The first comment contains a kernel of truth, but it oversimplifies a much bigger story. The second comment is just an insult instead of an argument.
The original post is factually correct. In the late 1970s, tuition at public universities was low enough relative to wages that a summer minimum-wage job could often cover a year's tuition and fees. Today that's no longer true by a very large margin.
The interesting question is why.
"Government-guaranteed loans caused tuition inflation"
This is a common argument, sometimes called the "Bennett hypothesis" after former Education Secretary William J. Bennett.
Government makes more student loans available.
Students can borrow more.
Colleges know students can pay more.
Most economists think there is some truth to this, but not that it explains the entire increase.
Research generally finds federal aid can put upward pressure on tuition in some sectors—particularly private colleges and certain for-profit schools—but it doesn't explain decades of tuition growth by itself.
Other major reasons tuition rose
Several factors happened simultaneously:
States reduced per-student funding for public universities over many decades, especially after recessions. Schools increasingly replaced taxpayer funding with tuition revenue.
Administrative costs increased. Universities employ many more administrators than they did in the 1970s. Some are essential (IT, disability services, mental health, compliance, cybersecurity, research administration), while critics argue others reflect unnecessary bureaucratic expansion.
Universities provide far more services than they once did:
technology infrastructure
accessibility accommodations
extensive student support
Healthcare and employee benefit costs rose substantially.
Competition for students encouraged spending on buildings, amenities, and marketing.
Faculty costs aren't the main driver. In fact, many universities rely increasingly on adjunct instructors, whose pay is often relatively low.
"Teachers aren't making that much."
The image many people have is of highly paid tenured professors, but most undergraduate teaching today is done by lecturers and adjunct faculty, many of whom earn modest salaries.
So it's generally inaccurate to say tuition exploded because professors became vastly better paid.
Does capitalism explain it?
The sarcastic "BUT BUT CAPITALISM" misses that people blaming "capitalism" usually aren't claiming there's a single cause.
Critics often point to a mix of:
declining public investment,
administrative expansion,
and incentives that encourage universities to spend more.
Supporters of market-oriented explanations tend to emphasize:
lack of price competition,
and weak incentives for universities to control costs.
Both sides identify mechanisms that economists take seriously. The disagreement is mostly over which factors mattered most.
The first reply is partly right: expanding student loans likely contributed to tuition inflation in some circumstances, and administrative growth has been real.
But it's misleading to suggest that those two factors alone explain why a student in 1978 could pay for a year's tuition with a summer minimum-wage job while that is largely impossible today. The evidence points to multiple interacting causes, including reduced state funding for public universities, rising operating costs, expanded university services, administrative growth, and the structure of federal financial aid. The dramatic increase in tuition is best understood as the result of all of these trends rather than a single policy decision.
kianamaiart
gummygunk
izzy806
theartofmadeline
stormborns
areudirty
kaledo-art
