What happens when you find out a year of college costs $71,000 | Hacker News Reader

What happens when you find out a year of college costs $71,000

washingtonpost.com

12 pointsFuturebot9 comments

> To be clear, it is not going to cost Mirza $71,000 to go to NYU. That figure is just a really detailed sticker price that doesn’t include financial aid discounts, like the $24,000 scholarship she received from the school. Mirza said her family had already prepared to take out a $10,000 loan to cover some of the difference, but whether she can pay the bill is not the point she says.

This was buried in the 5th paragraph. When reporters quote statistics about the rising cost of tuition they usually refer to sticker price rather than prices that students actually pay. Makes for better headlines I suppose.

Not sure if the source is biased but:

On average, net tuition and fees for private nonprofit four-year institutions are lower in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2013-14 than they were a decade earlier — $12,460 versus $13,600. However, average net price has increased from $11,550 in 2011-12 to an estimated $12,460 in 2013-14.[0]

[0] https://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/college-...

>When reporters quote statistics about the rising cost of tuition they usually refer to sticker price rather than prices that students actually pay. Makes for better headlines I suppose.

Keep in mind that sticker price is often significantly less than the actual price, depending on the school.

That's exactly the question I'd. My impression was that most people enrolling at top 100 or so colleges don't pay much of tuition out of the pocket because they get funded via combination of financial aid, loan and campus jobs. Is the situation totally different at middle-of-the-pack colleges? Average student loan in US is about $25K and that seems fairly manageable[1]. I believe high sticker price is just a way to do tiered pricing by universities so that rich people pays the max possible amount. There are lot of parents actually doing double jobs so they do 509 college funds and I always question them why you really need it?

1 - http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/24/the-average...

I'd love more up to date data on if a University degree at these private universities pays for itself, and if it does how long does that take.

I can find some information, but most of it is really old, and pre-dates a lot of the increase we've seen in the cost of education, in particular at private Universities.

It seems like pay isn't keeping pace with the cost of education, so you have to wonder if some of these degrees will literally never pay for themselves, or will take near retirement to break even.

I'd love to see the US government release a web-site which lists the total cost of each University's tuition over 4 years including required books for the courses (easily an extra $1K/year at many) and any other required fees (e.g. you MUST live on-campus the first year). It might open student's eyes up to what they're REALLY getting themselves into.

I'd venture that it would totally depend on what degree you got as well. Some are much more likely to get you a decent paying job, like engineering or medicine.

Usually those jobs have a university degree as a requirement for employment as well, so you're kind of stuck with going to university.

"As for Mirza, she is still determined to head to her dream school this fall."

So to answer the title's clickbait question, the answer to what happens is that they go to the school and pay the tuition and go into debt. Because it's a "dream school."

Just north of the border, even as an international student she could get a Canadian education worth every bit as much, but costing only a fraction.

Especially if youre not already in the US, why you would travel there to pay so much for so little baffles me.

Walk off and find a different school.

Or not, apparently.

And how many of her teachers will be adjuncts?

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