Heaven forbid they just lower tuition.

[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/

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.

Certainly, but the statement was about debt:

Going more than $100k in debt for a bachelor's degree is exceptionally rare.

[a2jc4life]

"Liberal arts" is also only a useful concept so long as colleges hold to a certain standard of education, thought, etc. In my experience, so far, everything has been dumbed down to the point that it's virtually meaningless.

---

//The student loan debt problem is different from other types of debt since students can't get out of paying government-backed loans.//

Actually, it depends. Depending on how much money you make, you can pay back a government-backed student loan at an income-based rate and if, after 20 years (I think it's 20), you still owe on it, the remainder can be written off.

Something many folks in this thread are not accounting for is age. IF you go to college directly out of high school, there's a good bit of financial aid available. If you take even a year off, the available aid plummets. Even before that it can be something of a crapshoot. I had a good GPA and a really good SAT score, and I was awarded SOME financial aid by a couple of private Christian schools -- not nearly enough to cover the cost of tuition, never mind the cost of living wherever the schools were. I failed to get ANY financial aid at the state universities, in part because their own people don't know their stuff and gave me the same wrong information over and over and over, despite my questioning it. (Bottom line: I never could fill out the necessary paperwork beyond the FAFSA because they repeatedly insisted there wasn't any.) God forbid an "average" student should want financial aid.

[cookderosa]

"Liberal arts" is also only a useful concept so long as colleges hold to a certain standard of education, thought, etc. In my experience, so far, everything has been dumbed down to the point that it's virtually meaningless.

---

//The student loan debt problem is different from other types of debt since students can't get out of paying government-backed loans.//

Actually, it depends. Depending on how much money you make, you can pay back a government-backed student loan at an income-based rate and if, after 20 years (I think it's 20), you still owe on it, the remainder can be written off.

Something many folks in this thread are not accounting for is age. IF you go to college directly out of high school, there's a good bit of financial aid available. If you take even a year off, the available aid plummets. Even before that it can be something of a crapshoot. I had a good GPA and a really good SAT score, and I was awarded SOME financial aid by a couple of private Christian schools -- not nearly enough to cover the cost of tuition, never mind the cost of living wherever the schools were. I failed to get ANY financial aid at the state universities, in part because their own people don't know their stuff and gave me the same wrong information over and over and over, despite my questioning it. (Bottom line: I never could fill out the necessary paperwork beyond the FAFSA because they repeatedly insisted there wasn't any.) God forbid an "average" student should want financial aid.

I went to school as a young traditional and then again later as an adult. There are basically 5 ways to get money:
(1) loans - you borrow money, the interest is either deferred or accumulated, but unless you've had a drug conviction or are in default, everyone can get student loans.
(2) Pell Grants - gift for being low income, you don't repay it. I rec'd a Pell as a teen, and then again also as an adult, so my age wasn't a factor.
(3) house money- this is money the college pulls from their resources to pad your package. It's an incentive for you to sign on the dotted line. There are some that argue these incentives are really used to get people in the door who can pay. Of course, colleges all say aid is blind...but anyway, I think that's the case with the "big price tag, small brand" colleges who want so much to be elite. The real elite colleges, if you can get in, will waive tuition for anyone in certain income brackets- so less debt.
(4) scholarships - these are awards you win for merit in something like scholastics or athletics.
(5) Work study- mandated or optional. You work, and your wage is taken off of your debt.

I think it's reasonable to assume that young people have more access to scholarships than the other options, and for sure private schools have more house money than public schools- but public schools cost a fraction of private, so even with a "generous financial aid package" you can still get sucker punched chasing after ways to save pennies on the dollar at a school you can't afford.

Other things people don't consider- employer reimbursement (TONS offer this) as well as parents working for a college so their kids can attend for free/reduced, or attend one of the service/work colleges that waive tuition for everyone.

My recipe for success is to use CLEP before being eligible for free dual enrollment, use free dual enrollment in 11th /12th grade - if it's not available, choose the cheapest community college you can find in a state with an articulation agreement (block transfer) to finish a full AA, and then transfer to a 4 year that accepts the articulation agreement. Live at home and work a job that pays at least some of your tuition. Use your paycheck to buy books not beer.

The math works, but it gets screwed up when you inject people and their emotions into the scenario.

[dfrecore]

I had a good GPA and a really good SAT score, and I was awarded SOME financial aid by a couple of private Christian schools -- not nearly enough to cover the cost of tuition, never mind the cost of living wherever the schools were.  

Like I said in Post #19 on this thread, I have 2 friends who are sending their kids to private Christian schools right now - they both started this fall) and they are paying less than 50% of rack rate, and less than it would cost to go to an in-state CSU or UC.  Neither qualified for any financial aid at all, but the schools both figured out a way to get them there.  $12k for one, and $23k for the other including room and board for both.  One also got some work-study, and had worked for a year before school started and saved up a bunch of money to help pay.  She will be working her butt off at Christmas and Summer breaks to continue to help pay.

[a2jc4life]

I had a good GPA and a really good SAT score, and I was awarded SOME financial aid by a couple of private Christian schools -- not nearly enough to cover the cost of tuition, never mind the cost of living wherever the schools were.  

Like I said in Post #19 on this thread, I have 2 friends who are sending their kids to private Christian schools right now - they both started this fall) and they are paying less than 50% of rack rate, and less than it would cost to go to an in-state CSU or UC.  Neither qualified for any financial aid at all, but the schools both figured out a way to get them there.  $12k for one, and $23k for the other including room and board for both.  One also got some work-study, and had worked for a year before school started and saved up a bunch of money to help pay.  She will be working her butt off at Christmas and Summer breaks to continue to help pay.

Is that proof there isn't a problem, or an example of a harried response to a problem that already does exist?  (i.e. College is expensive so people aren't going, so now colleges are scrambling to try to get students?)

[dfrecore]

I had a good GPA and a really good SAT score, and I was awarded SOME financial aid by a couple of private Christian schools -- not nearly enough to cover the cost of tuition, never mind the cost of living wherever the schools were.  

Like I said in Post #19 on this thread, I have 2 friends who are sending their kids to private Christian schools right now - they both started this fall) and they are paying less than 50% of rack rate, and less than it would cost to go to an in-state CSU or UC.  Neither qualified for any financial aid at all, but the schools both figured out a way to get them there.  $12k for one, and $23k for the other including room and board for both.  One also got some work-study, and had worked for a year before school started and saved up a bunch of money to help pay.  She will be working her butt off at Christmas and Summer breaks to continue to help pay.

Is that proof there isn't a problem, or an example of a harried response to a problem that already does exist?  (i.e. College is expensive so people aren't going, so now colleges are scrambling to try to get students?)

Just as your post had anecdotal evidence to back up your point, I provided some anecdotal evidence to say that there are ways to get around some of the problems.  We are both right.


Why would you think that your anecdote is proof, while mine is just an anecdote?  Not sure I'm understanding why what you said is important, but what I said is not?

[davewill]

Whether you can get aid to get around the problems seems to me to be beside the point. Whether students are being required to pay those ridiculous "rack rates" or not, just that fact of their existence is probably enough negative marketing to discourage students from trying. I also think their existence encourages public colleges into thinking that increasing their tuition every year is OK. After it would cost you "twice as much" to go to a private school!

[dfrecore]

Whether you can get aid to get around the problems seems to me to be beside the point. Whether students are being required to pay those ridiculous "rack rates" or not, just that fact of their existence is probably enough negative marketing to discourage students from trying. I also think their existence encourages public colleges into thinking that increasing their tuition every year is OK. After it would cost you "twice as much" to go to a private school!

Actually, I personally think that the problem is the existence of government-backed student loans.  If there was not an easy way for students to get money, and they actually had to choose schools based on price, more schools would lower prices to get more students.  Instead, we have a "tuition bubble."  When government money flows fast and free, inflation of whatever they're helping to finance skyrockets.  Has everyone already forgotten the housing bubble??

Private schools can charge whatever they want, and they don't have government subsidies to help reduce costs like our in-state schools do.  The fact that they charge what it probably actually costs to run the school, and then use endowment money or whatever they have to lower costs for individual students, is not a bad business model.  And again, they get to run their businesses how they want to. Now, the fact that they have increased tuition just as public schools have because of the availability of student loans in a whole other issue.

[ECH90]

Whether you can get aid to get around the problems seems to me to be beside the point. Whether students are being required to pay those ridiculous "rack rates" or not, just that fact of their existence is probably enough negative marketing to discourage students from trying. I also think their existence encourages public colleges into thinking that increasing their tuition every year is OK. After it would cost you "twice as much" to go to a private school!

Actually, I personally think that the problem is the existence of government-backed student loans.  If there was not an easy way for students to get money, and they actually had to choose schools based on price, more schools would lower prices to get more students.  Instead, we have a "tuition bubble."  When government money flows fast and free, inflation of whatever they're helping to finance skyrockets.  Has everyone already forgotten the housing bubble??

Private schools can charge whatever they want, and they don't have government subsidies to help reduce costs like our in-state schools do.  The fact that they charge what it probably actually costs to run the school, and then use endowment money or whatever they have to lower costs for individual students, is not a bad business model.  And again, they get to run their businesses how they want to. Now, the fact that they have increased tuition just as public schools have because of the availability of student loans in a whole other issue.

 
Yes. I feel like this is the case for many things.

[sanantone]

While I feel that government-backed loans allow colleges to increase their tuition, remember that less people went to college before financial aid existed. Notice how the schools that don't participate in Title IV tend to be very small? A school has to be dirt cheap like Penn Foster or Ashworth to attract a lot of students. I haven't seen a regionally accredited, non-Title IV school that most poor and working class people can afford.

Do I think the high sticker prices at private universities deter people from applying? I don't know. The top schools always get thousands of applications. With poorer students, the problem is usually that their SAT or ACT scores aren't high enough to get in. SAT scores are correlated with family income and are worse at predicting college success than high school GPAs. If anything is keeping economically disadvantaged students out of private schools, it's the SAT.

On another forum, there is a discussion about how the top 10% rule (I think it's 7% now) in Texas lowers the ranking of UT Austin and Texas A&M. The problem is that rankings are partially based on the average SAT/ACT scores of students. While the GPAs of admitted UT and A&M students may be high, their average SAT/ACT scores are lower than one would expect for those schools. This is because the top 10% rule was designed to make it easier for poor and minority students to get into the top schools in Texas. The law puts the emphasis on class ranking and GPA rather than test scores. This was exactly their intention, and I think it's worthless to look at test scores when ranking a school.