What does college really cost?

An article published by Inside Higher Ed today does a nice job of illustrating how illusory college costs are.  They make buying a car look like a very simple transaction.

For example, a private university may have a very high tuition price tag.  But following on the automotive metaphor, the price tag most likely does not reflect the true cost to the vast majority of attending students.  Discount rates today frequently average 50 % or more.  When the actual cost is revealed, savvy students and parents find that they are paying little more than the local state school charges, but may be getting smaller class size, greater exposure to full-time faculty, and better support services than the public rival can offer.

Pre-2008, when home equity was a vast and expansive bubble, parents regularly borrowed against their home values to send their kids to the colleges of their choice.  That bubble burst with a pop heard round the world, as we all ruefully recall.  Since then, some potential students have chosen to enter the  trades or the military in lieu of college.  Among the millions who still attend every year, a number of trends are discernible:

1.  The market has forced colleges to accede to all sorts of mix-and-match methods of getting to a BA or BS degree:  two years of community college; MOOCs and other online offerings; credit for life experiences; AP credits during high school... and more.

2.  Parents and students have become savvy shoppers.  With the common app online making it easy, students are applying to large numbers of schools.  Back in 1965 I applied to two.  My son in 2002 applied to four or five.  Today, 8-10 is more the norm.

3.  Parents will put down deposits at multiple schools following favorable admissions decisions for their  sons and daughters.   Then the negotiations begin.

4.  And negotiations don't end at the college gate.  Once students are on campus, they and their helicopter (velcro?) parents make sure that the institution delivers on all its promises.

5.  And it doesn't even end there.  Some alumni have taken to suing their alma maters when the jobs don't materialize.  One such law school grad last spring lost her case against the Thomas Jefferson Law School in a 9-3 jury verdict.

Yes, the pipe-smoking, tweedy world of "It Happens Every Spring" , and the happy-go-lucky life of the "Animal House"  have given way in the new century to a dog-eat-dog competitive environment in which the higher education "industry" will see the weak competitors fall by the wayside.

In this Brave New World of online-learning, sexual-assault adjudications, class actions by athletes who want to paid as employees, presidents who want to be rewarded like for-profit CEOs, a Department of Education that wants to crush the accrediting agencies... in this Brave New World, below the top tier (where Harvard andYale and Princeton still reign), cost is indeed King.