during the Reagan era. I carried 24 hours and worked three jobs to do it, so yeah, I'm going to continue to feel pretty goddamned glorious about it.

The craziest part was looking at the available student loan assistance and the amounts they were putting on offer, which were a small fraction of the cost. We did a home equity loan (we were lucky that our house was never underwater) and so wound up paying a much much lower rate than anything available as a student loan.
This country's cost of education has gotten completely nutty.

Anything less than that is a crime against our society.

has gone from $600/year when I was there, to close to $6000/year now, an increase of nearly 10-fold. And I'm not THAT ancient.

Also, the job market's rather shitty, which definitely does not help.

I graduated from college in 1982, and there were no jobs. I worked temp for a couple of years, and paid my college loans off, plus bought medical insurance.

There is NO WAY most students can do that now.

Parking was $27/quarter; books between $25-100. I think took about $1.65 a day for lunch.

college in 1969 on the GI Bill, I managed without any student loans at all. I got $256 per month and $100 per month from my parents. Things were tight, but I managed. Today, such a thing would be impossible.

it's a WHOLE NEW BALLGAME now; yes INDEED

I had two scholarships. One gave me $125/semester. That paid my tuition and fees. The other was half that, $87.50/semester. That bought my books. I lived at home. Back then a minimum wage job during the summer would allow a kid to pay most of the cost of college, especially if living at home.

In Kentucky, where state funds dropped about 1 percent this year after dropping about 9 percent over the past two years, the University of Louisville's Board of Trustees voted to increase Chancellor James Ramsey's $313,818 salary by 5 percent and give him a $114,033 bonus. It also recommended that the university's foundation increase the $142,314 supplement it gives Ramsey annually. Ramsey, like the university's faculty and staff, went without pay increases for the past three years, and said he would turn down a bonus or give it back to the university, a move that several local media outlets featured prominently. Unlike their counterparts at California State, however, faculty and staff at Louisville were eligible for merit raises of up to 5 percent.

...



http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-19-college-president-pay-increase_n.htm
...

College Presidents Making a Killing

Want to become a millionaire fast? Become a college president.

The New York Times covers a report from the Chronicle of Higher Education that found that the the median salary for a college president at a large school has risen to $396,588. In 2004, five presidents earned an annual salary over $1 million. By 2010, more than 30 presidents earned an annual salary over the $1 million mark, with the highest-paid presidents earning up to $3 million:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/12/14/college-presidents-making-a-killing/

....

Florida Inspector General Melinda Miguel recommended in a report issued Monday that parameters be established for college presidents’ pay, leave benefits and expectations for performance.

Miguel said in the report — prompted in part by the $1 million exit contract given to former Florida State College at Jacksonville president Steve Wallace — that compensation varied tremendously among the 28 state colleges in the system of state and community colleges. The presidents’ pay ranged from $143,000 to $630,000, Miguel wrote, and she called for college boards to work together to “jointly establish the parameters upon which the presidents’ total compensation is determined, document the factors upon which compensation is based and standardize this methodology across state colleges.”

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-05-13/story/florida-inspector-general-recommends-limits-pay-college-presidents

but have to say that it is surely not nearly the whole problem. Penn State has thousands of students, let's say 10,000 for the sake of argument. Say he makes 3,000,000 that is 300 per student. Tuition is 15,000 plus per student.

Cost of teachers, which generally up instead of down. Property costs (maintenance, utilities), legal costs, and so on.

If each of those items rose at a steady percent it will outpace things are the number of students might not grow.

Ohio State has roughly 50,000 students (56,387). And has for as long as I can remember had roughly that number.

Less people to pay for things but the costs keep increasing across the board ( $5.15 billion in expenditures).

In 2006 51,818 students and $3.72 billion in expenditures.

71k per students in 2006 (assuming no other funding and such)
91k per student in 2012

22k increase in 6 years (again, not all funding comes from students, but you get the idea)

I was fortuante enough to get some scholarships and grants, but my family couldn't contribute much due to financial constraints. My loans totaled about 55%-60% of my annual starting salary.

I suspect kids are facing, on average, a higher load these days..and that's the ones that can find a job at all.

That was in 1983.