Today, tuition is about $30,000-$40,000 per year. Starting salaries aren't that much higher than a single year's tuition
Either education is over-priced today, or companies are not paying enough... :0)
Funny how we’ve had a technology revolution since 1980 that should have both lowered the cost and improved the quality of education but neither happened.
I would tell any kid today to spend two years at the local community college and stay at home while he does it. When the kid finishes that...then I’d pay for the last two years...within our state. I just plain wouldn’t accept out-of-state costs.
Law of supply and demand, and useless degrees. Anyone that thinks more degrees will not further drive down starting salaries, never had one day in an economics class.
“When I went to University (1976-1980), tuition was $2,500 per year. Starting salaries for BAs were about $13,000-$15,000. For those with an engineering degree, the salaries were about $15,000-$18,000. (130%-180% of four years of study)
Today, tuition is about $30,000-$40,000 per year. Starting salaries aren’t that much higher than a single year’s tuition
Either education is over-priced today, or companies are not paying enough... :0) “
The old guideline, was that the entire amount you pay for a college degree should be less than one years salary of your first job immediately out of college.
This old rule applied to me and mine decades ago, and I think this old rule still is a good one.
You are looking at it wrong.
There are more people with degrees now than ever before. And the government allows companies to bring in people from overseas. Often from places where their countries pay for college.
When you have a high supply, and a lower demand, you get lower pay. We have to many people with degrees now, and an artificially inflated price to get those degrees. The companies will keep paying less and less, because they can find people to work for less and less. An engineering degree is one of the better ones to get, but still not a great investment. There are many field were the tuition is many times more than the salary. Those fields should not exist.
Interesting. My starting salary (1980s) was about equal to the total tuition I paid in the 4 prior years. Granted, it was a B.S. I earned, but it was a famed top-tier university.
“Either education is over-priced today, or companies are not paying enough... :0)”
Higher education suffers from the same bureaucratic bloat as public K-12 education and the government in general. Add to that the tenure system and the “publish or perish” philosophy that values “research” over teaching. Tenured academics at major universities enjoy guaranteed jobs and very light teaching loads.
Imagine if the professors at public colleges and universities were required to actually be in the classroom teaching 6 hours a day and in their offices to advise students the other two hours a day. Note I’m suggesting they work a standard 8 hour day, not the 10-12 hour days the parents of the children they teach who work in the private sector put in. Under this plan, it would be possible to significantly reduce headcount in universities as well as cost. Then take an axe to the layers of bureaucracy (Directors of Diversity and staff can be the first to go) and you will have colleges that can charge $10000 per year tuition without requiring billions in taxpayer support.
The other issue driving up the cost of education is the construction of palatial monuments on campuses instead of buildings designed simply to house classrooms, meeting rooms, and faculty offices. Soaring atriums and marble floors greatly add to the cost of heating, cooling and upkeep. In the early 1970’s, most of my classes were held in un airconditioned classrooms with a blackboard and very basic chairs and desks. Recently I attended a reunion at the university I attended and was shocked to see new air conditioned classrooms with plush seating, electronic hookups for laptops, hi tech video walls. All of this wizardry costs millions of dollars to maintain and likely has limited value in supporting the mission of learning in the classroom.
Another problem with today’s academic world is the perception that one must have a PhD to be qualified to teach. Most of the professors in business school today have PhD’s and zero experience working in a real private sector job. I’m amazed to see people teaching “entrepreneurialism” who went from undergraduate school to a PhD program and then wrote papers about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in order to achieve tenure. These schools should be begging real entrepreneurs who are actually starting and building businesses to instruct students. Instead schools are fixated on academic credentials.
Leave it to the engineer to be the real accountant. The system was gamed! When politicians promised low cost education via financial aid and subsidies, the adminstrators drooled and then...wait for it...raised tuition costs steeply rather then maintain reasonable adjustments. Ta-da! It was essentially a money laudering scheme. When you hear Obama and his ilk talk about helping/improving schools, that is code words for "keep the system going".
Govmint gives more money to student. School raises prices and takes the money. And don't get me started on immunity, ah, I mean tenure.