I disagree, I think the desperation for jobs will increase demand on colleges and universities and the availability of student loans make that possible. Colleges have been able to, and will continue to, charge whatever students can be loaned.
The student loan problem is one of the most challenging problems.
My undergrad is probably thought by most on HN to be a diploma mill (UCF) - University of Central Florida. But, UCF has done something really special. They said screw it and they worked really hard to keep tuition low. The median Tuition is just $6,368. That low tuition + easy Florida scholarship money has worked well for the University as the acceptance rate has fallen below 50% (That is comparable to many universities in the top 100 globally).
I think UCF's bet that they need to compete on price is going to work in their favor. The biggest downside is massive class sizes, but that is made up for with more online learning and better lecturers.
When someone asks me where I would go, I tell them pick one: Really, really prestigious or cheap and decent. UCF does not provide the opportunities that Harvard does, but it will still beat out an unknown liberal arts college charging $200,000 for 4 years.
> I tell them pick one: Really, really prestigious or cheap and decent
In reality, there is really only one criterion: affordable.
The really elite universities will make themselves affordable if you can get in, and if you can't then you're better off going somewhere cheap. There's no point in paying for the expensive middle.
Hopefully, this will do more to eliminate degrees as a (useless) hiring signal.
There are multiple definitions. No one thinks UCF is illegitimate, but it is a large university which pumps out a ton of students and some people here question any school which isn't a top ten university.
I would say that's what's happening right now and it can't last much longer. Eventually people will realize the debt isn't worth it and universities will be contract.
The problem is when you have a flooded labor market any education becomes a differentiator. So whether the debt is or isn't worth it becomes a question of whether or not you want a middle-class job.
So unlike every other service colleges are special and the more people looking to do it the more expensive it is.
It isn't possible to open more colleges and create competition. That wouldn't work in this case, because as stated unlike every other good or service in the world colleges are special and don't work like that.
Glad we cleared that up, now we can just do nothing about the problem.
It's not just special, there are social pressures that totally distort rational thinking. People (parents, teachers, advisors) tell kids to go to the best school they can. There is a ton of hype about attending the "Right school for you" etc. There are rankings and all sorts of other stuff.
Schools distort true cost through murky financial aid processes. Then the gov't continues the scam by calling loans "financial aid."
Plus the customers are 17 year olds whose most expensive purchase before this was saving up for that really cool concert that one time. And now they are borrowing tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds).
It's also impossible to judge the worth of college.
It's just a mess. We shouldn't be giving kids and young adults that much rope to hang themselves with.
The government should institute price controls for anyone using federal loans. 30k tuition is a total scam.
I don't think we disagree in principle, but in detail.
I fundamentally disagree that
"Schools distort true cost through murky financial aid processes. Then the gov't continues the scam by calling loans "financial aid.""
That argument says that there is essentially free money just by charging more, no increase in services. If that where true the amount of money to be made would force more colleges to be opened.
Couple that with the fact that public colleges are much cheaper than their private counterparts and community colleges are cheaper still and I don't know exactly where this argument comes from.
There is a lot of high cost options which loans unfortunately do cover, but to blame the price distortion on the availability of the loans seems backward.
Private K-12 schools are just as outrageously priced with no loans available to fund them.
I think there is a stigma (depending on your area maybe justified) around public educational institutions, which allows profiteers to do their thing.
Instead of fixing the underlying problem, we throw money at it. Which is the American way.
> So unlike every other service colleges are special and the more people looking to do it the more expensive it is.
Uh, what? Are you being sarcastic?
Because it's pretty much a basic rule of economics that if demand for a good increases its price will increase (at least until new supply is introduced).
