For the record, I’m not American nor live in the US, but I have a 19-year-old son who started attending the University of Chicago this year, studying economics. Just the tuition itself is $70k. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford it - I still believe it’s an outrageous amount of money to attend college.
Because Reagan defunded public secondary education. And then instead of fixing that in the late 90s/early 00s, they made school loans non expungable and federally guaranteed, so schools didn’t need to keep their prices low and competitive anymore.
It always goes back to Reagan…
This is the real answer I was looking for in the comments.
Edit: it always goes back to Reagan.
Why did unions lose their power? Reagan threatened striking ATC workers with firing if they didn’t return to work immediately. Suddenly striking workers could be fired.
Why did weed become a life sentence drug? Reagan.
Who demonized the poor on welfare, calling them welfare queens? Who is Ronald Reagan, Alex?
Deregulated Wall street, banking and commerce sector, too.
If there’s a glaring problem with the USA, there’s a very good chance it dates back to RR.
BTW Nancy & The Astrologer is a great name for a band
Jesus Christ, so many people don’t know the real history of what happened while this is the real answer.
To add on to Ronald “Fucking” Reagan defunding universities, he did it because as governor of California he absolutely hated the anti-Vietnam War protests happening on University of California campuses and thought a good way to limit attendance of ‘rabble rousing’ (re: poor) students was to take away their funding. Conservatives nationwide saw this and thought ‘that’s great, we should do that, too.’ and they did.
Thanks Ronnie. You’re the unwanted microwaved dog shit that ruined America 40 years and your stink is still smelled in full force to this day. I didn’t believe in hell, but I hope they made a special one just for you.
The government also ramped up the interest rates on student loans while universities increased the price faster than inflation, I paid around 3-4% in 2008, the lowest was around 2.7% in 2020, currently they are close to 7%. The whole thing should be covered by state and federal taxes we’re already paying to subsidize them, but it just keeps getting worse to squeeze every drop of blood from people who weren’t born with a trust fund.
Yep, this needs to be higher. Since student loans are guaranteed and pushed on all students, universities have been spending oodles of fucking money to justify higher tuition costs, which justifies bigger loans that can never be discharged. The banks win, the schools win, the student lose both academically and financially.
Public universities could actually have stricter requirements on who could go to college, because if it’s already funded by taxes, you don’t want to be throwing money away on students who will fail out of the degree path they’re trying to pursue.
Finally, two words: “Legacy Admissions”
While true overall, University of Chicago is an elite private school with a hedge fund sized endowment with vast majority of students coming from families who pay 70k with two checks two weeks before each semester starts.
This how they stay elite.
secondary --> tertiary?
Sure, I guess post-secondary is the term usually used
I just wasn’t sure if reagan did anything with HS budgets and how that connected with college prices. That guy was such a cancer on the country. Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors altogether