Rising Cost of Education

The NYTimes wrote a nice article here on the increasing cost of higher education in America. There is a rather startling graph here that I wanted to share.  I think that a key way to look at this is relative % change from ‘82-‘84 to ‘07 specifically with respect to class. Tuition increased twice as fast as health care, and FOUR times as fast as median income. Furthermore, for a four year public institute (so for a BA/BS at a relatively cost effective university) has changed by 16%, 10%, 7%, 4%, and 2% for the Lowest to Highest income categories respectively. This clearly means that the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. There are many signs pointing to this. The thing that keeps surprising me is that rich people still haven’t learned that the backs of the poor are their foundation. The rich won’t be able to reach those delicious money fruits if the backs of the poor break due to their own unbearable weight.

I’ll end with a quote from the article, “Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent of the median family income.”