Posted on 03/18/2018 7:53:39 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The cost of college has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation for decades, and the increasing availability of federal student loans is a principal cause. But even as demands grow daily to do something about student debt and loan defaults, hardly anyone laments the demise of a once-proud American aspiration: working your way through college.
In 1956, as a freshman at Yale, I waited tables in a student dorm for about $1 an hour, 10 hours a week, over the 30-week academic year. I received a full scholarship, but even if it had ended, I recall that Yale’s “all in” price—including tuition, room and board—was $1,800 a year. My work during the term could have covered one-sixth of that.
Today tuition, room and board at Yale run $66,900. Working the same amount as I did—even at, say, $12 an hour, an increase of roughly one-third after inflation—produces income of $3,600, or slightly more than 5% of the total. To earn enough to pay for one-sixth of a Yale education would require an hourly wage of more than $37! Yale’s own literature, by the by, lists the amount that a freshman on scholarship can expect to contribute during the school year at $2,850. The same basic economics applies to summer employment.
Yale’s experience closely tracks what has happened at virtually all of America’s elite private colleges and universities. The situation in public schools is little better. A half-century ago, the tuition and fees at many such institutions were barely above zero. Fully working your way through college was a real possibility. Now a year’s education at a typical state university, even for in-state students, can easily exceed $25,000, well beyond what can be earned while studying full-time.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“Hookers” will tell you otherwise.
College should only be considered as an opportunity to gain skills for future employment. Nothing more.
Well, back in the day all you needed at a university was a room, a book, and a professor. Now you gotta have a TA who barely speaks engrish actually teach the class so its way more expensive.
More like greedy school (liberal) officials.
Wow this story is about 20 years late.
I’m sure that Yale and the other elite universities have a team of Associate Vice Deans and Directors and Associate Directors looking into the “Affordability Crisis”. The solution will be “more federal aid”.
Colleges as they currently exist are nearing extinction. It may not seem so now, but the current paradigm can’t continue. The cost/benefit analysis is upside down. The replacement for colleges is already at hand, it is the professional certification. If you want to work in Quality you have to join a professional society which will provide all the education you need, and a certificate. (Of course, you have to perform some QA course work every year and pay to keep up your citification. But that certification is what employers are looking for, not a college degree, which is largely useless now for employment purposes.) The same is true for other employment specialties like being a program manager. Again, a private organization provides the courses and the certification.
We found something that works for our son. He pays upfront at a community college with the money he earned by working in a restaurant. Any grade B and above we reimburse. We made him take responsible for his future. He is graduating soon with zero college debt and a very high GPA.
He came here 9 years ago and spoke no English. Now he is nearly graduated with his first degree and had been on the dean’s list every semester. He also is a member of the National Honor Society. All it takes is hard work and parents that care enough to be parents and not friends to their children.
“In 1956, as a freshman at Yale, I waited tables in a student dorm for about $1 an hour, 10 hours a week, over the 30-week academic year. I received a full scholarship, but even if it had ended, I recall that Yale’s “all in” price—including tuition, room and board—was $1,800 a year. My work during the term could have covered one-sixth of that.”
I’d like to point out, not that -I- am saying this or anything but the left would read this paragraph and think only “This is DRIPPING with white privilege” and they would immediately dismiss it as racist garbage.
“The replacement for colleges is already at hand, it is the professional certification.”
Unfortunately a prerequisite for a lot of professional certifications is a college degree.
So its all about job training and not education.
If someone else doesn’t voluntarily pay for your college education — whether through scholarship or writing checks for the tuition — you can always go two years to a community college while working full-time and then transfer to your four-year public university to finish up.
At two classes a semester, three semesters a year, you are done in six years top. You don’t have student loans and you have six years of work experience to boot!
College loans and scholarships are just one more area that the federal government should exit pronto.
Congratulations—if only the rest of the parents in the country would be so wise!
Horsecrap.
Agreed.
Most college campuses should be converted to old folks homes for our aging population, while the kiddos can attend “commuter schools” and/or study online.
So true some good looking freshmen women can get up to $4,000 for from a sugar daddy some men pop on smart young women also some young women work at jiggle joints and make good money to pay for school know a few who became lawyers.
Funny, throughout life I've come to rely on the skills I learned at Sears more than the ones I learned in college! I built up a pretty nice collection of hand tools as well.
To work your way through college you have to pull down about 20 hours a week at $25. For that you need skills. Welders, plumbers, electricians,and other trades can do that. A skilled carpenter can do that.
Of course, if you have those skills, who needs college?
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