Somehow it became necessary to have golf courses, equestrian facilities, tennis pavilions, sports arenas, $1,000,000+ salaries for football coaches, etc... to get an education.

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She fails to even fleetingly mention one thing unique to American higher education that has been an enormous factor in driving up costs: the federal student financial assistance programs. The money from those programs has provided universities an opportunity to raise fees aggressively, using the proceeds to fund a very costly and unproductive academic arms race, including ultra-posh buildings, climbing walls and lazy rivers, and college sports programs that are out of control both financially and morally.

Not to mention the outrageous number of "staff" members at outrageous salaries and benefits.

I saw some of this back in the early to mid 1970s when I was in college. In my senior year I was taking 4 courses. All 4 of them listed senior professors as the teacher. Of those 4, 3 of the professors were not even in the fucking country! for the entire semester. All 3 on university funded "research"! The classes were conducted by "graduate assistants".

Later, in grad school, taking 2 classes while working 60+ hours a week, never even saw one of the "professors". The other was there about half the time.

These "universities" have discovered that with gubbermint fronting money for many of the students and nobody watching the store (so to speak) that those "schools" could charge what ever they thought they could get away with.

The cry to “Abolish the Fed!” isn’t wrong, it just needs a minor tweak. “Abolish the Fed(eral government participation in most everything not specifically called out in the Constitution)!” would be just about perfect.

I still maintain that what we need is a pink slip revolution, where a vast percentage of the folks working for the Federal government are handed a pink slip and told to get a real, productive job or starve to death, whichever they choose. Far too much of the Federal government takes money stolen from productive, tax paying citizens and uses it to make it harder for them to be productive. Of course, as bad as the Federal government is in this respect, the CA government is *much* worse...

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$1,000,000+ salaries for football coaches

Those salaries do not raise the cost of college and come out of booster donations. Besides, coaches like Nick Saban mention they actually make MONEY for the University.

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Originally posted by jhe888:
I think this is also one of the reasons health care is so expensive. All that insurance, and to a lesser extent, government health care.

It is a basic principal of economics that the market can't work if the user of a good is not paying for it.

I think this has a lot to do with higher prices of everything. If your company needs a college grad to fill a position the candidate needs to be compensated adequately to cover the student loan payment that comes with them.

One of the schools I teach for, often provide free tuition, in an effort to draw students. As you can imagine, this brings a variety of students with differing levels of motivation. I will also note, that particular college pays me well. Better than the other university where I teach.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

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$1,000,000+ salaries for football coaches

Those salaries do not raise the cost of college and come out of booster donations. Besides, coaches like Nick Saban mention they actually make MONEY for the University.

I’ve heard this before.

Let’s see, coaching salaries, staff, facilities, food and lodging, scholarship costs, travel, stadium building and maintenance costs, etc etc.

There are probably 4-10 college programs nationwide that are actually profitable, and even that might be stretching it.

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There are probably 4-10 college programs nationwide that are actually profitable, and even that might be stretching it

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Yep. The ones with million dollar football coaches. Some of the football programs actually subsidize all the other athletic programs as well as academics. Usually FBS programs. I know because I attended one, and reaped the benefit of some of the best athletic facilities for students anywhere.

My daughter is at Texas A&M there in College Station, Texas, and there seems to be no end to new buildings going up. All of those new and old buildings and land, with all of their upkeep, water, electricity, etc, are a huge reason for the high cost.

Academia has been ruined by the left. It has become for the most part, an indoctrination center for socialism,funded by parents and the government.

NMU has not only announced, but bragged about their latest course of study:
Raising pot.
Title of pot raising course: Medicinal Plant Chemistry.
And yes, they have a golf course. So you can putt in the snow!

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Originally posted by ftttu:
My daughter is at Texas A&M there in College Station, Texas, and there seems to be no end to new buildings going up. All of those new and old buildings and land, with all of their upkeep, water, electricity, etc, are a huge reason for the high cost.

Somewhere, somehow, the Aggies were able to tap into the enormous endowment of the UT system which was started with 4 million acres of West Texas state land which turned out to be some of the most productive oil fields in the country. UT was second to Harvard in terms of endowment.

I wonder if it didn’t happen during the terms of the only Aggie governor.

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Originally posted by ElToro:
The unlimited availability of student loans ....

Of course. It’s a fundamental principle of economics that if an excess of money is available to pay for something that’s in limited supply—even slightly limited—the sellers will raise prices because the buyers will not refrain from buying or even seriously object. It’s not just short supply that causes higher prices, not having to pay for something at the time of purchase will do it also. Henry Hazlitt pointed that out as far back in 1946 in Economics in One Lesson. He didn’t anticipate government loans for college tuition, but he was exactly right in other areas.

And one of the problems with college loans is that most of those who take them on are young people whose brains aren’t fully developed and who have little experience with what debt involves.

Greed.

That and as some others have said, government subsidies. It happens more often in "public" colleges than private ones.

My 2 sons are a year apart school-wise. So we had kids in college starting in the fall of 2011 and the last one graduates in the Spring of 2019. He is in Pharmacy School, hence 8 years of college.

Both of our sons went to a private college for their undergraduate degrees. This college had levelized tuition, where they paid the same annual tuition for four years each while there. Fortunately our sons lived at home and commuted, about 15 miles away. They both got academic scholarships that paid about half of their tuition, and my wife and I paid part out-of-pocket, and they both had some moderate student loans. Ironically, if they had chosen to attend a public college about 20 miles away, they would have not gotten scholarships, tuition would have increased every year, and we would have had to pay more out-of-pocket and have higher student loan balances.

After their undergraduate degrees, both sons went to another public college about 60 miles away. Fortunately, I bought a trailer for them to live in while there, which I can sell later. Rent is outrageous at this school.

The older son, in Pharmacy School, "owns" his student loans for that. His tuition has increased yearly. He will have to deal with that and the amounts from his undergraduate years, but as a pharmacist, should be able to handle them. He is thinking military to help pay some of them off.

The younger son got an Army ROTC scholarship for books and tuition, to get a 2nd undergraduate degree, so his loans have not increased by additional tuition costs. He is now on active duty, and Uncle Sugar will help him pay off his loans.

This same public college likes to boast of new feature / construction / etc. at every opportunity. Of course, that translates into a tuition increase every year, of 5% to 7%. Too bad they can't or won't figure out a way to get some money from the athletic department, because that same department has used general funds to support them.

I wonder if it didn’t happen during the terms of the only Aggie governor.

Who was the Aggie Governor?

How college is funded is not so straight forward. We want it to be, but it is not. From initial endowments, alumni giving, state taxation programs, and yes the catch all excuse, federal monies.

It is complicated and there are no easy answers.

I believe you can trace the core of the problem to the "everybody needs to go to college" movement. Whether it goes back to the depression era's need for a more skilled workforce or the grey flannel suit, white collar world of the 60's and 70's, it doesn't really matter. We wanted into the office and out of the factory.
My dad gave me no option but to go to college from my earliest days. Most of his generation seemed to hold it as a standard for success. And to this day a strong bias towards the working class.
This idea was even debated decades ago as it could lead to catastrophic failure of the system as it tried to meet the needs of hoards of students who frankly, should not be in college. But the draw of more money and larger student bodies was to tempting to stick to the old ways of higher education. More students meant lower standards, more diverse programs, more management, more professors, and on and on.
Programs were created to encourage more education. For instance, The state of Georgia would pay a teacher an elevated wage simply for having a graduate degree. Even if they dont use the degree for their job. So a teacher could draw a wage as an admin just for having the degree. (This program was later canceled but those that were in were grandfathered).

My point in all this is that the root of the problem goes all the way to the proposed war on working America. We shipped our jobs overseas and became a white collar nation. Colleges became defacto high school even if it was of no interest to the individual.
To compete for students meant you had to stay relevant. Programs became more diverse and even ridiculous. In some ways higher education became a carnival show.
It is not going to change anytime soon because No politician gets elected for arguing that fewer kids should go to college.
Just blaming the government is too easy, we elected them, we demanded our kids go to college, and we demanded they help fund it.

OPM. Other people’s money. School loans effect the final cost of education just as easy money drives up the cost of homes, new cars, and trucks. Same with insurers. Third party payers drive up the cost of body shop repairs and medical costs.