I've seen multiple articles about how fewer and fewer students are majoring in the [liberal arts] and more and more are pursuing [business] and [technical] degrees. From where I'm sitting as a person who's been a staff member at various universities for over a decade, that shift is an inevitable result of the breathtaking college [tuition] increases.

When I was an undergrad, the big cost of college was the [opportunity cost]: you lost four years of [income] that you might have earned at some decent job somewhere. (Back then, people with high school diplomas still had a shot at decent-paying jobs). And if you were particularly [focused] and [energetic], it was very possible to manage a [full-time job] while taking classes and work your way through. I worked my way through [grad school] paying out-of-state tuition while holding down an assortment of part-time jobs that I could bend around my course schedule; it was tough, but I did it. Lots of other people did, too. With a variable combination of luck, hard work, and determination, students could avoid taking out [loans] to pay for their education.

But today, that's impossible. Ordinary bachelor's degrees can cost what [medical school] used to. College is so [hideously] [expensive] that the only way to work your way through would be if you had a job earning $50,000 or more a year ... in short, a job that would require that you already have some kind of college degree, and the kind of job that is in very short supply in our brave new world economy.

A friend of mine did the math on his daughter's tuition; she will start college next fall. Even though she's a good student who is getting all the expected financial aid -- 50% support or better at each institution she's considering -- a 4-year degree at [Indiana University] would ultimately cost her more than $500,000 by the time she gets her loans paid off. In the case of IU, she'd be paying out-of-state tuition, but the other schools at which she's been accepted would be about as [expensive] because the in-state colleges are offering less aid. A bachelor's degree at one school, [Boston University], would ultimately cost her something close to $625,000.

People are forced to think of college as [trade school] to have any hope of paying that back. As long as states keep trying to starve college budgets while colleges put their money into highly-paid administrators and public universities increasingly behave like for-profit organizations, there are few easy answers. I have some hope that the [MOOC] movement will help fill the gap for students who want to [learn] about the world instead of simply molding themselves for [corporate] [consumption]. And people will still have the urge to write [books] and create [art] and make [movies] even if they can't afford go to class to study how to do those things.

April 10, 2013 (log)