Heaven forbid they just lower tuition.

[sanantone]

I think I heard something about Texas A&M Commerce starting a competency-based program, but the state pulled funding. As dumb as Rick Perry was, at least he supported and advocated to alternative programs that could lower tuition. Our current governor isn't progressive at all and has wasted our legislature's time pushing legislation most people didn't want and ultimately didn't pass.

Obama was piloting a program that would allow financial aid to pay for alternative sources of credit. I hope the current administration doesn't do away with it. I believe CSU Global students were able to use their financial aid to pay for CBEs. Paying $250 for a CBE is a lot better than paying $350 per credit hour, but a lot of people may not be able to pay that out of pocket.

---

I believe we are on the verge of the student loan and tuition bubble bursting. The next financial crisis.

There is a lot of money tied up in student loans that cannot be defaulted on. Feels like the bubble should have happened by now but maybe it might be like a slow bleed type of economic impact because of minimum payments and probably less drastic as home evictions seen in 2008.  I am enjoying seeing unethical schools like Everest and U of P getting destroyed finally. The market might be finally self correcting but it is hard to turn around this ship. I wish reputable state schools would accept or create their own Straighterline type of courses. Individual courses have little ROI compared to cost.....we pay for the aggregate (the degree). People taking an online psychology 101 know there is no need to be paying more than Straigterline prices as this point. Will market pressures actually make colleges adapt is the big question.

The student loan debt problem is different from other types of debt since students can't get out of paying government-backed loans. Also, a handful of schools are responsible for a disproportionate amount of debt. These schools include very expensive for-profits and schools that have a high percentage of graduate students. If one wants to understand the "problem," then one has to separate graduate and undergraduate loans.

Graduate students tend to make more, so the added debt is usually justified. There are more people going to graduate school these days. If your graduate debt is not justified, then that's your problem. The government is not responsible for your poor decisions. Additionally, people tend to take out more loans than needed to pay for living expenses and partying (yes, a significant portion of students use loans for Spring Break and traveling). The goverment shouldn't have to be responsible for that either.

[cookderosa]

Special Report: Tuition spikes send higher education enrollment tumbling
As price rises, students drop by 1.2 million, sparking run of mergers

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_c...t_tumbling

Sound to me like online education will only become more crucial.

If you've ever heard people talk about "adopters" of a trend or something like technology - or if you've seen the chart, it's like a bell curve.  
Anyway, people in my children's age range are innovators and early adopters of tech products - no question.  In fact, my 22 year old -to the best of my knowledge- never once took a pen or pencil to a college class.  All tech, all the time.  But us middle aged folks, we are late majority / laggers simply because computers became integrated into our lives during our lives - we weren't born into it.  So, my analysis is this- when you see adults here and on other DL sites, and WE are using technology, it's time for the colleges to wake up to the fact that tech won't be LESS important in the future, so 1.2 fewer people are enrolled than in 2011 (according to your link) why?  

Well.... yes, probably price, but not only price.  STEM trumps liberal arts all day long.  We all know that.  Employment numbers demonstrate that.  Who is hanging onto the idea of traditionally earned liberal arts education?  Old people.  People in my age range and my parent's age range could graduate with any degree and go to work- now, employers want skills <gasp> and the young people figured this out.  Still a lot of parents (my age group) pushing their teens into liberal arts education / any degree, because they have the same mentality I had - but the problem is that the world has changed and we (late majority/ laggers) have taken a while to figure it out.  

Colleges will eventually figure it out...even though it takes losing 1.2 million in enrollment to send the message.  

Degrees should be cheap, fast, attainable, portable, and result in some type of career advancement or placement.  In addition, you should be able to access information digitally becasuse....duh....everything can be done digitally - videos of lectures, textbooks, email to peers/instructors, submitting papers for grading, reviewing papers for plagiarism.  So, the point of sitting in a lecture hall is what?  The point of paying $1400 per credit is what?  Colleges will have to morph.

Very true on all points. Skills pay the bills. However, I am bit concerned liberal arts are getting a bad rap. Liberal arts were created as a systematic way to educate citizens so they could have a better grasp on maintaining their freedom (liberation) by being well versed on a variety of topics deemed worthy of a free person such as law, math, political science and public speaking skills. Sure a history major doesn't have real tangibles skills, BUT they (hopefully) know that history can repeat its self and know that atrocities that we think were a long time ago are really not so far away and easy to repeat if their magnitude is not appreciated. How to balance this conundrum is beyond my pay grade. One option is to make this all affordable as maybe one can get an interesting liberal arts degree and then actually have money to pursue a job specific skill since they will be without crushing student debt. I really hope in the future colleges see this and create cheap almost free on demand curriculum to where this is an (degree) option. Seems now the only choice is to pick one degree and pray you made the right the decision as your economic reality after said choice puts you on a set of tracks that do not have many exit points.

In my opinion, the days of education for education's sake are coming to a close. Why? Because that history degree at a private university is going to cost no less than $200,000. Even the exceptional academic student with a full scholarship gives up 4 years of their life that could have been spent learning to be employable.

I would also disagree with the idea of praying you made the right degree choice- much better to pray for wisdom BEFORE choosing a degree.

---

Ok, seriously. Everyone here is preaching one message and practicing another.

If you tested out of even 1 class, you recognize the ridiculous cost and time investment required by traditional education and found a way around it.
Why are we not sitting in a classroom becoming "educated?"

To suggest that people "should" do this or that with/for/as their education is missing the forest for the trees.

[sanantone]

Special Report: Tuition spikes send higher education enrollment tumbling
As price rises, students drop by 1.2 million, sparking run of mergers

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_c...t_tumbling

Sound to me like online education will only become more crucial.

If you've ever heard people talk about "adopters" of a trend or something like technology - or if you've seen the chart, it's like a bell curve.  
Anyway, people in my children's age range are innovators and early adopters of tech products - no question.  In fact, my 22 year old -to the best of my knowledge- never once took a pen or pencil to a college class.  All tech, all the time.  But us middle aged folks, we are late majority / laggers simply because computers became integrated into our lives during our lives - we weren't born into it.  So, my analysis is this- when you see adults here and on other DL sites, and WE are using technology, it's time for the colleges to wake up to the fact that tech won't be LESS important in the future, so 1.2 fewer people are enrolled than in 2011 (according to your link) why?  

Well.... yes, probably price, but not only price.  STEM trumps liberal arts all day long.  We all know that.  Employment numbers demonstrate that.  Who is hanging onto the idea of traditionally earned liberal arts education?  Old people.  People in my age range and my parent's age range could graduate with any degree and go to work- now, employers want skills <gasp> and the young people figured this out.  Still a lot of parents (my age group) pushing their teens into liberal arts education / any degree, because they have the same mentality I had - but the problem is that the world has changed and we (late majority/ laggers) have taken a while to figure it out.  

Colleges will eventually figure it out...even though it takes losing 1.2 million in enrollment to send the message.  

Degrees should be cheap, fast, attainable, portable, and result in some type of career advancement or placement.  In addition, you should be able to access information digitally becasuse....duh....everything can be done digitally - videos of lectures, textbooks, email to peers/instructors, submitting papers for grading, reviewing papers for plagiarism.  So, the point of sitting in a lecture hall is what?  The point of paying $1400 per credit is what?  Colleges will have to morph.

Very true on all points. Skills pay the bills. However, I am bit concerned liberal arts are getting a bad rap. Liberal arts were created as a systematic way to educate citizens so they could have a better grasp on maintaining their freedom (liberation) by being well versed on a variety of topics deemed worthy of a free person such as law, math, political science and public speaking skills. Sure a history major doesn't have real tangibles skills, BUT they (hopefully) know that history can repeat its self and know that atrocities that we think were a long time ago are really not so far away and easy to repeat if their magnitude is not appreciated. How to balance this conundrum is beyond my pay grade. One option is to make this all affordable as maybe one can get an interesting liberal arts degree and then actually have money to pursue a job specific skill since they will be without crushing student debt. I really hope in the future colleges see this and create cheap almost free on demand curriculum to where this is an (degree) option. Seems now the only choice is to pick one degree and pray you made the right the decision as your economic reality after said choice puts you on a set of tracks that do not have many exit points.

In my opinion, the days of education for education's sake are coming to a close. Why? Because that history degree at a private university is going to cost no less than $200,000. Even the exceptional academic student with a full scholarship gives up 4 years of their life that could have been spent learning to be employable.

I would also disagree with the idea of praying you made the right degree choice- much better to pray for wisdom BEFORE choosing a degree.

---

Ok, seriously. Everyone here is preaching one message and practicing another.

If you tested out of even 1 class, you recognize the ridiculous cost and time investment required by traditional education and found a way around it.
Why are we not sitting in a classroom becoming "educated?"

To suggest that people "should" do this or that with/for/as their education is missing the forest for the trees.

I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.

[cookderosa]

<<I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.>>


Not true- There are almost 11,000 parents that follow my blog, 99% are homeschoolers living on 1 income, hardly wealthy. Many choose private college
Sure, private schools award scholarships, but scholarship or no, $200,000 is the average price tag for 4 years at any major private university. 2017 data says it all $43,000 per year tuition and $10,000 per year room/board. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

In my state of NC, it's easy to spend a lot more. We have 58 private colleges, I won't list them all, but here are the 3 popular ones my NC parents are aiming for.

Duke University: $70,000 per year http://admissions.duke.edu/education/value

Davidson College: $63,000 per year http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-fi...n-and-fees

Wake Forest: $62,000 per year http://finance.wfu.edu/sfs/tuition-and-fees

[Thorne]

<<I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.>>


Not true-  There are almost 11,000 parents that follow my blog, 99% are homeschoolers living on 1 income, hardly wealthy.  Many choose private college
Sure, private schools award scholarships, but scholarship or no, $200,000 is the average price tag for 4 years at any major private university.  2017 data says it all $43,000 per year tuition and $10,000 per year room/board.  https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

In my state of NC, it's easy to spend a lot more.  We have 58 private colleges, I won't list them all, but here are the 3 popular ones my NC parents are aiming for.

Duke University:  $70,000 per year  http://admissions.duke.edu/education/value

Davidson College:  $63,000 per year http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-fi...n-and-fees

Wake Forest:  $62,000 per year http://finance.wfu.edu/sfs/tuition-and-fees

My lord. At those prices, Ashford or National University's $500-700/cr doesn't look so bad.

[cookderosa]

<<I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.>>


Not true-  There are almost 11,000 parents that follow my blog, 99% are homeschoolers living on 1 income, hardly wealthy.  Many choose private college
Sure, private schools award scholarships, but scholarship or no, $200,000 is the average price tag for 4 years at any major private university.  2017 data says it all $43,000 per year tuition and $10,000 per year room/board.  https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

In my state of NC, it's easy to spend a lot more.  We have 58 private colleges, I won't list them all, but here are the 3 popular ones my NC parents are aiming for.

Duke University:  $70,000 per year  http://admissions.duke.edu/education/value

Davidson College:  $63,000 per year http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-fi...n-and-fees

Wake Forest:  $62,000 per year http://finance.wfu.edu/sfs/tuition-and-fees

My lord. At those prices, Ashford or National University's $500-700/cr doesn't look so bad.

Right??!! I get twitchy when I find out someone spends that kind of money on an undergrad degree, but it's not my decision, so whatever. I would much rather throw my money at a master's degree (which I did lol). Might even pick up a second one!

[jsd]

According to the site linked below, average Student Loan debt for 2016 grads is $37,172. So while there are plenty of schools where you can spend way more at, it appears most people aren't, to sanantone's point.

https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan...tatistics/

[sanantone]

<<I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.>>


Not true- There are almost 11,000 parents that follow my blog, 99% are homeschoolers living on 1 income, hardly wealthy. Many choose private college
Sure, private schools award scholarships, but scholarship or no, $200,000 is the average price tag for 4 years at any major private university. 2017 data says it all $43,000 per year tuition and $10,000 per year room/board. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

In my state of NC, it's easy to spend a lot more. We have 58 private colleges, I won't list them all, but here are the 3 popular ones my NC parents are aiming for.

Duke University: $70,000 per year http://admissions.duke.edu/education/value

Davidson College: $63,000 per year http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-fi...n-and-fees

Wake Forest: $62,000 per year http://finance.wfu.edu/sfs/tuition-and-fees

What did I say that was not true? You didn't post anything that I refuted what I said. Hardly anyone goes into more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree. 99% of the population cannot afford to pay $200k out of pocket. If people are getting scholarships and grants, then they aren't paying $200k. You linked to sticker prices; you didn't show what anyone is actually paying.

On average, private, non-profit school students graduate with less debt than for-profit college students even though for-profits are cheaper. In 2012, only 12% of private, non-profit students graduated with more than $50k in debt. Just imagine how few are paying $200k.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201...f-students

---

<<I actually had a debate about this on another forum. I posted links that I can't easily access right now. Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare. Anyone paying $200k out of pocket is wealthy and can afford to study whatever one wants.>>


Not true-  There are almost 11,000 parents that follow my blog, 99% are homeschoolers living on 1 income, hardly wealthy.  Many choose private college
Sure, private schools award scholarships, but scholarship or no, $200,000 is the average price tag for 4 years at any major private university.  2017 data says it all $43,000 per year tuition and $10,000 per year room/board.  https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

In my state of NC, it's easy to spend a lot more.  We have 58 private colleges, I won't list them all, but here are the 3 popular ones my NC parents are aiming for.

Duke University:  $70,000 per year  http://admissions.duke.edu/education/value

Davidson College:  $63,000 per year http://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-fi...n-and-fees

Wake Forest:  $62,000 per year http://finance.wfu.edu/sfs/tuition-and-fees

My lord. At those prices, Ashford or National University's $500-700/cr doesn't look so bad.

I bet you that, on average, Ashford and National University students graduate with more debt. Yale is extremely expensive, but the average student loan debt is less than $15k. People need to stop looking at sticker prices and start looking at the amount of non-loan aid that is available. For-profits tend to not offer many grants and scholarships. Sometimes, it's cheaper to attend the more expensive school.

[dfrecore]

I bet you that, on average, Ashford and National University students graduate with more debt. Yale is extremely expensive, but the average student loan debt is less than $15k. People need to stop looking at sticker prices and start looking at the amount of non-loan aid that is available. For-profits tend to not offer many grants and scholarships. Sometimes, it's cheaper to attend the more expensive school.

This is true.  The ivy leagues schools all have free tuition for people making less than a certain amount (1 is capped at $40k, 4 are capped at $60k, 2 are caped at $65k, and Stanford is capped at $125k).  Then, most offer reduced amounts if you make between that and another higher amount.  http://www.businessinsider.com/congrats-...-it-2015-4

I have friends sending their kids to private Christian colleges, with very high price tags - but with scholarships and work study, one is paying $12k ($23k rack rate) and one is paying $22k ($44k rack rate) and this includes room and board.  In-state tuition, room and board at a CSU would cost about $25k and UC is about $30k.

I've been to encouraging everyone I know whose kid is considering a CSU/UC school to look at private universities, to see what kind of "deal" they can get there.  It can't hurt to apply, and if 50% is the going rate, then they may be able to better afford a private school than a state school.  Crazy, but true.

[cookderosa]

According to the site linked below, average Student Loan debt for 2016 grads is $37,172. So while there are plenty of schools where you can spend way more at, it appears most people aren't, to sanantone's point.

https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan...tatistics/

Debt is what you borrow, that doesn't reflect the rack rate.

It doesn't account for scholarships and grants off the top. It also doesn't account for what the parents set aside to use or what the student used from Federal Work Study or a side job.
My student loan debt on my undergraduate degree was $5,000 but my degree cost more than that.