Thursday, October 23, 2008
How out of whack are college tuition costs?
Imagine how much a college student would have to be paid per hour, in order to pay off a semester's worth of tuition by working just 200 hours.In the book I just finished, former President Ford recalls a few of the economic factoids from his college years:
In 1931, he was paid 50 cents an hour to work a couple hours a day at an Ann Arbor hospital cafeteria.
He paid 4 dollars a week to share a boarding house with several other guys.
And his college tuition at the University of Michigan cost $100 per semester.
I went to the government's inflation calculator to put these numbers into perspective.
- The hourly wage -- 50 cents -- becomes $7.20 today. Almost perfectly in line.
- The rent -- about 16 dollars per month -- becomes $230. Not too far off.
- But the tuition? $100 per semester should become $1,439.36. In fact, one semester at U of M today (tuition alone) actually costs $16,534.50
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