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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

The article makes the opposite claim. Rather than a seemingly endless cycle of price growth, the article claims that the cost of attendance has fallen in constant dollars. However, the nominal cost of attendance, which bears no relationship to the actual cost, because it's offset by pro forma need-blind merit-blind "scholarships", has risen, because the top-line nominal tuition cost is a market sorting mechanism among schools.

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The claim of this article that real college prices are not increasing is at odds with the well-known fact that student loan debt at graduation has been rising steadily, especially relative to income: https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt-by-year

There has certainly been more sticker price growth than real price growth due to scholarships/aid but this article is the first I've read to assert that the real price growth isn't there. And I definitely know many people who paid the full sticker price at elite schools (they were lucky to have families who can afford it, so not too much pity necessary).

Here's an older but very good article around why colleges raise prices to levels they know they'll need to subsidize: https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-colle...

The rise in student loan debt can alternatively be explained by increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people. In the past (e.g. 40 years ago corresponding to a graduation date ~20 years ago), more families were able to save enough to cover the true cost of 4 years of college. Now many families are living paycheck to paycheck, and cannot create an emergency fund, much less a college fund.

I agree, both sets of claims are hard to square with each other.

It could be that non-tuition costs have risen, that students have gotten worse at punching pennies through strategies like having lots of room mates and/or that fewer students are using part time jobs to cover living costs.

Absolutely possible. People don't want their standard of living to suffer, and when offered a loan to keep it up, many will take it. I could have accidentally graduated with substantially more debt than I did. I was offered more loan money than I truly needed. I took it all my first year. Wasted it. Realized it. Didn't accept the loans the last three years.

When I was 17 reviewing college financial aid packages, I was still trusting enough in the social contract that I thought I could only be offered loans that the granter expected I could pay back.

Since average debt is still less than the average cost of college, couldn't this just be changes in the availability and utilization of loans?

Great links. Thanks for sharing. But I don't know that they are incompatible.

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