# Why has college gotten so damn expensive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600 "2012-05-02T02:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/81 "2012-05-05T21:48:09Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Work =/= time in the classroom. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. What about all the other stuff professors do? > > – Prep for each class (usually at least an hour for every hour you’re spending in the classroom, even if you’ve taught the class before – re-reading material, tweaking little things, updating lectures to reflect the current state of the field). > > – Grading. And grading and grading and grading. (Even if the professor is lucky enough to have TAs, somebody has to manage the TAs and make sure they’re all on the same page about grading standards.) > > – Committee meetings, department meetings, bureaucratic busywork of various sorts (plus the occasional genuinely useful service responsibility). > > – Office hours, individual meetings with students, serving on thesis committees. > > – Research (if there’s any time left over). > > Trust me, the vast majority of work professors do does _not_ take place in the classroom. It may be invisible to the students, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Okay, so double his classroom time. 24 hours per week. And give him 6 hours for meetings. 30 hours per week at a 6 figure salary. And again, this isn’t working on an oil rig. This is air-conditioned office work. Tell a guy making $30k per year how “hard” this professor’s job is because he has to have office hours.. ETA: With summers and spring break and Christmas break off… I’ve got the world’s smallest violin playing the world’s saddest song just for college professors.. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/82 "2012-05-05T22:03:03Z")
**jtagain** , you have no idea how much time that professor puts into class preparation and other necessary work outside of the classroom. Neither do I, but I’d be willing to bet it’s more than you think, and that that time he puts in is a big part of the reason why he’s the competent professor instead of the terrible one. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/83 "2012-05-05T22:27:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > **jtagain** , you have no idea how much time that professor puts into class preparation and other necessary work outside of the classroom. Neither do I, but I’d be willing to bet it’s more than you think, and that that time he puts in is a big part of the reason why he’s the competent professor instead of the terrible one. I’m sure that his out of class workload is crushing and that federal labor laws should be enacted to prevent this abuse against him. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/84 "2012-05-05T23:09:45Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I’m sure that his out of class workload is crushing and that federal labor laws should be enacted to prevent this abuse against him. Is there a reason you completely dropped research from your commentary? That is where the majority of the time is spent by my spouse. That is also the only real thing that matters for tenure and advancement - quality of research as determined by number of publications, location of said publications (quality of the journal), number of times publications have been cited, and letters from faculty from other universities commenting on the research produced. Again, I am speaking of a professor at a research university - who are the ones with the lightest teaching loads. For teaching, each hour in the classroom usually requires around the same in prep. Office hours are next in direct time. Grading of papers (my spouse, to the consternation of her students, still likes to require papers). Creation and grading of exams. Student emails (finding the 100 different ways to tell a student to read the damned syllabus). Student meetings (honor violations, begging for ways to salvage a grade, petitions to drop the course). Service is the next bit. This is the departmental faculty meetings, campus-wide committees, hiring of new faculty, faculty review, grad student applications, etc. I mentioned teaching - but that was really just undergrads. Grad students have their own flavor of fun, most of which is well described in PhD comics actually. Grad student seminars, reviewing their research, helping with a thesis, ripping said thesis apart, sitting on review committees, helping with presentations to conferences, etc. The point I am attempting to make is that for a research university professor, the majority of the job is done outside of the view of the general public. They only hear about it when the New York Times picks up a bit of the work. Then 10 years of work is boiled down to 2 paragraphs, a couple of quotes, and lots of misinterpretation. But it still hits international news. We pop a decent bottle of champagne when that happens, I admit. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/85 "2012-05-05T23:15:39Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > The point I am attempting to make is that for a research university professor, the majority of the job is done outside of the view of the general public. Yeah, but unless he is mining coal in between lecturing and grading papers, it not _real_ _work,_ and he is just frittering away tax payer dollars. What a snob. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/86 "2012-05-05T23:24:04Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I don’t think you are, and I appreciate hearing about your experiences. Can I ask you why you have decided not to teach full-time if you like it so much? Don’t mean to impose, just curious. Seems like you probably have a knack for it. Because I felt like it would separate me too much from real-world engineering practice, and I wanted to get out in the world and experience engineering from the trenches of the cubicles on up to senior management. Having done that for 20 years, I am currently in the process of re-entering academia. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/87 "2012-05-05T23:27:20Z")
Since **furt** put some good information in earlier, I thought I link to this Techcrunch bit: > **[Jailbreaking the Degree | TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2012/05/05/jailbreaking-the-degree/)** > > Jailbreak verb. 1 To get out of a restricted mode of operation. 2 To enable use of a product not intended by the manufacturer. Currently, the degree is the only meaningful “unit” of education to which employers give any credence. Of this dependency,... > [@](#): > > Clayton Christensen predicts, “I bet what happens as [higher education] becomes more modular is that accreditation occurs at the level of the course, not the university; so they can then offer degrees as collection of the best courses taught in the world. A barrier that historically kept people out of university [is] blown away by the modularization and the change in [course-by-course] accreditation.” ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/88 "2012-05-05T23:33:50Z")
IS it all that expensive? Relatively speaking and when weighed against what the average graduate gets out if it? I’m a term away from finishing my second degree (at a state university). Now, I qualify for and get Pell Grants which generally cover my tutition and usually my books/fees/supplies etc… Going full time at 12 credit hours a term, the grand total for a year (3 terms, not counting summer, which I usually take off and do temp work during) is roughly $1,700 a term (about $130 per credit hour, plus $100 or so for books, plus a few fees) or about 5 grand a year. Times 4 for a BA/BS undergraduate degree (less since I had transfer credits, and entered as a Sophmore, but that’s just me), so about $20 grand for a degree which stands to increase your earning potential significantly for many years to come. NOW, that does NOT include the costs of housing, transportation, other living expences while you go to school full time, but you can do as many do and work as well and/or live at home with parents and/or (as I do, being 46, a parent and living off-campus) take out the dreaded STUDENT LOANS to fund those costs. To date, I have about 20 grand in loans to pay back (most subsidized). Big deal. Essentially, for the cost of a new CAR (and a monthly payment rivaling said car payment) I have (almost :D) gotten a B.A. That amount is just about what I would have paid for the education itself, had I (and not the taxpayer) been footing the bill for tuition and books and fees and supplies. And my university just raised tution 9%…was even cheaper before. Yeah, lots of kvetching on campus about rising tuition, but all in all, I think it is a great deal/value. Even if I DON’T earn more with the creditial (unlikely…may not be a great deal more, but the data shows that those with a degree earn significantly more than those without AND are far less likely to face long-term unemployment) I consider it worth it for my own edification. Of much more worth to me than a new car. A big part of why tution at many STATE institutions has risen so much lately is that they are getting less funding FROM the state due to cuts/the recession/the economy. Same way our K-12 schools are facing cuts and furlough days. Another is, yes, all the fancy rec. centers and upgrades institutions do to both improve the “student experience” and entice new students (I have never USED the Rec. Center, but I PAY for it with fees every term). Come Fall term, my school is instituting a mandatory (unless you prove you have other, comparable coverage) student health insurance program which, if I understand the notice correctly, will add on about $300 a term to the cost of attending full time. I suppose that even so, the cost will still be pretty reasonable. That should be my last term there, however. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/89 "2012-05-05T23:48:48Z")
Sorry, missed the edit. First, typo/error correction: “expenses”, not “expences” (geez, Ma, my colige edukashun is payin’ off already!:p) Second, on a possibly related issue, the for-profit, unaccredited “colleges” and trade schools which often cost MORE than accredited, non-profit, state supported institutions, routinely employ deceptive recruiting and/or financial aid practices, and have much higher default rates than legit institutions (according to the DOE and studies conducted by others) siphon billions in federal student aid away from legitimate institutions and rip off the taxpayer AND consumers. It is a huge industry, and about on a par with the for-profit health clinics and medical supply companies that bilk billions annually from Medicare/aid. President Obama recently stepped in to address the issue of such businesses exploiting veterans, which is great, but we need to plug this hole in the student aid bucket across the board (the GOP in Congress has repeatedly blocked such reforms, however.) :mad: ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/90 "2012-05-06T18:35:52Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Okay, so double his classroom time. 24 hours per week. And give him 6 hours for meetings. 30 hours per week at a 6 figure salary. And again, this isn’t working on an oil rig. This is air-conditioned office work. It really depends so much on what he’s teaching. If it’s a math class that the prof has been teaching for ten years, the out of-class time needed to teach the class is indeed minimal: it’s not like he needs to be abreast to breaking changes in Intermediate Algebra (some profs can and do reuse the same lesson plans over and over for year, while still getting plaudits for being great teachers), and most of the grading can be done via scantron in five minutes. Tutoring is often as not done by TAs or even upperclassman. So yeah, someone who teaches lower-level math classes, has experience (i.e., has prepped the classes before and has lesson plans in the bag) and isn’t tasked with admin or research could very easily teach 25 or more hours a week. On the other end of the spectrum, imagine a English Comp teacher in her first semester, who has to create lesson plans from scratch (or go looking for ones to borrow) for every single class, and then read, evaluate, and grade a hundred pages or more of written material every single week; it’s going to be really hard for her to do more than 4-5 normal-sized sections (12-15 hours a week) without shortchanging her students and/or burning herself out (which means the school has to hire another inexperienced teacher next year). IMO, that’s one of the biggest problems in the higher ed industry: a failure to recognize the wildly disparate nature of different fields. It may or may not be true that all disciplines are equally _valuable_ in an moral or philosophical sense, but it’s manifestly obvious that they aren’t the _same._ Someone teaching upper-class courses in a cutting-edge field like nanotechnology obviously needs to be staying abreast of the constant developments in the discipline, where new discoveries are made constantly, and it could well be argued that staying actively engaged in research is essential to his work as a teacher. The guy teaching Philosophy 101 is in a very different position; it’s an extremely mature field, and the dramatic breakthroughs (i.e. big enough to matter for the classes they teach) are few and far between. Yet it’s the norm for the courseloads, research expectations, etc. for Astrophysicists and Theologians to be more or less the same. That sort of false equivalency also leads to questions like > [@InterestedObserver](#): > > IS it all that expensive? Relatively speaking and when weighed against what the average graduate gets out if it? It’s a fair question, and on one level, the one everybody should be asking. But the truth is, everyone already knows the answer: “it depends.” If your purpose in going to college is to improve your career earnings (and for all but a handful, that is a major goal), then a Bachelor’s in Materials Science or Nursing or Accounting, especially from a good school, is definitely worth it. A B.S. in Engineering from a state flagship is about the best financial investment an 18 year old can possibly make. A degree in Sociology or Literature or History _might_ be a good value, especially if your school is affordable and you use it to get into a good grad school, or if you use the networking that an elite school makes possible. But a degree in General Studies or a B.S. in Business (America’s most popular degree, by far) from a much-maligned school? That’s a very, very different proposition. Those degrees _frequently_ don’t pay off economically; and in fact something like 1/6 of the people with college degrees in America hold jobs that don’t require them (e.g. Janitor, Mailman, etc.). Of course, the sad thing is that nearly all government loans, aid and incentives at creating a more educated and prosperous citizenry are targeted at encouraging people to “go to college and get a degree.” They don’t generally lead to more Microbiology majors, and they don’t open up more spots at Harvard, or even Michigan: most “good” schools are seeking to be known as “selective” (or better yet “more selective” or “most selective”): IOW seeking to find ways to keep people _out_. So ever-increasing proportions of those societal investments and inducements to get people in " college" are going to bottom-rung schools and for-profits, where the Return On Investment is the lowest. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/91 "2012-05-06T19:54:47Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > If the enrollment was 49.5 mill in 2003, and 48.7 mill in 1970, I’d say it held pretty steady for 33 years, at least comparing the end of the era with the beginning. Those are the numbers for students in primary and secondary school. The enrollment _rates_ for those students is much higher now than it was in the 70’s. Back then, the rate hovered around 50%. Now it’s around 70%. There has also been a marked increase in the enrollment numbers of international students and students attending graduate school. So the number of students in college has almost certainly increased a lot over the years even if the population hasn’t. > [@jtgain](#): > > Okay, so double his classroom time. 24 hours per week. And give him 6 hours for meetings. 30 hours per week at a 6 figure salary. And again, this isn’t working on an oil rig. This is air-conditioned office work. First, people on oil rigs make good [money](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_money_does_an_oil_rig_worker_earn). Certainly more that most, and usually more than people who have jobs just as dangerous or undesirable. Second, even if you are right, you are ignoring all the time and expense a professor spends going to college, getting a PhD, working as a non-tenured professor, etc. All of which is uncompensated, or low-paid/undesirable work. So even if you think their hours are decent once they have completed all that, you are neglecting to consider that such a “cushy” job requires a lot of study, sacrifice, and determination to attain. And there is no guarantee you will attain it. > [@jtgain](#): > > Tell a guy making $30k per year how “hard” this professor’s job is because he has to have office hours.. I generally don’t see too many professors complaining, but even if they did, it should be weighed in context. Is their life as hard as ditch digger’s? Probably not, but a ditch digger’s life isn’t as hard as a guy combing through trash in Nigeria looking for scrap metal. At least the professor made the requisite sacrifices, and completed the training to allow for such a life. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/92 "2012-05-06T21:38:10Z")
How much would college cost if American universities were like German ones? (No sports teams, no campus centers, no museums, just a few nondescript, shabby buildings)? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/93 "2012-05-06T22:38:41Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > How much would college cost if American universities were like German ones? (No sports teams, no campus centers, no museums, just a few nondescript, shabby buildings)? College sports are a net income producer for American colleges, so tuition would be higher without sports. ---
**Author:** ![FE3O4ENAIL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba9def/32.png) [@FE3O4ENAIL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FE3O4ENAIL)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/94 "2012-05-06T22:58:06Z")
Could we run universities 24/7/365? Three shifts of students utilizing the resources non-stop. That has driven down costs in manufacturing. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/95 "2012-05-06T23:57:28Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > College sports are a net income producer for American colleges, so tuition would be higher without sports. Not for most schools, they aren’t. There are ~2000 colleges and universities in the country; only a tiny handful have self-supporting athletics departments, and AFAIK none actually give money back. A few dozen or so athletic _programs_ make money (i.e. Men’s football and basketball teams in the big conferences), but that money is eaten up by the money-losing volleyball, gymnastics, etc. > [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > Could we run universities 24/7/365? > Three shifts of students utilizing the resources non-stop. > That has driven down costs in manufacturing. Online classes greatly expand capacity, and help students with scheduling challenges. I doubt 4 am Melville seminars are the answer, but there is a push to expand the academic day: i.e. more 7 am and 4 pm classes. It came up recently in South Carolina when (IIRC, Clemson) wanted money to build new buildings; they were turned down in part because they weren’t fully using the ones that had. ---
**Author:** ![bennett.cynthia74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@bennett.cynthia74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bennett.cynthia74)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/96 "2012-05-07T12:29:29Z")
I opine that it’s an era of education being commercialized. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/97 "2012-05-07T14:24:09Z")
> [@bennett.cynthia74](#): > > I opine that it’s an era of education being commercialized. That’s because government can’t do anything right. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/98 "2012-05-07T19:42:00Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Not for most schools, they aren’t. There are ~2000 colleges and universities in the country; only a tiny handful have self-supporting athletics departments, and AFAIK none actually give money back. > > A few dozen or so athletic _programs_ make money (i.e. Men’s football and basketball teams in the big conferences), but that money is eaten up by the money-losing volleyball, gymnastics, etc. Don’t neglect the impact of sports on alumni donations. MIT and Harvard do fine without them, but a lot of schools would have their donation rate go way down unless they kept alumni connected with sports. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/99 "2012-05-07T19:44:35Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > How much would college cost if American universities were like German ones? (No sports teams, no campus centers, no museums, just a few nondescript, shabby buildings)? My daughter spent a year at Tubingen. I don’t know about sports, but the buildings were about the equivalent of a medium sized state university and there was at least one museum. No dorms, but that is getting to be true of state universities also which often have room for only freshmen and sometimes sophomores. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600/100 "2012-05-07T20:50:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Don’t neglect the impact of sports on alumni donations. MIT and Harvard do fine without them, but a lot of schools would have their donation rate go way down unless they kept alumni connected with sports. Cite? Sorry, but this is one of those things that “everyone knows” but that isn’t really borne out by the facts. Yes, athletic programs increase donations; they increase donations _to the athletic programs_. There may be handful of people who feel inspired enough by the football team to go out and give money to the General Scholarship Fund; but not enough to even out the price of equipment and transportation of the 10-20 unprofitable sports programs most colleges have. It’s perfectly valid to argue that athletics are worth funding because of their place as a community-spirit activity (though that invites the question of _how much_). But for 99.9% of schools, they are money losers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-college-gotten-so-damn-expensive/620600.md?page=4)