US College Enrollment Has Dropped by 2.2 Million Students Since 2014, But Annual Tuition Revenue Is Up By $18.4 Billion
July 30, 2024
US College Enrollment Has Dropped by 2.2 Million Students Since 2014, But Annual Tuition Revenue Is Up By $18.4 Billion
Posted by ChickenNoodleSoup7
12 comments
“In the academic year of 2023/2024, tuition at Columbia University cost 69,045 U.S. dollars, including mandatory fees, and room and board amounted to 16,800 U.S. dollars, making it the most expensive school in the Ivy League. Brown University followed closely behind, with tuition and mandatory fees of 68,230 U.S. dollars and room and board of 16,598 U.S. dollars.”
All of them are in that approximate range from the data I’ve been able to find, or at least the Ivy League establishments are.
Given the rising tuition costs referenced in this post I have been working on an independent tool to assess the ROI of different universities and fields of study. If interested, you can check it out at the link below and would appreciate any and all feedback!
Lower attendance means higher value for the degree. Which is better in the long run. Not everyone should go to college. Some people would be better served making a decent living doing other career paths that don’t require a degree.
What happened in the past was schools had the idea that everyone should go to college. This vastly lowered college degrees to the point that some people had to get a graduate degree to earn more.
Friendly reminder that revenue =/= profit, and that State/Public universities cost far less than private universities and if separated out their metrics (e.g. total tuition revenue) would be far, far lower than this *average*.
Also +18Billion is only a 7% increase, the Y-axis is intentionally misleading to make it look like a way larger change than it is.
Extremely misleading presentation. Their own numbers indicate that tuition over the last 10 years has grown slower than inflation.
In 10 years, total tuition revenue has increased by 6.7% while enrollment has fallen by about 11%. Inflation over the corresponding period has been 32.7%.
To normalize, assuming just inflation and no reduction in enrollment, total tuition would be about $366B in 2024. Then, we reduce by 11% enrollment loss and end up with $326B. Yet, total tuition is just $295B. Students are paying $31B less than they would have if tuition had just grown with inflation.
It’s crazy how college because a scam in the 21st century. Explosion of third-rate institutions that weren’t worth it. Tuition that wildly out-stripped inflation even at the good ones.
It wasn’t like that in the 90s.
I really feel for kids these days.
You gotta zero out the y-axis. The figure is meaningless with the range shown.
More along the lines of “lying with statistics” than “data is beautiful”
College is so much more expensive that even with 2,200,000 less people paying tuition US colleges has INCREASED their revenue by $18,400,000,000
It makes more money to teach 100 rich kids (or making average joe to go deep into debt) than to teach 1000 average people.
For profit education, medicine and even worse jails are not a great idea. When the motivation is to maximize revenue the core services become a second though.
And yet, we can’t pay professors like professionals.
Seriously, there is so much money wrapped up in the “idea” and iconography of college (fancy buildings, great sports programs, student life) that there is so little left for actual instruction.
Almost no 18 year olds realize it but, a high quality education could be given in an old office building just as well as it could be given in an imposing brick building.
Is this inflation adjusted? Because otherwise it’s fairly meaningless.
It’s easy to charge outrageous sums when our culture is indoctrinated to believe that something is universally accept to be good and must have. I suggested, a few times, that people take a year between high school and college to learn the value of money and gain experience in the real word and was repeatedly confronted by the whole, “How could you dare suggest people RUIN their lives!!?!?!”
University “education” is the ideal service when it come to cheating people.
* people desperately want it, even though they don’t really know why
* people have to have it at a specific time and most can’t stomach the idea of delaying, even a little bit
* It’s insanely expensive, but most people don’t truly question this or make rational decisions based on cost
* Most people know utterly irrational purchase decisions, often at a very young age, while knowing next to nothing about what they’re buying
* The service provider can utterly and consistently fail to deliver on promises and most people don’t care.
I wish I had a product or service like that I could sell.
12 comments
“In the academic year of 2023/2024, tuition at Columbia University cost 69,045 U.S. dollars, including mandatory fees, and room and board amounted to 16,800 U.S. dollars, making it the most expensive school in the Ivy League. Brown University followed closely behind, with tuition and mandatory fees of 68,230 U.S. dollars and room and board of 16,598 U.S. dollars.”
All of them are in that approximate range from the data I’ve been able to find, or at least the Ivy League establishments are.
Given the rising tuition costs referenced in this post I have been working on an independent tool to assess the ROI of different universities and fields of study. If interested, you can check it out at the link below and would appreciate any and all feedback!
[CollegeNPV ROI Rankings](https://www.collegenpv.com)
Lower attendance means higher value for the degree. Which is better in the long run. Not everyone should go to college. Some people would be better served making a decent living doing other career paths that don’t require a degree.
What happened in the past was schools had the idea that everyone should go to college. This vastly lowered college degrees to the point that some people had to get a graduate degree to earn more.
Friendly reminder that revenue =/= profit, and that State/Public universities cost far less than private universities and if separated out their metrics (e.g. total tuition revenue) would be far, far lower than this *average*.
Also +18Billion is only a 7% increase, the Y-axis is intentionally misleading to make it look like a way larger change than it is.
Extremely misleading presentation. Their own numbers indicate that tuition over the last 10 years has grown slower than inflation.
In 10 years, total tuition revenue has increased by 6.7% while enrollment has fallen by about 11%. Inflation over the corresponding period has been 32.7%.
To normalize, assuming just inflation and no reduction in enrollment, total tuition would be about $366B in 2024. Then, we reduce by 11% enrollment loss and end up with $326B. Yet, total tuition is just $295B. Students are paying $31B less than they would have if tuition had just grown with inflation.
It’s crazy how college because a scam in the 21st century. Explosion of third-rate institutions that weren’t worth it. Tuition that wildly out-stripped inflation even at the good ones.
It wasn’t like that in the 90s.
I really feel for kids these days.
You gotta zero out the y-axis. The figure is meaningless with the range shown.
More along the lines of “lying with statistics” than “data is beautiful”
College is so much more expensive that even with 2,200,000 less people paying tuition US colleges has INCREASED their revenue by $18,400,000,000
It makes more money to teach 100 rich kids (or making average joe to go deep into debt) than to teach 1000 average people.
For profit education, medicine and even worse jails are not a great idea. When the motivation is to maximize revenue the core services become a second though.
And yet, we can’t pay professors like professionals.
Seriously, there is so much money wrapped up in the “idea” and iconography of college (fancy buildings, great sports programs, student life) that there is so little left for actual instruction.
Almost no 18 year olds realize it but, a high quality education could be given in an old office building just as well as it could be given in an imposing brick building.
Is this inflation adjusted? Because otherwise it’s fairly meaningless.
It’s easy to charge outrageous sums when our culture is indoctrinated to believe that something is universally accept to be good and must have. I suggested, a few times, that people take a year between high school and college to learn the value of money and gain experience in the real word and was repeatedly confronted by the whole, “How could you dare suggest people RUIN their lives!!?!?!”
University “education” is the ideal service when it come to cheating people.
* people desperately want it, even though they don’t really know why
* people have to have it at a specific time and most can’t stomach the idea of delaying, even a little bit
* It’s insanely expensive, but most people don’t truly question this or make rational decisions based on cost
* Most people know utterly irrational purchase decisions, often at a very young age, while knowing next to nothing about what they’re buying
* The service provider can utterly and consistently fail to deliver on promises and most people don’t care.
I wish I had a product or service like that I could sell.