http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?_r=1&hp Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade Just like the ease of credit inflated housing prices beyond any acceptable ratio of price/income, so to has the ease of credit inflated college tuition prices. Naturally, colleges and universities across the land have allowed their budgets to expand to meet these bubble-like revenues. Many will be in trouble. When is this bubble going to pop? It seems like higher education actually does better in rough times. People who can't find a decent job seem to think it may be caused by their lack of education. However, there are plenty of educated and overqualified people who can't find a decent job either.
There are plenty of $8/hr jobs to do. If you want to earn a livable wage, it's tough without a degree.
In hard economic times the mode is a survival one, for those that understand it, if you don't have that capacity to survive, you won't at any salary range. The main point is, that you need to be employ no matter what, and for that reason when times are good, you start preparing for the bad ones. I have survive with a $8-$10 an hour job, so it can be done. I don't over spend.
From the article: While this article seems to blame the universities for the lack of affordability, I don't think we can characterize the increase in tution as a "bubble." In my opinion, the trend of tuition increases is highly correlated with decreases in state higher education appropriations over the last twenty years. It is politically expedient for state legislatures to cut state appropriations for universities in hard time precisely because universities CAN maintain the same level of services by raising tuition. Other services - prisons, welfare programs, road maintenance, etc., can only respond to a shortfall in state appropriations by cutting services. With higer education cuts there is the added benefit of being able to shift the blame. I have often witnessed legislators railling against university boards for increasing tuition in hard time where the reason for the increase was to cover unexpected cuts in state aid. There is a misconception that uinversities can easily cut their costs to deal with decreased revenues. It not as easy as it seems, at least in the short-term. Enrollments tend to increase when state appropriations are decreasing. Cutting faculty will either affect the quality of education, or reduce the number of students that can be educated. Most state universites raise tuition solely to maintain quality and accessiblity. Distance learning? I don't believe that DL is a cheaper delivery method. The large online distance programs may be cheaper to run, but in my opinion this is a factor of their adjunct-heavy facutly model rather than inherently lower costs of distance learning. This model will not work for institutions whose missions include research and who are expected to provide resources to enhance their state's economies. Better use of the senior year in high school? If that means ensuring that students are ready for college work I'm for it. If they are suggesting some type of integration between high school and college, I believe that a better use of resources would be to eliminate the amount of remedial work required by college freshman. The article also fails to mention how federal financial aid has shifted from grants to student loans over the past few decades. I'm sure that someone can come up with examples of bloated public universities - I can think of a few myself. But these are exceptions to the rule.
Somebody should start an Online school, get a RA and charge a flat $200/credit for all Undergrad, Graduate and Doctoral degrees.. the volume itself will sustain the company/university. There is no scarcity for Adjunct profesors. There is also an option to outsource to countries like India etc where one can find a large pool of highly educated business professors. Infact i had an indian professor when i took a few classes at Aspen University. Things like this will pop the bubble.
