When South Carolina lawmakers slashed funding for public colleges and universities, tuition soared.
But tuition did the same thing during better times, when lawmakers raised higher education funding.
While lawmakers and college officials point the finger of blame at each other, annual tuition increases over the past decade have nearly tripled the cost of a four-year degree from a South Carolina public university.
Here’s a bit of a “secret”.. I know from first hand experience, the very minute that it looks like perhaps the federal gov’t, the state, or other entities consider raising the $s on student help/funding/loans or other assistance, the “institutions” start revamping their application processes and publications so as to be ready with “tuition” and “other” increases as soon as they come throughl
How do I know that, because preparing to make the needed changes was my job at one institution.
Grandmother in SC
From Prof. Glenn Reynolds, his take on education being the next bubble to burst:
And his more recent follow-up article here:
I think we can agree that only the wealthy have a right to public education. The rest, though they might be talented, should go into extreme debt. Clearly, an 17 year old who is clever should work harder than someone who is powerful and has cash. That’s how we like the system.
What a nice troll comment of JW’s that is.
John, what are you talking about? The wealthy aren’t going to state schools– depending of course on what you think “wealthy” means.
Part of the problem, at least as I’ve seen it, is a sort of “facilities race” as the various institutions have gotten into this mad competition for applicants and status. Thirty years ago at UMCP the place was perhaps somewhat shabby, but by and large the education wasn’t bad; on the math and physical sciences side, it was in the first class, if not the most prestigious (and in a few fields it was among the most prestigious). At the the time they had 40,000 undergraduates, the result of a “got a high school diploma and a pulse? we’ll admit you” policy. What happened was that half the freshman class quit in the first semester, but at least everyone got a chance. Well… these days large sections of the campus are unrecognizable, due to the made building spree in the last several decades. BUT the number of students has declined a lot. There are now only 27,000 undergraduates, because they’ve gone to competitive admissions, and it’s VERY competitive– because that’s where you get your prestige. They keep begging me for money; I always say no. Private schools have gone through the same thing.
Reynolds is surely right, even if you don’t look at student loans as an investment in job training. There is just no way the current pattern can be sustained.