Thursday, December 28, 2006

The Cost of Higher Education

"In 1981, most students could earn two-thirds of the cost of a year of college by working full time at a minimum-wage job during the summer. Today, students would have to work full time for an entire year to cover the cost of one year at a public university..."

An interesting article from the Columbia Missourian, A penny saved is a degree earned.

I'd have to say that I definately missed out on a lot of stuff offered by my university because I had to work to get through college. Each year for the 4 years I was in school the tuition was raised, I think by 14% one year from the year before.

1 comment:

gimlet said...

What is truly disgusting is that even while the cost of education continues to rise, the quality gets worse and worse.

Crummy secondary schools means that almost everyone has to have a college degree to have a decent job. What once was taught in 12 years now takes 16 (progress!).

And because so many need a diploma for employment, two things happen. First, (inelastic) demand causes a huge increase in the cost of education. This has resulted in scholarships and loans being given to overwhelming numbers of students, who cannot afford their educations, allowing them to have an expensive education anyway.

As a result, there is no cost in sight that would be high enough to reduce demand.