The cost of a college degree has skyrocketed in recent decades, rising 439% since 1982 (below, left) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics as reported by CNN Money in Is College Still Worth The Price?
For more than two decades, colleges and universities across the country have been jacking up tuition at a faster rate than costs have risen on any other major product or service - four times faster than the overall inflation rate and faster even than increases in the price of gasoline or health care (see the chart to the right). The result: After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439% since 1982.
It is not an accident that I date the Empire's decline to the early 1980s. Even as the cost of college soars, it remains true that there are considerable advantages in having a degree in terms of earnings (above, right). If we look at the BLS unemployment numbers, Table A-4 indicates that in December, 2010, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate for those with a Bachelors degree or higher was only 4.8%. Clearly, there is significant advantage in having a degree if you want a job—any job, good paying or not.
All this leads to the exceedingly happy situation we have today, to wit—
- To get a job, any job, your chances improve significantly with a college degree
- The cost of a college degree has risen 439% in the last 28 years
- Obtaining a degree is far beyond the means of most young people
- To get a degree, and thus have any hope of getting a job, the large majority of young people must become debt slaves (see my post Student Loans — Gateway To Debt Slavery)
These are the choices for most young people—skip college or become a debt slave. This is the college degree scam. Do you remember the last time Ben Bernanke was interviewed on 60 Minutes? I quoted part of this interview in my post The Bernanke Interview — A Tale Of Two Societies.
Pelley — The gap between rich and poor in this country has never been greater. In fact, we have the biggest income disparity gap of any industrialized country in the world. And I wonder where you think that’s taking America.
Bernanke — Well, it’s a very bad development. It’s creating two societies. And it’s based very much, I think, on– on educational differences The unemployment rate we’ve been talking about. If you’re a college graduate, unemployment is five percent. If you’re a high school graduate, it’s ten percent or more. It’s a very big difference. It leads to an unequal society and a society– which doesn’t have the cohesion that– that we’d like to see.
The Bernank failed to mention that college tuition has risen 439% since 1982. He failed to mention that to get that degree which may lead to a job, the average American must put himself in hock to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. And so on.
But then there is alternative #2—skip college. The exorbitant cost of a college degree, including the dubious educational benefits of having it which I described in An Epidemic Of Ignorance, has engendered talk about the benefits of not going to college (see the video below). In fact, that's the main point of the CNN Money article I quoted at the top.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop here, leaving you with these thoughts: only a society that is far beyond the pale would need to debate the merits of higher learning because of its exorbitant price tag. Only a society in a hopeless downhill slide would put a college education beyond the reach of most of its young people.
We live in a society that eats its own young. How sick is that?
Bonus Video
It's a sad state of affairs when the average family or student cannot afford to be educated, but then like Paul Simon sang in a song "when I think back on all the crap I learned in High School. It's a wonder I can think at all." If it weren't for all those college educated geniuses on Wall Street we wouldn't be in this mess.
Posted by: Jennifer | 01/24/2011 at 10:49 AM