I’m Romanian, I’ve just finished high school, I’m currently taking the Bacalaureat, and I’ve already been admitted to an American university (USC). I knew from the start that I wanted to study abroad, and I’ve always been fascinated by California, especially Los Angeles, so the U.S. was my first choice. That said, I also looked into universities in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, and Ireland, and their tuition fees are significantly lower.
Basically the government guaranteed loans to college kids, saying you can’t be denied a loan. The idea was to allow anyone the means to better themselves through an education.
Then colleges realized they could raise prices to whatever they wanted and the loans would get approved. Remember you can’t deny someone a loan for college anymore, they don’t check if the prices are “reasonable”.
I’m sure there’s more nuance and other factors to it.
State governments realized they could reduce their funding towards universities (or keep it fixed while it devalues due to inflation) and push the cost onto students. Administration has also exploded in numbers. Many get paid much more than faculty. Universities have also expanded services and features to make students want to come. Universities can’t raise prices higher than students are willing to pay. Note students are also not guaranteed to get federal loans plus there are limits. Private loans aren’t guaranteed either but have a variety of programs.
Many get paid much more than faculty.
Universities are "adjunctifying many positions and adjunct professors are not paid well. Some faculty are homeless.
The guarantees for student loans actually go the other way - the guarantee is for the lender. Given the amounts people generally need for an education, along with a complete lack of income, students wouldn’t be able to get a loan of sufficient size without government stepping in as a backstop.
Not just that but allowed entire industries to cash in on these loans. See: text book prices
Textbooks have more features than they used to, like online homework and the like. The online component makes it easier for companies to push new versions. Professors are overworked, and intro classes, where book prices/versions rule the most, are massive. The dept probably doesn’t have funds for a full TA so grading becomes a massive undertaking. It isn’t possible in many cases to manage lecture halls without the features from the textbook publisher. So what is a young faculty member likely to do? Pick a text from a major publisher. Generally speaking, faculty aren’t out to get you, they are trying to teach you.
A great many reasons, but one that gets overlooked is the influence of an Austrian economist who firmly believed university should be out of the reach of the poor, a philosophy which many, particularly Republicans, seem to have swallowed whole.
By 1968, he was criticizing desegregation efforts in The Wall Street Journal, saying that there was no evidence that desegregation leads to better educational outcomes, arguing instead that student achievement comes down to “genetic factors and environmental influences”
Real piece of work
Seiter describes Freeman’s work as an American phenomenon, writing “from a European perspective, many of [Freeman’s] conclusions are open to criticism.”
Everyone else thought he was nuts
Why is american [insert anything here] so much more expensive than in other countries
Unrestricted capitalism
Specifically the need of capitalists to have workers.
The oft repeatedly lie is the tragedy of the commons, literally a fable made up by aristocrats to justify closing the commons to force people to go work in factories.
The huge levels of debt are part of the system to keep Americans working, if you don’t got to college you need to work non-stop to get healthcare, if you do go to college you can get a stable job but you need to pay off that debt.
It’s a system to keep the wealthy wealthy and the rest of us busy until we are too old to do anything about it.
It’s a true shocker that a greed based economy favors the ultra greedy
Psychopaths going unchecked.
This is an important distinction to contrast the answer you’re responding to. In fact it’s not “unrestricted capitalism”. It’s very restricted for the private consumer. So many laws, rules, and regulations working against us lowly proles we can’t use our superior numbers to truly drive a competitive market.
America is a grift that exists to fuck as much money out of you as possible.
because they aren’t paid for by public taxes. even public unis only make about 20% of money from the government.
they make most of their money from tuition and fees, followed by donations.
Additionally, the ‘fix’ for education being too expensive was to make it so anyone could get government-backed loans for tuition. This has led to schools being able to spike tuition since to an 18-year-old there’s no difference between a $20k loan and an $80k loan.
Hey. Pick a different school. The US is a hellscape and is extremely violent at the state level towards people not born here as well as people they suspect were not born here. There is nothing for anyone here. Unless your parents are fabulously wealthy. If that’s the case, come to the US and do whatever you want! You will never face consequences.
Despite the USA being somewhat of a political pariah at the moment, it has long been the case that American universities are desirable from an educational perspective and for “clout”. Not to say that TU Delft or anywhere else doesn’t have name recognition, but being a fully English instruction on a continent with few neighbors, it is a very “exotic” destination to go study at.
With Hollywood and media hyping up the American collegiate experience (eg red Solo cups, fraternity/sorority life, binge drinking, road tripping for spring break, etc), even some non-research public college systems like the California State University (CSU) system will receive international students, while the research-focused University of California (UC) systems remains in the top tier of public American universities, making it extra exclusive, akin to the East Coast’s Ivy League schools.
From the university’s perspective, they have a commodity they can market to an international audience, so why not charge more? As for why these colleges are behaving like capitalists – especially the public universities – it is because of chronic state underfunding: the USA federal government does not pitch in very much to the universities, except as research grants. And when push comes to shove, state legislators will cut university funding, meaning more has to be paid for by students. Some states even slash school funding and then try to replace it with state lottery proceeds, which means schools are only well-funded when there’s a gambling epidemic…
Now in your case, it should be noted that the University of Southern California (USC) is a private university, that regularly jostles with UCLA (a UC campus) for the highest ranking as a college in southern California. Accordingly, they are priced similarly for international students but not for domestic students: the UC system first-and-foremost must serve its constituent citizens, so to keep tuition low for in-state students, they will raise the price of out-of-state or international students. USC and other private colleges would follow suit, because free extra money.
We haven’t privatized the public universities in the USA, but they’re almost operating as though they already have been, charging as much as the market can bear.
Great and informative summary. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet.
At one point college was reasonably priced. It wasn’t cheap, but aside from the most prestigious schools, you could work a part time job while attending college and pay for your classes. I don’t know the specifics of how and when, but at some point the government decided that college was VERY important for young adults, so they started a program that would guarantee funds and loans to help the poor kids pay for college.
Sounds like a great idea on paper, but the colleges soon realized that potential students were no longer choosing schools based on affordability because they could easily get loans to go to any school they wanted.
Remember, these are teenagers we’re talking about. They are a demographic that isn’t known for making prudent decisions.
So they started registering for schools with bigger campuses, modern facilities and better dining options.
The schools all needed to set themselves apart from the others and focused a LOT of resources into their First Impressions, meaning if they couldn’t wow a student at their first visit to campus, they could kiss that tuition goodbye.
Constantly improving your campus isn’t cheap, and neither are admissions events. They need to raise prices to cover those costs, and now a college education costs 20-30 TIMES as much as it did 50 years ago.
Universities got more expensive as state support generally declined. Features expanded as you said to draw students as universities had to compete more to get students. Plus you have these lists that rank each university. That drives students to demand more and requires more funds from universities to compete over listing items.
There’s a big crunch on higher ed right now. We’re hitting a population plateau and there aren’t going to be enough students to use most of these upgraded facilities.
Texas, and probably other states, are openly attacking and censoring higher education as well. The provost for a place I was at carried around spreadsheets of costs since overall the university was always losing money. They are in for a tough time if populations get smaller as you say.
The government wanted more people to go to college, so they offered loans to anyone who wanted to use them to go to college.
Colleges realized loans were getting approved no matter what, so they raised prices because why not.
About 20 rich kids took out loans to attend Harvard Business School, then filed bankruptcy to avoid paying back the loans and because their families are so rich they don’t need to borrow money, so 7 years later, bankruptcy rolls of your record and you have a “free” education.
The government looked at that and decided they didn’t want anyone else doing it, so they passed a law that says student loans can’t be discharged if you file bankruptcy.
So, skyrocketing tuition costs, leads to skyricketing debt, combined with no way to escape the loans, and that’s how we have a “student loan crisis.”
Because the US has Freedom! and other countries have plain old actual freedom.
Havent seen it yet so ill add it to the list: Sports programs. The highest paid government employee for like a decade was Nick Saban the college football coach for Univerity of Alabama. The NCAA schools pay fuckin billions for their coaches and athletics department and its all part of that great college experience you are paying for to get your $40k/year salary degree field diploma.
Sports programs that can afford expensive coaches don’t cost the university money. Big football programs pay for themselves and fund a wide variety of other sports, which don’t make money, at the university.
Out of the countries you listed, the US would be my last choice personally. You’ll likely have a great time and learn great things wherever you choose.
Corruption and greed, same as everything else
That’s not really an answer.
You’re not really an answer
Your mom’s not really an answer.
My mom is a great answer, I’ll have you know.
Capitalisim
Societal preferences combined with a fairly unrestricted market.
In the US, people don’t go to college in order to increase their knowledge. They go to be able to pursue theoretical higher paid jobs.
Going to school/college in the US isn’t to increase societal knowledge, its for selfish personal gains and as such only really shared by the person going.
This combined with very few restrictions on what colleges can charge means that the excuse of “well it’s for your own personal development” can be used as a way to sidestep the inexcusable pricing.
in many countries, the post-education sector is either subsidized or cheaper cost due to society having a higher value on the actual education aspects of it and the want of the general members to be more knowledgeable, that value isn’t as strong in the US, and depending on what state you are in may actually be against the members interests as a whole.
