[onitica]

One thing that really bothers me is how much universities are allowed to raise their tuition on existing students. I started college paying about $6k a year in tuition my freshmen year. My senior year cost me $11k. The difference in tuition raises overall probably increased my total loan amount by ~$10k by the time I graduated. This is huge and there is no way students can take this into account when applying for college. I don't know why there are no laws protecting students by requiring fixed tuition rates for students? Universities are notoriously bad for raising rates by thousands a year, which students must take into debt or leave.

*Edit - Ok, the tuition when I first went to college was $20k a year. I had a $14k scholarship, so it was a manageable $6k a year. Now the tuition, 5 years later, is over $27k. That is a 35% increase at about 7% a year. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, especially for a state school which should be affordable.

[newbie12]

The federal government's Medicaid mandate is destroying state education budgets-- Medicaid is literally crowding out state public university education spending.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/medicaid...

[onitica]

I'm talking about out-of-state tuition though, which from my understanding was not subsidized by the state government at all. The funny thing is, the university I went to was still cheaper and better than my in-state alternatives.

[danielweber]

It's all the same pie, from the point-of-view of state government. They need to make their budget balance, and the school is a target-rich environment for them.

[hanibash]

This report's theory is that if the government stopped pumping so much money into the system, tuitions would cease to rise. It's tricky to answer. There's definitely good reasons for public money in education. But it seems to be hurting for the most part, not helping.

[University bloat report](http://goldwaterinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Administra...)

[praxulus]

It's not that they're pumping money in that's the problem, it's the place they decided to pump that causes the issue. Financial aid and guaranteed loans are on the side that increases many student's ability to pay. The alternative is to give money directly to schools (perhaps based on enrollment numbers to mimic the "market based" approach of tuition aid). This brings student's ability to pay back down and would force schools to lower, or at least freeze tuition,.

[Evbn]

How would that change the net amount of money changing hands?

[praxulus]

Private financial institutions would no longer loan nearly as much money to students to pay for college, so less money would go through the chain of (student after graduation)->lender->(student when they were in school)->school. This means that overall, less money would be moving from students/graduates to schools.

Schools would have to find a way to manage with smaller budgets or get more government support.

[natrius]

"This is huge and there is no way students can take this into account when applying for college."

"Universities are notoriously bad for raising rates by thousands a year"

These statements conflict. Tuition increases should be taken into account when planning a college education. Some schools have a policy of constant tuition over four years. Students who aren't okay with tuition increases should choose those schools.

[onitica]

It is one of those things that is obvious in hindsight. No one informed me that tuition increased at that level when I was looking at colleges (certainly not the schools). The only way I could even find past tuition levels for my university was by looking at my financials for the loans, there was no where on their website or easily googled where I could find past tuition costs. The outrage over college costs and debt was nowhere as publicized five years ago as it is now. OWS, trillion dollar college debt stories, many of the new education startups didn't exist yet. I am certainly not the only student who felt screwed by a ~30% higher tuition rate their senior year. Universities are also notoriously good at selling a college education and tacking on the hidden cost.

Maybe you as an 18 year old would have been smart enough to figure it out, but I doubt most do. I actually planned out my college finances based on the freshmen tuition rates before even going and had a plan for what I was going to do.

Constant tuition is a very rare thing, I can't even name a school I know that does that.