why does college cost so much in the US?

Some US colleges and universities are comparable to universities abroad when it comes to STEM, but college education in general has been overemphasized by employers, leading to increased demand without increasing supply, thus raising tuition prices to comparatively insane amounts.
For instance, almost any white collar entry level job or even in some cases internship will require at least a related 2 year degree. That's part of why you see so many college kids in the US working service jobs while they hold useless degrees.
 
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Everything said so far already about government loan programs increasing demand without increasing supply applies (and was predicted decades ago by conservative commentators), but another factor is that it is considered discriminatory under US federal law to use IQ tests for hiring (because black people don't do well on them), so credentialism is an attempt to compensate for it. Of course the inevitable result was that college was watered down so that complete morons could pass it, making it useless.
 
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Because a higher cost makes you feel as though you got something worthwhile, as opposed to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for a degree that's not worth the ink it's printed with.
"I went $250,000 into debt getting a master's degree from Yale!"
"Wow! What's it in?"
"....gender studies...."
 
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It's essentially an application fee, a long standing grift - you play the art school game, you get rewarded with a low level corporate inroad, the industry at large signs off on you, you're okay to work.

Academia is fueled by its reinforcement of a creative caste system. A system with a buyout option.
 
As we all know, the most important thing in America is making money. Debt makes creditors money.

Jobs in the United States were once very scarce (largely due to a massive, unending influx of immigrant workers), which gave those offering positions an excuse to demand absurdly over-qualified candidates (who they then underpaid and overworked.) Though the job market has healed, the lofty demands candidates have to fulfill hasn't changed. One of those demands is a bachelor's degree.

College is now necessary. Everyone needs to go, employers say, alongside the various unpaid internships, 5 years experience and similar "mandatory" bunkum. If you don't have a degree, you aren't qualified to do anything other than blue collar work, which is a shrinking job market thanks to an endless supply of manual labor who will work for peanuts.

This means colleges (much like those who offer job positions) can crank up the entry rate to comical, unethical levels, which the government allows because they are also creditors. You need to go to college, but college is expensive, so you take out a loan. This makes everyone involved (except you) very wealthy.

Is the quality of American college worth the decades of debt? I'll let you decide.
 
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The USA does have some of the top-ranking universities in the world. Stanford, MIT... But as a sector, I would not say outside of these it is worth so much more than other countries' higher eductation sectors as the costs would suggest. Near-guaranteed access to credit combined with no adult life experience leads to a staggering increase in price due to lack of discernment by the purchasers (students). Competition can only increase quality when the buyers distinguish on that quality. Were students focused on education, it probably would. But students are often focused on college "experience" and education is secondary. Fewer lectures, more climbing walls!

Trump has commissioned an independent inquiry into the state of student loan debt in the USA and has been looking at ways of selling off that debt to private investors. Which might suck for some students but might also prevent the US collapsing into economic disaster. The USA is still dealing with the consequences of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. A second similar crisis of, yet again, large sectors of society defaulting on their debt, would hit the country hard. He's trying to head that off. But student debt in the USA is around $1.6trn. That's a lot.

There's an Australian 'university' which puts up the money for the student's tuition themself with the requiment that the student starts paying them back once they begin earning over a certain amount. It shows a tremendous amount of confidence by the university in their product to effectively shoulder the risk of it themselves, but it seems to be working. Naturally they only offer STEM degrees, not Gender Studies, et al.
 
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Because colleges use their endowment as a tax-tree slush fund. Here's the explanation. Briefly:
  • Because the Charity-status ( 501(c)(3) )of Colleges in America depends on more-than-half of their students being unable to afford the education (read: “receiving financial aid”)
  • That Charity-status protects the Investment Returns of College Endowments from Uncle Sam & the IRS
  • Investment Returns Compound over time, and there is no more powerful force on Earth — anyone not playing the game to maximize Compound-returns will lose to everyone who is.
  • Investment Returns already generate more revenue than undergrad tuition income at: Princeton (911% more), Harvard (529% more), Yale (254% more), MIT (118% more), Stanford (115% more), Brown (29% more), Duke (13% more), Dartmouth (9% more), and U Chicago (6% more)
  • Undergrad tuition brings in just 10%-20% of total revenue at the Ivy League / Top-10 schools not listed above. Undergrad Tuition is not more than a quarter of revenue at any of these schools.
  • Thus: if Colleges want to keep their Investment Returns tax-free, Tuition MUST remain unaffordable for at least 50% of undergrads
 
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Major universities (especially state ones, but the ivy leagues are not exempt) are also huge employers to the point of being wasteful. Apart from just instructors there are janitors, building maintenance, food service workers, retail workers, groundskeepers, security, and that's just off the top of my head. If the university has highly specialized equipment (like medical tech or a cyclotron) well guess what? That shit also needs to be maintained, and Jorge the Mop-Pusher ain't to be trusted with that.

The dorm system (which many universities keep viable by mandating students utilize it) is a tremendous grift in and of itself.
 
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Pargon said:
Major universities (especially state ones, but the ivy leagues are not exempt) are also huge employers to the point of being wasteful. Apart from just instructors there are janitors, building maintenance, food service workers, retail workers, groundskeepers, security, and that's just off the top of my head. If the university has highly specialized equipment (like medical tech or a cyclotron) well guess what? That shit also needs to be maintained, and Jorge the Mop-Pusher ain't to be trusted with that.

The dorm system (which many universities keep viable by mandating students utilize it) is a tremendous grift in and of itself.
Click to expand...

Let's not overlook the bloated administration.
 
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Check out city and state schools. They are significantly cheaper with probably little to no difference in quality.

There are literally "schools" which are straight up scams. America, land of the grift.
 
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garakfan69 said:
Why do Americans look down so much on manual labor?
An illegal is not gonna replace an experienced plumber or welder.
Click to expand...

Trades are fairly safe career choices thanks to unions and required education (that doesn't induce massive debt.) What that study refers to is the more common kind of blue collar work. Think of the difference between Fred Flintstone and Surly Joe's Foundation Repair; both are blue collar, but only one can be easily-replaced by an immigrant or a machine.
 
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