Reply #50: How long ago was that? [View All]

Recently I tried to explain to my younger son (now 23, graduated college last year) that back when I first went to college in the mid-60's, a summer minimum wage job, if you lived at home and saved most of your wages, easily paid tuition, fees, and books. Easily. You'd still need to live at home, because the cost of room and board was so much more than tuition, fees, and books, but it was doable. Today, even at most public colleges, those three things are well over what a kid can hope to earn during the summer, even at a $10/hr job, if one that pays that well can be gotten.

Some of us elders aren't fully connected with just how much the cost of attending college has gone up since we went.