What’s Behind the Extreme Rise in the Cost of College Tuition?

College sure is expensive. Tuition goes up every year (sometimes every semester), and still we push all of our children through the campus doors. Part of this is because every expert agrees that college is still the most consistently good investment you can make. Mostly, it’s because we know that a degree opens doors and we want our kids to have options.

In the end, it won’t matter. The runaway costs of tuition are not sustainable, and we have to address the reasons for those ever-rising prices. Well, today we’re going to take an honest look at the situation, and you’ll see that there’s a simple fix that could cut the cost of college in half.

Rising Costs

Ok. Let’s look at exactly how much more expensive college has become. Since 1998 (30 years ago), tuition for public and private colleges, whether in state or out of state, has roughly tripled.

Some people might try to chalk that up to inflation, but the annual inflation rate has been around 3.2 percent. And, inflation dropped precipitously during the peak years of the recession. At most, inflation can only account for about 30 percent of the rise in tuition. Realistically, it’s probably just under 20 percent.

Now, tripled college tuition sounds extreme, but it makes more sense with a little perspective. In the 97-98 school year, the average yearly in-state tuition for a public university was about $3,000. In the most recent school year, that number is closer to $11,000. Out of state and private university numbers have increased even faster.

Another way to look at this is that the most affordable four-year degrees are going to cost around $40,000. The vast majority of American families can’t afford that without loans, and that’s going to come into play in a minute.

Increasing Administration

Acknowledging the cost of college doesn’t mean much unless we talk about why. Liberals claim that the two biggest reasons are inflation and a lack of government assistance. We already tackled inflation, so let’s review government assistance.

It’s up. By a lot. In 2018, government assistance for higher education hit an all-time high. And yes, that is adjusted for inflation. Tuition also hit an all-time high. Obviously (and unsurprisingly), the liberals are missing something.

Here’s a stat you might not have heard. In the same 30-year span we’ve been discussing, administrative staffs have grown by about 75 percent. You might wonder if attendance has grown enough to make that necessary. The short answer is no. To account solely for increasing attendance, administration staff would have needed to grow by about 30 percent. It’s been well over double that.

That’s not all. Administration wages have grown faster than any other position in colleges — well above the average wage growth in the country. Now we’re getting somewhere.

The next logical question is to ask why. Why do we need such bloated administrations? This boils down to liberal policy. Who sets up the safe spaces? Who reviews official documents to make sure everything is sufficiently tolerant and free of “hate speech?” Who runs the myriad of programs all designed to cater to progressive pandering? You see where this is going. Simply paying to administer the massive growth in progressive campus policy over the last 30 years accounts for about one-third of the total increase in college tuition.

Let’s spell that out a bit more clearly. Without these programs, tuition would have merely doubled in the last 30 years, instead of tripling. Another way to look at this is that most four-year degrees would cost about $24,000 in total, instead of $40,000. That means a lot fewer loans would be necessary, so let’s talk about that now.

Compounding Costs

We all know that student loans have become a problem. Students who enroll in college this year will expect their tuition to cost $40,000 (assuming they graduate in four years, which is becoming rare). That’s not quite right. Tuition will grow every year, which means the actual end cost will be about $47,400. What’s another seven grand at this point? Well, those tuition increases alone will cost about $500 a year in interest.

By the time any of these students graduate, they’ll be paying $3,000 a year just to stay on top of that interest. That comes out to $266 a month. If that loan was paid in 10 years (which is aggressive), the graduate would be spending $30,000 on interest and the total bill for their education would be over $77,000.

Let’s compare the hypothetical. Without the massive spending on liberal policy, that same degree would cost $24,000 in four years. That’s $6,000 a year, or 20 weeks (800 hours) of minimum wage work in a year. Many families can afford this, but even assuming it was still too pricey, you could take a smaller loan to subsidize the cost. Since a summer job could easily pay half of this tuition, a final loan would only be $12,000. Putting that back into our previous example, you’re looking at a final cost of $20,000 to pay off the loans. And, that’s taking 10 years to pay a $12,000 loan, which is just silly (it would equate to a monthly payment of $166).

Look. We got pretty deep into some math and numbers here, but the takeaways are straightforward. Several factors make college expensive, but the pandering, handholding policies of the left are the largest cost driver.

What’s worse is they push students into taking loans, and those loans further compound the cost of higher education. If we eliminated all of the progressive programs today, college would cost half as much tomorrow.

In the meantime, the left continues to push this destructive ideology. They insist that subsidies are the only way to make college affordable, even though it would only increase the problem. Then, they take that notion and try to apply it to everything. Education and health care are the biggest problems, but liberal ideology has made every facet of life more expensive than it needs to be.

We’ve all known if for a long time, and Trump’s economic success has reinforced it. Freedom is the key to a strong economy.


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