Out of interest Brad, how much did you have to pay in tuition fees back when you were at university, and then how much more did you need to spend for maintenance, rent and the like ? I don't know what's happened in the American education sector over the last 20 years, but I do know that the cost of higher education in the UK has rocketed since I was there. I didn't have to pay anything towards tuition fees (which were entirely state funded) and only took out maintenance loans of about £3000 a year, which combined with a bit of financial support from my parents was enough for me to live on quite comfortably (it even let me pay for loads of booze and drugs...). I almost certainly could have gotten a job and paid my own way if I'd been minded to do it, although I chose not to. It's not the same today. If I were to go back to university I'd have to pay £9000 a year in tuition fees, and the cost of basic essentials has gone up a lot over the years, especially so for accommodation costs. I don't see it would have been remotely feasible for me, as an 18 year old with no chance of landing a lucrative job and not being able to work full-time due to study commitments, to get through university without recourse to loans.

I am not sure what school you're talking about Brad but I am guessing tuition was not $60,000 a year like it is for some private schools. In California a student going to a Cal State school could probably work and pay their own way--tuition is about $5,000 a year. When I was going to school it was possible to work and pay for tuition at UCLA but now tuition is about $15,000 a year so that's no longer true. Anyway, given that tuition has gone up so much, then when you went to school then most likely your tuition was much less than current students. And if you went to school when you were past 18-22 and already had some kind of decent job then your situation would not be analogous to the average student either. (Cross- posted with Sass whose post is well-done)

California set up a great system of higher education: (1) the top 12.5 percent of high school students went to UC schools , (2) students who did not do quite as well could go to Cal State Schools and then there was community college. And tuition was low and community college was free. So there(and are) a myriad of ways for students to get educated, to have another chance if they struggled in high school. It's also a good thing to have more of the population have a college education, even if their majors are not deemed great for job prospects. When you put low barriers to education you allow equal opportunity. My parents met here on the 1950s, coming from other states, because of the educational opportunities here. I would argue that educational system was a big part of why California has one of the largest GDPs in the world. When you invest in people you get a large return. Red states don't invest in people...and you see the result.

Love this: Bill Maher feels the Bern. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... genda.html

6,000/year

I was married with one child.

I had a job to do as well.

Choices, all of them.

So you went late to university at a time when you already had a well-paying job and had presumably already learned all about budget discipline through the experience of being a parent. The fees you paid were also a fair bit lower than the norm these days. I don't doubt that you made a lot of sacrifices and deserve to be commended for managing to juggle your priorities to get an education in difficult circumstances, but these are not the sort of choices that most young people are in a position to make.

freeman3 wrote:I am not sure what school you're talking about Brad but I am guessing tuition was not $60,000 a year like it is for some private schools.

That's a choice, right? Should the state totally subsidize someone who deems it is worthwhile to attend a private school and study whatever liberal arts they desire, simply because the school has accepted them?

It's also a good thing to have more of the population have a college education, even if their majors are not deemed great for job prospects. When you put low barriers to education you allow equal opportunity. My parents met here on the 1950s, coming from other states, because of the educational opportunities here. I would argue that educational system was a big part of why California has one of the largest GDPs in the world. When you invest in people you get a large return. Red states don't invest in people...and you see the result

What's the reason why Texas has one of the largest GDP's in the world, and why is it gaining on California?

Texas's economic boom is built on a mountain of oil (one-third of US production). About three million barrels a day. Heck, they could join OPEC. Not a good model to follow since no one else has comparable oil production.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/plunging-oi ... 1420428781

Sassenach wrote:So you went late to university at a time when you already had a well-paying job and had presumably already learned all about budget discipline through the experience of being a parent. The fees you paid were also a fair bit lower than the norm these days. I don't doubt that you made a lot of sacrifices and deserve to be commended for managing to juggle your priorities to get an education in difficult circumstances, but these are not the sort of choices that most young people are in a position to make.

Well paying? Not really. I just choose to be not in debt, and not just with tuition. Debt limits possibilities whether in private or government practice.

RJ is right. Those are choices as to what school you attend.

As to the state subsidizing going to private school for $60 K I am going to say in general I would say I would rather individual states subsidize students going to state schools. On the other hand...there is a pipeline from the Ivy League to extremely high-paying jobs on Wall Street so to the extent able students get priced out of going there I think there are concerns about equal opportunity. But I guess I would rather other ways to fix that problem other than fattening Harvard's coffers...

If the student cannot afford Harvard, but can afford NYU, then perhaps the choice needs to be made as to the need for a more expensive school coupled with a those associated student loans compared to a less expensive with less loan debt.

Dang those choices... They just have to be made, though.

bbauska wrote:6,000/year

I was married with one child.

I had a job to do as well.

Choices, all of them.

I paid my own way through grad school by working 48-56 hours a week.

Choices.

Both of your personal examples are just that, personal examples which don't have very much relevance to the situation most 18 yr olds find themselves in when they have to make their education 'choices'. Brad's job may not have been especially well-paid by his current standards, but you can be sure it was significantly better paid than the sort of job available to a school-leaver. How many teenagers would even be able to find a job that lets them fund a higher education course while working those 50 hour weeks ? This is a 'choice' that's simply not available to most of them.

I'm not saying that the state should fund people to go to Harvard (although there is a case for some state-sponsored scholarships for the brightest and the best from poor families), but the fact is that social mobility is something that benefits the whole of society, and affordable access to higher education is the biggest driver of social mobility there is. If people from all walks of life feel that they have the chance to get ahead and do better than their parents then it gives everybody a buy-in to society and improves social cohesion. It also shouldn't really need saying that in the modern world of globalisation and cutthroat international competition there are enormous benefits to having a highly educated workforce. There's a perfectly rational case for the state to provide a hand-up to bright and capable people from poor backgrounds who would otherwise be denied the opportunity to get the sort of education their natural intellect deserves, and there are benefits that accrue from that for everybody.

It really doesn't cost all that much to provide subsidised loans, which is all that's really required.

Did you guys walk 5 miles in the snow too? I think it would be interesting to see how much tuition costs now at the schools Brad and DF attended. Then they could assess whether if tuition were as high then as it is now they could have afforded to have gone without student loans. For example, UCLA is $15,000 now and in 1990 dollars that would be $8,239.90 (actual tuition in 1990 was $1,300)

Here's an inflation calculator.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl? ... year2=1990

I am interested to see the results. Otherwise, your choices are not the same as those faced by students today.

freeman3 wrote:Did you guys walk 5 miles in the snow too? I think it would be interesting to see how much tuition costs now at the schools Brad and DF attended. Then they could assess whether if tuition were as high then as it is now they could have afforded to have gone without student loans. For example, UCLA is $15,000 now and in 1990 dollars that would be $8,239.90 (actual tuition in 1990 was $1,300)

Here's an inflation calculator.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl? ... year2=1990

I am interested to see the results. Otherwise, your choices are not the same as those faced by students today.

I wouldn't claim they would be.

However, the question is how much should society pay for people to go to college. My attitude is this: it depends. If the person is majoring in something society needs, society should be more willing to pay for it. If you want to major in something useless, pay for it yourself. However, I don't believe our government "discriminates" like that.

Sassenach wrote:It really doesn't cost all that much to provide subsidised loans, which is all that's really required.

Oh, you're quite right--IF the loans are paid back. However, we have relatively high default rates, iirc. Worse: the government has a number of ways to get out of paying it back.