what do you think about the way college tuitions keep increasing out of control

[iopq]

Because it appears that colleges and universities have taken economic theory and applied it. Colleges are businesses selling to student consumers. The colleges are often making a good profit, which of course is used to build buildings, to hire assistant deans and other administrators, while hiring fewer full time professors and more adjuncts. I can't help but wonder if the consumers are getting their monies worth, or simply a degree along with debt.

[ProfMac]

I can't help but wonder if the consumers are getting their monies worth, or simply a degree along with debt.

That is a very good question.  There are existing numbers to answer it.

One process is as follows:

1.  Find the average income in the US of, say, a 30 year old white male with different levels of education, e.g., high school diploma and bachelor's degree.
2.  Find the prime lending rate, from public sources.
3.  Factor in the unemployment rate and the mortality rate, again from public sources.
4.  Assume that people retire at the standard retirement age.
5.  Find the income tax burden for each of the incomes.


From these numbers, you can estimate:

1.  How much additional income a college degree will yield.
2.  How much additional income tax revenue a college degree will yield.

[TaunSew]

Because it appears that colleges and universities have taken economic theory and applied it. Colleges are businesses selling to student consumers. The colleges are often making a good profit, which of course is used to build buildings, to hire assistant deans and other administrators, while hiring fewer full time professors and more adjuncts. I can't help but wonder if the consumers are getting their monies worth, or simply a degree along with debt.

There's some interesting statistics about adjuncts out there (a lot are being forced to do it for life and to juggle 3-7 courses).  If you have a PhD nowadays, you are almost better off becoming a high school teacher in most countries as they get a guaranteed middle class income and a pension.  Versus the Adjunct who gets paid per course, has no union nor pension.

[iopq]

I can't help but wonder if the consumers are getting their monies worth, or simply a degree along with debt.

That is a very good question.  There are existing numbers to answer it.

One process is as follows:

1.  Find the average income in the US of, say, a 30 year old white male with different levels of education, e.g., high school diploma and bachelor's degree.
2.  Find the prime lending rate, from public sources.
3.  Factor in the unemployment rate and the mortality rate, again from public sources.
4.  Assume that people retire at the standard retirement age.
5.  Find the income tax burden for each of the incomes.


From these numbers, you can estimate:

1.  How much additional income a college degree will yield.
2.  How much additional income tax revenue a college degree will yield.

This process is flawed. Someone who is a smart motivated individual is much more likely to finish college than someone who isn't. That doesn't mean that this individual who finished college couldn't have accomplished the same things if he had not gone to college.

A self-selected group that chooses not to go to college cannot act as a control to another self-selected group who chooses to go to college. To have a better comparison, you'd need to actually intervene and randomly select people who will go to college and have a control group that is not allowed to go to college.

For example, someone born with rich parents and doesn't have a high school diploma makes on average more money per year than someone who was born into a poor family, but finished college. This actually says that it's more important to have rich parents than to go to college.

[jaberwock]

They need to keep people debt-slave, then create dependent people that will be coward and think they NEED  the degree, and so on, so they will charge more.

More to pay = more time to pay = more dependency

Not a surprise

[boraf]

The salary on professors, dean and president are pretty much out of hand given the economic condition US in right now.

The money has to come from somewhere, and the easiest path is via tuition increase.

[TaunSew]

In ancient China they had a bureaucracy exam lasting days and would put toilets under the test takers so they could crap whilst simultaneously writing their examination.

That's what credentialism is becoming in the west, in a nutshell.  In 20 years you'll need a PhD just to work at McDonalds.
  

[freedomno1]

Tuition is very high for some reason or other and keeps increasing the load on students.
This leads to increasing debt and a possible financial bubble in the future so lowering costs and finding ways to increase their cost efficiency by getting students cheap but good content textbooks and not changing them so often seems to be the thing universities need to do or perhaps MOOC.