The Real Reason Why College Costs So Much 

That fact that I say I came out of school with "*only* $25 thousand dollars of debt" is disturbing.

“Hi Im Sana and Im still in debt” IS LITERALLY THE BEST SENTENCE IN THIS VIDEO

I avoided student debt by attending a community college for my first 2 years which in CA was basically free (back in the day) while living in my camper van and parking at night at a park 'n ride or on the street. No health insurance, of course. I transferred to U.C. Davis and continued my low cost lifestyle living in my van. Not a great college experience, but I earned an engineering degree in 4 years for under $25,000. which I had in savings so I was debt free at graduation.

There's should be no shame with going to a Community college. Community Colleges are amazing. Alot of them also have trade programs, help connect students to get internships, friendly counselors can help find nearby temporary housing, have food pantries for lower income students, and the advisors are well connected to alot of nearby state universities

I think college should be affordable for everyone.

That last part where she said “ raise your hand if you wanna get a masters but have to go I to more debt bcuz of it” like OMGGG ME TOOO GIRLL. I wish I so assertive as you 😩😭😭😭 you got it tho 🙏

Why would anyone even want a second masters degree?

Lol I dodged a bullet 😊🙈 graduated from an Ivy with zero debt What do you expect from a country that doesn’t believe healthcare is a human right 😂😂😂😂

I am smart but I could be smarter, but I refused to be a part of the college cliche. Student loan debt.

The real reason why college isn't free is because it compete with military enlistment.

My Med school costs me 82$ a year here in India 😂😂

There has been a long campaign against blue collar work and vocational education. There are millions of jobs available but the idea of blue collar work to Americans is not attractive. The idea of success is so singular that opportunities in other fields of work are left unexplored. I regret not taking advantage of PAID apprenticeships in high school. I could have had a healthy income after graduating high school and a debt free education.

Or you could just go to a community college the Community College next to me cost $3,600 a year

The real reason why colleges have not gotten rid of the tuition system: it keeps the poor and lower middle class out of a chance for a degree, which makes the job market LESS competitive and predominantly middle class and upper class white students.

Thank you for this helpful video.

Not here in belgium

Thousands of dollars are added onto the cost of annual tuition by hiring admins that don't really add any value to a university education or don't justify the extra thousands of dollars per year increase.

Personally, I would rather see universities being subsidized to require far more affordable tuitions. If a student can pay their own way into college with summer jobs and part time jobs during the school year, then that would be a more viable option. I would rather see a student with skin in the game by working at the university library or cafeteria, than being fully subsidized and not caring whether they pass or not.

Aid was invented to help low income people get into college, but this in turn meant that there was another revenue stream available for colleges, so they increased prices to capture this money, resulting in overall higher prices than before. Then banks stepped in to profit from these elevated prices by helping people with the remaining personal payments, which elevated them more as yet another revenue source was added. If you look at the actual immediate out of pocket cost of college it has gone down, but the total cost is way up, because that is the way for everyone involved to get as much money per student as possible. That's "free market capitalism": prices converge to the maximum PROFIT for the service, not the best price for the consumer. Almost no one will charge less than they possibility can for something, and many who do run into trouble as there is a legal requirement to make the most money possible in most cases. The law not only does not take into account public or consumer good, it actively forbids considering it on pain of legal penalty. It's the capacity paradox: if you make more of something to try to ease a burden, more of that burden will appear. As with roads, if you make more to try to decrees traffic congestion, you increase traffic on these roads and don't end up lowering overall congestion. If you provide more ways to acquire money to make something more affordable, fees will increase to capture as much of the extra money available as possible. Subsides cannot control inflation, as prices will always increase to absorb the subsidies.

Kinda why I stopped at associates, the cost and opportunity don't pay off for bachelor's and beyond for me. I'd be more interested in trade skills or OJT.

[cries in sympathy and free college tuition in my country]

You need to to do better research. The cost of college was close to inflation until about 1992. What happened in 1992 that caused the price of college to begin to skyrocket??? The Higher Education Act of 1992 which created FAFSA was enacted. This basically guaranteed that ANYONE could get a college loan and, of course, colleges realized right away what that meant to them. It meant that they could charge whatever the hell they wanted and the govt would hand out the money to pay for it. There was absolutely no risk to the universities and they could even lower their standards for admission and make a fortune. The government pretty much screws up everything they put their hands on, education, health care, you name it.

Fantastic video! Also I think (like what with you said) that if we try to fix one thing, well, there are a conglomerate of other problems that come along with it. If we try to fix tuition prices, we have to fix the dollars value, and that means we have to get rid of our central bank (The Federal Reserve). The FED print US money (unconstitutionally btw) and causes rampant inflation. It's a serious problem. I wonder what it takes to fix all of this?

Great video

Watching this video after paying $8k to learn from home lol

Getting ready to go for my Masters degree soon. I fought against it for years but finally I'm giving in because social work pays really poorly-- but I do believe in it and the only way to advance is to shell out the cash right now.

A highly educated public is more difficult to be hoodwinked. The politicians don't want a highly educate population thus they care more about pushing higher education further and further out of reach for as many people as they can.

Welcome to America y'all, land of stack inequality.

Either going to community college or technical school is a safer route save money but mostly TIME

The set-up of the system prevents social mobility, which seems like the idea. Let's not forget that with automation, our society will need massive retraining of workers to offset cataclysmic job loss. Expect that within 20 years a massive amount of wealth and jobs will flow to countries that make education more accessible.

My only problem with no tuition is that universities will have to raise entrance standards to avoid becoming early adult daycare. Raised standards will result in students from more affluent parents or schools will be able to pass entrance exams because they'll be the only ones getting the tutoring to pass the exams.

How do you have student debt, your Canadian. Im pretty sure Canada have a government backed tuition.

I love AJ

I avoided debt by dropping out of high school,and going to work.A college degree is just a piece of paper

My takeaway: It was never intended for you!

You can also look at the bennett hypothesis, where they stated that college tuition will raise if more financial aid is given out. It was hypothesized in 1987 with no much proof to support it at the time, and now almost 30 years later has enough proof to show that the theory is correct. Colleges should be rebuilt from the ground up, where by capping the amount someone has to spend to go, colleges would be forced to reconsider expenses that they don’t deem necessary and focus on what’s important. My theory is that by capping the amount a college can charge someone, and have that cap be a lot lower than where it is at today, this makes it more accessible to more people.

Sam Houston State University raised tuition by $100

Tulsi Gabbard not Bernie Sanders was the one who wanted to take on this inflation and hold this sector accountable

I’m fine with 1 master’s degree- working on CPA for now. 🤞

I think you should never graduate from high school,then there will be no college🤣🤣

I paid 20k to learn how to use excel.....

Colleges another part of our society need to be turned inside to much about money it shouldn't be everyone needs access this need to be changed or be canceled...

I’m Danish and we have tuition-free colleges and universities. Of course we do, I’m tempted to say. Let me tell you it is great and the US would benefit from it. One thing I have noticed in the American debate over ‘free college’ is that the opponents seem to think that it means that everyone must go to college. Make sure you don’t let the debate derail. And while you are at it, implement socialized health care. Maybe, one day, you can be as happy as we are!

2:59 you just explained why it's expensive

That was a good suggestion to shave tens of thousands off accrued student debt by attending a community college first. Most can save at least 20,000 doing just that.

My biggest thing is that as capitalist society if you’re not willing to lower the price you should start teaching students the early age Like middle school or high school go for The schools with the lowest prices in the most scholarships but we don’t teach that we teach kids go to this big old school with all these degrees and just sounds messed up we need to teach kids get degrees that going to get you paid like accounting business not history I’m not trying to say that The arts Are not important but we have to teach kids that most people cannot pay $30,000 a year it’s impossible I feel like this whole system was bound to feel like a pyramid upside down it’s too heavy to support itself. And I feel as though we should teach kids to go to two-year colleges the affordable and that in general it’s nearly impossible to make ends meet without a college degree or some type of higher learning or trade so I feel as though the government should at least make Two years schools affordable or free And start teaching kids about financial aid and going to the school who gives you the most amount of financial aid and in my personal opinion uninformed younger population to make big changes I’m not sharing this will be perfect but I feel as though your kids New and grass down the standing of student debt they would be more Willing to go to affordable colleges and less willing to go to expensive colleges that they cannot afford and I feel as though overall it should start changing how colleges recruit students

Are you still in debt?

prices are driven by demand and supply. Kids are been feed up that education is the key at an early age this affects their brains that going to college is a need which colleges see this an opportunity to profit that how the economy works.

Most of tuition goes to non teaching staff?????

That's why I joined the military. Free college.

That’s one of the reasons why I did not continue my education I left after my bachelors

Modern College prices should be illegal. Minus a few select programs like Medical or Engineering that require hands on instruction; the rest of the courses can be learned from trade schools, job programs, You Tube, Khan academy, Udemy, etc . 🤔

Anything about ENDOWMENTS, The hedge funds a college builds, they use 2% to pay for poor students tuition and the rest is for rich parents to park money. Could you get into detail on that? How does HARVARD use their hedge fund compared to a small school. Is the endowment a form of money laundering?

I believe in universal education

I wish you had contacted me. I have much to offer on this subject.

So people are paying a lot of fees so that they can get a job and pay a lot of tax?

Also, you forgot how many administrative personnel, publicity, snd smcomoensations of President s have increased. Sports are Super expensive too!

make tuition bankrupt able and prices will align themselves accordingly

Don’t just blame institutions, there are two sides of each story. Don’t forget many students are willing to pay top dollars for useless or very low return degrees so..

Thats why I never went.

Raise your hand if you can't afford a Master's Degree b/c tuition is near 💲1000/credit OR you don't earn enough to pay up front n wait for your employer to vote to "reimburse" your tuition❗

Maybe go in to a STEM major with a viable job field instead of an arts degree.... Also, blame colleges for jacking up the price when they saw the government paying the loans. That's why you have ridiculous amenities at public universities such as a spa and aqua complex at Univ of Missouri or the luxury dorms at Texas A&M.

5:05 Education IS a fundamental right. Current constitutional and state laws do NOT prohibit anyone from exercising their right to go to school, and/or learn through experience/books /apprenticeship, etc. No one has a fundamental right to steal from others to fund another person's second Master's degree - yet it happens, through taxpayer-funded "public" universities. Learn the differences between positive and negative rights.

You are not paying fees you are being robbed!

cost go up cause of all the government money going into, not from the lack of government money,,,,

The US cultural devotion you commodification of everything is a sickness. Quality education should be free for everyone. Until we have that we cannot call ourselves a free society.

The reason college tuitions have risen 20x in 40 years is that colleges spend this years budget to justify more money for next years budget and government bails out that dysfunctional system. If any administrator has a surplus at end of year, they can't justify more stuff for their administration next year... so they OVER SPEND. The fix to this problem is going back to 1980 policies where only families making under $50k can qualify for financial aid. Colleges will have to provide education instead of everything else, like climbing walls, stadiums, college gyms, gardens, pools, and parade buildings that serve no purpose other then to spend money. Government paid college is the reason schools are expensive. It's the only dysfunctional system in which expensing money is a justification for more revenue. Universities professors and economists are paid to advocate for government spending, so their analysis is always pro-government spending. These advocate papers make absurd assumptions like state paid tuition will give universities enough revenue so they won't need to compete for out of state students that pay 10x the tuitions state rate... as if universities are different from human beings that are happy to do the same work for 10x as much money. And the economist are missing purposefully lying about the fundamental issue... expense for revenue is NOT a functional economic system, it's economic cannibalism. Liberal policies removed the normal route of going bankruptcy when students can't pay a loan in order to increase government expenses to justify more tax revenue, which in turn increased crony university revenue which allowed expense over spending, to justify increasing next years budget for more revenue. Result: less education, more taxes, higher tuitions, many non-educational college facilities that are expensive to maintain. Top down insanity. Government spending on education has increased. There was no "cuts". There is no "therefore less government spending caused...". The US population increase 25%. Only 5% more students are going to college. Costs are 40x that of 1990. A 5% increase isn't 40x significant. Saying "more students than ever" is a propaganda slogan progressives use. College was never built to be accessible for everyone. Correct, because it's the top of education. Nothing at the extremes is for everyone. Progressives hate individuals. Tuitions is reduced (top down) in the US. Partially covered by endowments and government, then the family. Accessible enforced for all? Progressives fascists advocate for government paid tuitions, not liberals. From 1990 to 2020 progressive's fascist "helping society" has increase tuition 40x what there non-help would have been. No one has a problem with progressive fascists making California in to a government paid paradise, as long as non-fascists can move from California to functional states, but progressive fascists demand control of a nationalist monopoly system of education. Conflating "education" with "college" is progressive fascist propaganda. Education is more accessible right now, because it's not limited to the dysfunction of a political party's school system.

Ivy league colleges reject students just to have a high rejection rate. They don't care if you would do at the school, they just want a high rejection rate. That makes for the perfect environment for the rich to bribe their way in, since admission isn't based on merit in the first place. Regardless, I learned Comp Sci from a book. All I did with college was take tests and get a piece of paper. They didn't let me test out of everything, but I didn't need classes to read a book and practice exercises. I can do that on my own without listening to a professor drone on and on, to an auditorium of faces he'll never know.

Americans are sad lol

It's now a right It's a privilege.

*In short the reason why college tuition costs so much is because the government has never seen education as a fundamental right - according to AJ+ However that doesn’t remotely address the fundamental issue that of costly higher education which is primarily related to privatization of education, inflation of public education and simply greed.*

Because USA.

Yeah education k-12 is already a “right” in this country. Anything after that is on you. Stop perpetuating that college is the only way and people can actually find financial freedom. If you can’t pay off your loan then don’t take them, the financial illiteracy is ridiculous

Unabashed confidence in your 30s? Must be nice...

#yangwasright

Truth. See Bernie.

People just need to stop idolizing a college degree and start prioritizing the practicality of their skills. Yes, I know you want to see that a doctor or engineer is indeed certified, but not all fields need an expensive degree to start working.

College should be free but it's not due to greed.

The reason that college is so expensive it’s precisely what you said. More aid is going out to poor kids and the college knows that if poor people get more and more aid like they have been getting, colleges don’t have incentive to lower the price is because governments just gonna give them the money and when you get rid of market incentives, prices go up.

I've been very lucky to be able to pay as I go. I take less classes every semester, but it's not worth being in debt.

Ok, u don’t why college costs r what are r. Democrats. Look at the cost of tuition between 2010 and 2020, it was a hockey stick from 2010-2016 because Obama made the Gubmint handle all loan guarantees and rendered the banks as transactional where they literally collect billions for doing what is essentially nothing with zero risk. The loans started in the mid sixties when the democrats changed the voting age to 18 and in order to buy those votes they said oh don’t get a part time job we’ll give u a loan instead and u can pay back after u graduate. Democrats are the reason tuition is what it is as they have enabled criminal extortion by the universities and colleges - it is that simple.

Last time i ws this early, college only cost a nickel

Bad TLDR advice! Terrible! SMH

from Algeria 🇩🇿

Yes it should be more accessible! If it was maybe we wouldn't have so many idiot's out there supporting Trump.

The way to make education cheaper is to mass produce it; I know, it's not as 'nice' as what some people want, but it is the most cost effective solution. I call it "Tertiary Schools", as in first you go to Primary school, then Secondary school, and then Tertiary School. The government needs to set up teacher colleges that will teach the professors of these schools and then create an army of capable teachers. Also, these schools would not only provide up to a BA and a BSc level degree, but also practical skills like mechanic, police, firefighter, nurse, hospital technician, translator, animator, even social media influencer, and YT content creator courses. As well as, electrician, plumber, roofer, framer, cabinet maker, dry-waller, etc. . . And of course they would be free. One difference with high-school though is that different schools would specialize in different skills/courses, so they should be built with campus housing, and the government should offer loans and grants to low income families, so that students can move to the tertiary school that has the courses they want to take. Students would be encouraged to take sets of courses that resulted in real employment opportunities and the schools would work closely with industries to train students for particular job spots. Based on what it costs for elementary and secondary schools in the US - about 735 billion a year. This program should only cost about 350 billion as it only adds up to four more years.(although many programs would be only two years in length) And pay for it with a wealth tax, make it graduated and progressive so that no one can have more than a billion dollars and bring back our democracy!

I think that the universities and community colleges should be accessible for everyone.

In the majority of Europe, higher education is considered a fundamental right and students don't pay tuition fees however corporations try to enforce us this American model and make education unaccessible. Education in Europe is the only way forward, how is it possible that young people in America don't demonstrate against it? Even our professors when they try to enforce fees in master degrees vote against It.

By offering free college who is going to pay for it? When some states can not even pay for paved roads.

Ewww there's a gray hair on my Corn Pop!!!!!!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

REPENT AND TURN AWAY FROM YOUR SINS

Liberals *shows Biden* Hahahaha

JOIN THE MILITARY.

Great video

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣