.
I stop now, I could type on for quite some time.
I was in the oil business. Jimmy Carter tried to run that for a few years. He created shortages with his price controls and actually increased gasoline prices while trying to keep them low. One of Reagan’s first acts was to get out of the business. Lines went away and prices went down. Putting student loans in the hands of the banks not the government would reverse the tuition trend, fill trade schools and junior colleges, and close the marginal colleges. Some might have to dig into their billion dollar endowment funds.