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In the 50s/60s/70s at minimum wage you used to be able to pay for a whole school year with 109 hours. Now, at minimum wage, just for 1 year is around 2250 hours. That's 13 months just to pay off 1 year of school, not including any living costs.

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That’s a result of govt guaranteed student loans inflating tuition. Those need to be stopped first. Then we can have cheap public universities that cost only what is required. Shouldn’t be free as it is costly and won’t be appreciated. But definitely competitive to drive down prices.

That is remarkably depressing to see.

It's also wrong. His numbers are exaggerated and provided without any source. In 1970, it was closer to 250 hours of minimum wage for tuition alone (no living expenses) as minimum wage was $1.60 and the cost of tuition for a public university (near me) was $420 for 30 credit hours. Today, that same university is $6,270 for 30 credit hours of tuition, which is around 520 hours of work at $12/hour (which is $1.60 expressed in nominal 2023 dollars and is also the minimum wage in the state).

While I realize that's still a little more than 2x the amount of working hours, it's definitely not as depressing as 20x the amount of working hours as the poster stated.

What if you include living expenses?

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