re: Higher education bubble is bursting ...

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My first semester was $988 with 7 day board.

Books were another ~$150.

Tuition was $4 per credit hour.

Those were the days....

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For much of the mid-20th century, from the 1940s through the 1970s, students and families shouldered a relatively small share of college costs. The student share of education revenue stayed low during these decades, typically in the single digits early on and only gradually climbing toward 15–20% by the late 1970s.

Part of the reason was that many Southern states kept tuition unusually low for in-state students for a long time, effectively subsidizing public higher education more generously than other regions. As a result, average out-of-pocket costs remained modest. Public four-year tuition and fees often ran well under a few hundred dollars a year in the 1940s and 1950s. Even by the mid-1960s, the national average for public four-year institutions was only around $243, rising to roughly $394 by 1970–71 and $542 by 1975–76. For many veterans, the GI Bill covered tuition and provided a living stipend, meaning actual cash paid out of pocket was often very low or nonexistent.

Things began to shift in the 1980s. The student share of costs started rising more noticeably, moving from 20.9% in 1980 into the 21–28% range by the end of the decade. Average out-of-pocket expenses at public four-year colleges climbed into the $1,000–2,500 range (in nominal dollars). This upward trend continued through the 1990s as the student share reached 28–35%, with typical out-of-pocket costs landing between $2,000 and $4,500. Real state support wasn’t keeping pace with rising costs, so more of the burden gradually shifted to students and families.

The pace of change accelerated in the 2000s and especially the 2010s. By 2008, the student share had reached 35.8%, and it peaked at 47.5% in 2013 in the wake of the Great Recession, when many states cut funding.

During this period, average out-of-pocket costs at public four-year institutions rose sharply — often landing between $4,000 and $8,000 in the 2000s and climbing to $8,000–13,000 in the 2010s. More recently, in the 2020s, the student share has eased back somewhat, falling to 38.4% by 2025 as states restored some funding. Even so, nominal out-of-pocket costs remain high, typically in the $10,000–15,000+ range for public four-year colleges.

Overall, while the student share of costs has roughly doubled or tripled since the 1940s, the actual dollar amounts families pay have grown dramatically over the decades.

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There’s some for some for those, but you can’t boil education down to purely economic demand.

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The percentage that the state and federal governments fund colleges and universities is majorly overestimated by the average person.

Every time I hear the “my tax dollars “ talking point I smile knowing that the abandonment of university and college funding by the state and federal government drove a lot of this.

As an an example, most large enrollment schools receive so little proportional direct funding that they technically qualify as private institutions according to federal designations. That means that what was used to be paid for by the state has to instead be generated in revenues. Unfortunately, it is getting worse not better.

If you cut education funding k-12 and people will scream bloody murder. If you cut university funding and people will parade around the endowment numbers of the top 50 universities and neglect to mention the other 1700 that are running on a shoestring budget now.

Right now, the “student share” ie what isn’t funded elsewhere is approximately 40% in 2025. In 1980 it was 21%, in 1950 it was closer to 8-12%. Pre-WW2 it was closer to 5%.

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There’s some for some for those, but you can’t boil education down to purely economic demand.

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Honestly, for what college is today, it would probably be 10x cheaper to do a combination of self-study, paid (or even unpaid) internships, and maybe pay for some tutor & networking services to round it out.

No need for dorms, meal plans, bullshite fees, tuition that pays for pretentious tenured professors etc.

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College is still affordable. It's the college lifestyle that is not, along with out-of-state or private school tuition.

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If you notice, the preK-12 population hasn't decreased over that time.

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