Stephen Downes on surging college costs

A loyal EMUTalk.org reader sent me the link to the CNNMoney story “Surging college costs price out middle class,” but I thought I would include also a link to Canadian educator/blogger Stephen Downes’ entry on the topic since he links to a few other items of note on the topic.

It is true that college costs are rising more sharply than they should.  However:

• There are obvious reasons for this sharp increase that seem to be largely ignored and/or shrugged at– that is, when Michigan (for example) decides it can’t afford to publicly subsidize higher education, then public institutions pass on the costs to students in the form of increased tuition and fees.  It is as simple as that.
• Professors– like most in the upper-middle class– are not on a whole making any more money now than they were 20 or more years ago.
• In an effort to attract students in a competitive marketplace, universities spend more and more on stuff like comfy dorms, cool student centers, nice workout/gym facilities, etc., etc., making some campuses like a sort of elaborate camp/resort.
• Athletics.  Need I say more?
• Administrative bloat/creep.  See previous point.
• And yet, students keep coming to school, both because the idea of carrying a bunch of student loan debt doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to most nowadays, and because the alternatives (e.g., going out into the working world without a college degree) are pretty grim.

Oh, and while I have no quantifiable evidence for this, it seems to me that a lot of EMU students are reasonably thrifty about costs.  Sure, many of our students take on too much debt for bad reasons (e.g., taking out student loans to support “a lifestyle” instead of paying for classes).  But I’ve also had lots of students who are not taking on student loan debt and supporting themselves through a combination of parental support (both money and living at home), jobs, and taking the “six to eight year” plan and spreading the costs out.  And I guess for me that raises an interesting hypothetical question: who is “better off” after graduating, the traditional U of Michigan 22 year old college graduate who went full-time and had a great “college life experience” (e.g., football games, dorms, frats, parties, etc.) and who has racked up $50-80K worth of student loan debt, or the traditional EMU 25-30 year old graduate with $20K of student loan debt and that much more “life” and “work” experience?