Occupy Wall Street? How about occupy Higher Education?
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about price tags. Everything from the cost of health care to the cost of a hamburger has been in the spotlight for it’s fifteen minutes of fame, covered excessively, and then dropped like a hot potato, only to be picked back up on a slow news day.
And there has been a lot of talk about how we should handle these problems as they come up. Should we match the prices? Ask ol’ Ben Bernanke to pump some more money into the economy? What about subsidizing prices on certain commodities?
With all this talk, it’s starting to seem like America is just one big economics book, being read through page by page. Not quite.
There has been a lot of talk about prices, I will give you that, but there has been nearly nothing mentioned in regards to the price of school.
And this, America, is ridiculous. For something so important to our future and prosperity as education, why have we focused our attention on the price of a Big Mac rising rather than the price of a diploma?
Just to give you an idea as to how much the price has skyrocketed, here’s a pop quiz:
Since 1982, how much has the price of college increased?
a) 50%
b) 100%
c) 156.7%
d) 345%
Trick question; the correct answer is not listed above. Since 1982, the average price of gaining a college diploma has risen a staggering 439%. That’s right, 439%. And it makes you feel even better when you look at the average growth of a family’s income since 1982. That factor has only risen a measly 147%.
In other words, the cost of a higher education has outpaced the income for a standard household by a factor of three. And this rise doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
A tuition of fifty thousand dollars per year, something that would have been seen as simply ridiculous, is now the average price of some of the “best” universities in America. The title of most expensive? According to Forbes, that goes to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., with a whopping $57,556 per year. And that price tag doesn’t even include entertainment and books. That is going to cost you an extra two grand.
And that cost is too much. How is a person expected to go into the working world when they start with an internship or salary so low it is laughable, and then expect to pay for anything when they have a pile of student loans hanging above their heads? They simply can’t.
With all this talk of economic reform, this is something that shouldn’t even be an issue. If we want to put our best minds through a system that is meant for the best minds to go through, we have to remove the game show of scholarships and loans that no one really wins.
This is our white elephant in the room. As the price of college silently climbs to astronomical prices, we sit by and pay the price, both literally and metaphorically. If you want to reform anything, start with this. Then you might get the minds needed to tackle the other issues.
America, this is decision time: is the price going down, or are the cries of protest going to get louder?
The choice is up to you, reader, and I would love to know what that choice is. Seeing as I’m packing up and moving off to college next year, I admit I might have an inherent bias. Is the price of college really that big of a deal?
Leave me your two cents in the comments below.
And you might note that as the price of tuition climbs, the proportion of that tuition actually spent on direct instruction plummets. 75% of the faculty are now on term to term contracts, more than half of those “part-time” (now there’s a misnomer) at poverty level wages (less than $20K per year for teaching a full-time classload with a “part-time” title) and little access to benefits. What are your tuition dollars being spent on? Wall Street level executive compensation for presidents and redundant administrators, public relations, and student support services that faculty used to be able to provide. The corporate model has taken hold. Occupy higher education and demand an end to the corporatization of American colleges and universities.
Corporations need to get a slap to the face. OCCUPY HIGHER EDUCATION
#occupywallstreet
#occupyhighereducation
#occupygreed
Make common cause. It’s not an either or just about adjunct faculty or students.
#collegeinc
#occupyhighereducation
THIS IS SO ANNOYING!
i agree with you jacob, i really feel like im just going to have to sell my soul for that diploma
As someone who has actually been to the Occupy Wall Street movement, I can assure you this view is not only expressed here. I would say the vast majority of people at the protest are college age kids, some of which had to drop out because the price was to steep and others who have to carry around the life long burden of a student loan
Since when did our future become something to invest in like a stock market. beat it back corporate america
i can assure you that no matter how hard you try, you will never beat back corporate america. that would require beating back america
while living in america
COLLEGE INCORPORATED IS WHAT OUR EDUCATION IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE.
how can you fools not see this?
I refuse to believe that
then you will see for yourself when you “try to change the system”
you are the fool
no
Ive lived through actual protests. nothing ever changes. it might change for a week in november of 2012, but it never REALLY changes
things can be done to change the system just you wait and see
things can be done to change this. however they require organizing so many people that they are very impractical. basically if everyone who was part of the education system agreed that they weren’t going to pay such high prices and would rather not go to college than pay such obscene amounts of money then colleges would be forced to lower prices. But then again, who is willing to risk that such a gamble is going to pay off, and if someone could organize such a massive movement, why wouldn’t they just demand that higher education should be free? and why shouldn’t it be free?
what you just stated is pretty much summed up in the game theory. if we were all to say “we refuse to go to college at this price”, there is bound to be one selfish person out there who will be like “screw you all, i can pay, now let me into harvard”
i doubt a massive protest like that will every happen because people believe they NEED to go to college to pay for a better life, and i dont see that stopping anytime soon
good post, i agree
^ what he said
really opened my eyes, i had no idea prices went up that much. 3x what pay went up. wow…
none of us actually have the backbone to do anything
two cents
haha nice pun
also, i agree with everything above
government is sucking our money and running away with it
where are they running to? its the government…
hush now wise guy
I go to Princeton and I can assure you they do give you a ton of subsidized breaks. HOWEVER, that is only if you meet ridiculously low government standards and apply to affirmative action.
In other words, if you dont make less than $40,000, and aren’t hispanic or black, you are paying the brunt.
Sorry middle class
I hate affirmative action. No matter what you say, it values people based on the color of their skin.
Sounds to me like racism
and it really limits the potential of the non minorities, and asians. just because there are a lot of them doesn’t mean they dont struggle. i just think its really unfair. its like the corporation part only selectively applies
White middle class, i hear you, and I totally agree. Thank goodness I am half Hispanic half asian. I’m pretty sure the hispanic thing is the only reason i am typing this sitting where i am
Hah! Fool! You do not even realize the true situation!
It truly is a plot by the facist group to take over the country!
Think about it: when you pay money to the colleges, where does it go? Hmmm? The true answer is: NOWHERE!! That’s right, all of this money that’s being put into the education system is being swallowed up and spent in the pursuit of totally useless research (for the most part) and educating America’s young in the principles of facism! Look anywhere and you will see that the mark of facism is found in COLLEGE GRADUATES!!
But that’s not all. By making college extremely expensive, we’ve also managed to divide society into the LEADERS (that’s us) the HANDS (college graduates) and the SHEEP (everyone else). You’ll be surprised at how deep and wide our long-standing operation has gone!
Cry! Cry for your cherished children’s plaything, democracy! See universities for what they truly are—a school for facism!!
You are so right! I had no idea that this was THAT comparable to fascism. Rise up America, rise up! Break the bonds of the oppressive Uncle Sam and his Harvard graduates!
I really think most colleges are guilty of being “College, Inc.”s
That should be a new noun:
college inc
Here’s a question to consider, why has the cost of higher education gone up so much? You have to justify a higher cost in some way shape or form, what’s the justification here. Are the colleges such a higher quality today than they were in 1982 to justify this astronomical increase? It amazes me colleges can just decide to increase their tuition. Is there any industry that says, “we need to charge more starting now” and not explain it to their customers? Well, there is one, hospitals do this on a regular bases. But that’s another topic altogether. Colleges need to explain these ridiculous increases in tuition. If you can’t explain the rational, it shouldn’t be done. Unfortunately, there’s no one to regulate this or make the colleges accountable for these increases.
Unfortunately, you have to actually consider the issues driving the cost of education up. If the cost to attend a school has gone up, it’s because the costs for the school to function have gone up. Why would schools’ costs go up? Clearly, they have to spend more to keep up to date with equipment and software and materials and such for students to use to learn and to research new things. Without keeping up, they fall behind not only in terms of research, but in terms of education and reputation as well. MIT, for example, has to purchase tens of thousands of engineering hardware and software each year–just to outfit their AI unit, which is small to being with.
When you are a school like MIT, you really don’t have an excuse for driving up prices by that much. I would understand if you are a small state school trying to stay on top of the world of research, but schools with big names like MIT have huge budgets already out there that just get bigger every year. This past year, MIT had 9.9 billion dollars to spend with as they please, and with a team of financial investors across the world, I can almost promise you they made a profit off of that without every actually depending on the student’s tuition.
I agree with Richard on this one. There is simply no justification as to why school prices are going up this much every year.
Agreed that schools are too expensive, however, people should realize that if you can’t afford to go to a “top school” then they shouldn’t attend that university. Racking up large student loans is not the answer to acquire a good job out of college. Staying in-state and attending a public university should not be seen as a “compromise”. And companies realize this also. Yes, there will always be the Harvard and Yale graduates who will get their dream jobs right out of college, but any Business student from UT or Engineering student from A&M (these are only a few examples) who has earned a good GPA will tell you they are having no problems finding their dream jobs either.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. School prices become rediculous when the school becomes brand name. People are willing to pay any price for the Yales and Harvards because they feel that going to those places will lock in their dream job with an amazing pay check. Work is going to be needed no matter what, so these people are just being tricked into strapping themselves down with a crushing student loan that will be paid off by the time they retire from their “dream” job. Not worth it. I prefer not to sell my soul to a ridiculously overpriced cluster of 3,000 exclusive students. I understand if they offer you a crazy good deal you simply can’t turn down, but for the most part, that isn’t going to happen
None of it had to do with Occupy Wall Street, but you make very good points. I believe the government should almost exclusively use the budget for education. Everything else can take the scraps. Because when everyone is educated, you don’t need to fund war, you don’t need to fund programs that pay the unemployed.
The cost of college is ridiculous. In economics, we have already learned that price discrimination is illegal, and yet colleges every where do it. For example, what is in state vs. out of state tuition? It’s simply charging people who actually want to go to the school because of the school’s reputation rather than proximity a higher price because they are willing to pay it. AND THAT IS ILLEGAL. The same thing holds with affirmative action. ALL OF THIS STUFF IS ILLEGAL. The government should do something. Oh wait, everyone in the government went to the schools most guilty of this.
At least America gives everyone a chance for scholarships. Without those, our education levels might just as well be down the toilet.
The problem with scholarships though is that they are almost never based on merit. If your parents have made anything out of their lives after being born in America, they will have some money, and if they have some money you WILL NOT get any scholarships. Colleges only care about first generation kids, after that, sucks for you. And it is so not right
I personally think that education should be free. after all, isn’t it the responsibility of the government to promote the general welfare and socialize the young? What better way to promote the welfare of a nation than by guaranteeing a high quality education that wont bring debt? History has shown that when a country/empire/society has a large number of indebted people wealth starts to concentrate, and when wealth starts to concentrate so does political power, all are problems that drop empires
Then i think we might very well be watching the fall of the american empire. wouldnt you agree?
the system is set up to not allow those with power to lose it
I think there needs to be some legal action against this time of stuff
doubt there will be any
I know there won’t be, but one can hope
i suppose
The system is so bogus, all the people who can do stuff won’t because they all benefit from this system
i agree with yoni
in retrospect, i didnt really need a whole comment to say that
beccause we all know no one will read this
isnt it ironic this is on a blog sponsored by a group that benefits from this type of system
nice name lol
yeah it is isnt it?
good thing i am a first gen minority
even though my parents both went to the best colleges in Chile and Argentina, i still get all the perks
which isnt fair. my parents have been going to state schools for at least three generations, and im white. in other words, the government is not going to pay me squat
college is so messed up, yet it really doees help us for as much as we trash it
and i really like this post too
ill share both tomorrow
i think that prices need to go down, like a lot
and im going to be paying them in three years. does that mean they will be like three times as much? gosh i hope not. good thing im a fourth hispanic
im not anything, guess im paying it all. community college here i come
what are the odds of someone who could actually change this system fixing seeing this post? none because no one can help. everyone from the university professors to the president are in cahoots with this system
great post though, im just trying to annoy you
It really is staggering when you consider that the schools that charge the most are the ones that shouldn’t be. Take Harvard for example. They have an endowment of 20 billion dollars, almost ten times that of a public state university here in Texas, and yet, they charge nearly ten times the tuition. They have the best investors in the world making them more money, and they flaunt it, so why do they claim they need the petty offerings we give them to attend their classes?
Great article Jacob! I would love to site this in my upcoming paper. I’ve already sent you an email through your reep gmail, so feel free to contact me whenever, as long as it is this semester
so i totes put b on the pop quiz. this mean i fail? lol
all the smiley faces on spams comments annoy me