Timeline for Why do American universities cost so much?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
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| Dec 11, 2022 at 3:03 | history | edited | the1.9gpaProgrammer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 183 characters in body
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| Dec 10, 2022 at 20:46 | comment | added | user76284 | @AnonymousPhysicist "based on the university's opinion" Which is not necessarily that of others, including the author of this answer. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 20:33 | comment | added | Anonymous Physicist | @user76284 Yes, that is the wrong assumption here, at least based on the university's opinion of "necessary." | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 18:28 | comment | added | user76284 | @AnonymousPhysicist I think the assumption here is that production costs (after making adjustments, e.g., cutting unnecessary costs) are well below the price. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 18:16 | comment | added | Anonymous Physicist | "If the potential student could not borrow $60,000 for a college loan the university would have no choice to lower the admission price" This is not usually correct. In practice universities usually enroll fewer students and cut costs, or simply close. Sometimes a lower price is announced, however this is a lower price before the discount and may be unrelated to the discounted price. Lowering the price is not a good strategy if production cost is greater than the price. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 18:11 | comment | added | Anonymous Physicist | @Nij In Australia increased government loans and increased costs to students were at least correlated. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 3:08 | comment | added | Nij | Your answer tries to claim it's the government backing which is responsible for the high tuition costs, while other countries either have government backing and lower cost, or government backing and higher cost, or no government backing and either higher or lower or similar costs. So, "government backs the loans" is just not relevant to the level of cost, which is why this answer is incorrect and needs to account for other factors that are relevant. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 3:00 | comment | added | user76284 | @Nij US government spending on tertiary education, as a fraction of GDP, is higher than the G20 average and close to the OECD average. | |
| Dec 10, 2022 at 2:23 | comment | added | Nij | University domestic students are 100% government-funded in much of Europe, but costs are nowhere near $60000 per student. Government-backing is therefore not the sole cause, other factors must be involved. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 23:19 | comment | added | user76284 | @Nij Which countries do you have in mind? And what other factors are you referring to? | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 23:12 | comment | added | user76284 | @Buffy The loans are absolutely a contributing factor to the prices. You should take a basic economics course before making such unfounded claims. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 21:51 | comment | added | Nij | This does not match the experience of a number of countries, and therefore cannot be enough to be the answer on its own. Without accounting for the other factors, such as mentioned in comments, this is just incorrect. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 18:42 | comment | added | Sidharth Ghoshal | I think its worth mentioning that America has a culture that encourages or at least normalizes going into debt. There was probably nothing wrong with going into debt in the 1920s to start a profitable business but today that translates to "its acceptable to go into serious debt to take a college degree which has slim to no chance of paying back" and unfortunately a lot of people get caught up in that. In other cultures simply offering lots of loans would probably not result in such a drastic rise in college tuition. You need a culture of taking loans to your own detriment as well. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 16:02 | comment | added | the1.9gpaProgrammer | @Buffy they would probably cut costs as well.. as any normal business operates under changing market conditions.. ? sell land cut staff.. do away with amenities.. without the loans and therefore the students ability to pay the high admission they couldn't afford all the extra stuff.. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:52 | comment | added | Buffy | You are ignoring costs. Lowering the "price" without lowering the cost is not a winning strategy. If they let everyone in for free they cease to exist in less then a year. The costs don't just go away. Think harder. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:48 | comment | added | the1.9gpaProgrammer | @Buffy exactly so they would either "go bankrupt" or lower the price of admission.. Which do you think they would do? | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:44 | comment | added | Buffy | A better question, is how could they run at all with no revenue. Enslave the faculty and staff? Sell off all the buildings and land? For your question, with no loans there wouldn't be any students under the current system. Well, maybe Elon's kids but not so many others. | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:38 | comment | added | the1.9gpaProgrammer | @Buffy answer this question. without the current loan system.. could the universities charge this much money for college? How would students come up with the money to afford these high prices? | |
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:21 | comment | added | Buffy | You seem to be equating higher education with profit making enterprises. They are anything but. I agree that the current system is flawed and the loan system especially. But "charge as much as you can" isn't the underlying cause. Think harder. The loan system is the result, not the cause of the problem which is that the costs are fundamentally high and government (politicians) refuse to cover those costs adequately. And taxpayers would punish them if they tried. Sad. | |
| S Dec 9, 2022 at 15:16 | review | First answers | |||
| Dec 9, 2022 at 15:18 | |||||
| S Dec 9, 2022 at 15:16 | history | answered | the1.9gpaProgrammer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |