Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[haltz]

You guys went to Penn and Rice, right? Aren't those degrees pretty much worth whatever amount of money? It's six figures for that third tier comm degree that's the issue for most people I think.

[ghostrunner]

College is awful. Even textbook prices are awful. I give serious thought to textbook choice because of those prices.

It's nice to hear professors do that. Most of my Meteorology professors used text books they had written and they also were around $150 each. By my second year I had made friends and three of us shared one text book for every Met, Math, and Physics class through the rest of college. Saved a freaking fortune.

I'd have thought by now this would have been solved by semi-black market internet commerce, like eBay or Craigslist. Are they prohibited from selling those books somehow? eBay I could see restrictions being in place, but Craigslist would seem to be safe.

[slide_into_first]

My wife wanted a large stainless steel mixing bowl so I bought one at Target for $14. It had a label glued to the bottom and I could not scrub the glue off or get it off with any solvent, so I returned it. I went to Kohl's, which only had a set of three for $45. I had a 15% off coupon so thought what the hell. When I checked out it was on half off sale (there was no sign) so it was $20 with discount and tax. I looked up online prices which ranged as high as $65 for the set of three and as low as $8 for one large bowl.

[sighyoung]

You guys went to Penn and Rice, right? Aren't those degrees pretty much worth whatever amount of money? It's six figures for that third tier comm degree that's the issue for most people I think.

Washington University for a B.A. in Economics, and Penn for grad school in English. I received really generous aid to attend Wash. U., lived at home, and also had two brothers attending at the same time, so I didn't get hit too hard. Tuition is covered in grad school for Ph.D. programs, typically, with a small stipend for teaching and grading (higher if you're in the sciences).

But costs have shot up everywhere. I think I attended SLUH for $1400 my final year in the early 80's. Isn't it $14,000 or $15,000 before aid now?

[IMADreamer]

College is awful. Even textbook prices are awful. I give serious thought to textbook choice because of those prices.

It's nice to hear professors do that. Most of my Meteorology professors used text books they had written and they also were around $150 each. By my second year I had made friends and three of us shared one text book for every Met, Math, and Physics class through the rest of college. Saved a freaking fortune.

I'd have thought by now this would have been solved by semi-black market internet commerce, like eBay or Craigslist. Are they prohibited from selling those books somehow? eBay I could see restrictions being in place, but Craigslist would seem to be safe.

Maybe a lot of that goes on today. I wish those things were around when I was doing college.

A lot of books you can probably sell for more on those sites and still give the buyer a good deal over buying at the college. One time I went to sell back my Calc III book and they were going to give me $3 for the $150 book. I tore it up right in front of the book store lady and threw it in the trash can. I probably said some choice four letter words too. I got a round of applause by everyone in line.

[sighyoung]

I'd have thought by now this would have been solved by semi-black market internet commerce, like eBay or Craigslist. Are they prohibited from selling those books somehow? eBay I could see restrictions being in place, but Craigslist would seem to be safe.

Somewhat, but it also partly creates havoc. Some students look online, plus competing brick bookstores offer used copies and rental copies. Libraries don't typically carry textbooks, though. For literature courses, sometimes my students won't pick up the books, which means that they may get bad editions, not read, or not read useful background information.

[pioneer98]

Some food for thought: is housing really an investment?
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... great.aspx

From 1890 -- just three decades after the Civil War -- through 2012, home prices adjusted for inflation literally went nowhere. Not a single dime of real growth. For comparison, the S&P 500 increased more than 2,000-fold during that period, adjusted for inflation. And from 1890 to through 1980, real home prices actually declined by about 10%.

Home prices since 1890 adjusted for inflation have been remarkably flat:

A home is typically the asset people hold the longest. They sell stocks after a few months, but keep a home for years, or decades. When you own something for that long, the returns you think you earned can be overwhelmingly due to inflation. The Consumer Price Index has increased six-fold since 1970. If you bought a house for $30,000 in 1970 and it's worth $180,000 today, you've earned nothing after inflation. You think you've made a fortune, but you haven't gone anywhere. Add in property taxes, insurance and repairs, and you're down.

[lukethedrifter]

Back to the cost of college/education. Where is that money going? Like sigh said, it's not going to instructors. More and more of them are non tenure track positions, paying a pretty low wage with little in the way of benefits. Is it some sort of con game? I don't get it.
Similar to hz's story about Rice- which I probably should have seriously considered - WashU Med school had a similar dilemma. Applications were going down because it was priced significantly lower than other elite private Med Schools, so they solved that problem by increasing tuition by a ton. Applications went back up.
Some of this nonsense we do to ourselves.

[planet planet]

Back to the cost of college/education. Where is that money going? Like sigh said, it's not going to instructors. More and more of them are non tenure track positions, paying a pretty low wage with little in the way of benefits. Is it some sort of con game? I don't get it.
Similar to hz's story about Rice- which I probably should have seriously considered - WashU Med school had a similar dilemma. Applications were going down because it was priced significantly lower than other elite private Med Schools, so they solved that problem by increasing tuition by a ton. Applications went back up.
Some of this nonsense we do to ourselves.

Exactly. If I were a student choosing a college today, I'd go straight to the best values for US universities reports to help me make my decision.

[pioneer98]

Back to the cost of college/education. Where is that money going? Like sigh said, it's not going to instructors. More and more of them are non tenure track positions, paying a pretty low wage with little in the way of benefits. Is it some sort of con game? I don't get it.
Similar to hz's story about Rice- which I probably should have seriously considered - WashU Med school had a similar dilemma. Applications were going down because it was priced significantly lower than other elite private Med Schools, so they solved that problem by increasing tuition by a ton. Applications went back up.
Some of this nonsense we do to ourselves.

I think some of it is going to top level administrators, and I also think it is going to new buildings and programs at the university. At a lot of colleges the sports teams pretty much all lose money and need to be supported by tuition. And just like you said - the colleges actually look more prestigious if they charge more. Then they take all that money and build a bunch of giant new buildings, offer new programs, offer amazing amenities, etc. They are always offering new programs but rarely do they ever cut or scale back old ones.