It wasn't free, but close to it.

I went to a state university in the 70's. The highest fee I paid for a single semester for tuition + books  + lab fees was $750. I thought that was a lot.

Higher education today is basically a scam to enrich all the hangers-about (board members, misc administration posts, etc). This coupled with the reduced funding at the state and federal level, makes this a form of indentured servitude.

If you'd have told my 18 yo self that I'd need to take on 100k of debt to get a degree, I'd have asked if you were on drugs and if you had any to spare.

2 hours ago, johnbow72 said:

Nothing free back in the 70's . 😖😖

Well I served in the USAF Air Weather Service from 1970 to 1974 and following that finished my degree on the GI Bill.  Paid my tuition and provided allowances for books and housing.  Go I served for four years to get those benefits and the benefits did not cover all costs.  I would not classify that as free.  I believe some form of true public service should be a criteria for either paid tuition (note I did not use the term "free") or any form of later forgiveness.  Student loan forgiveness has existed for years now based on some forms of service.

36 minutes ago, Camsdad13 said:

My son is in the Army earning E-5 pay right now. The Army pays his tuition at The Citadel

Good for your son.  He works hard and reaps the rewards.  You taught him a good work ethic so good for you too.  You must be very proud of him.

Noel

Just for interest....In Australia tertiary students (College/University) fees are provided through a Federal government loan system upon which repayments are made through the personal income tax system after you complete your studies and your income reaches above a certain threshold.

During my time, university in the late 1980's it was basically completely free apart from a small annual uni fee around $500AUD plus all the text books you needed to obtain, which if possible could even be purchased secondhand.

48 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Student loan forgiveness has existed for years now based on some forms of service.

Service of some sort is an excellent idea.  Be it military, Peace Corps, putting in hours in soup kitchens, helping clearing out brush in National Forests, whatever.

When I was volunteering at the Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge just outside town a few years ago every summer we had college students paying off debt by helping count birds, assisting trapping and banding ducks,  testing water quality, maintaining the hiking trail, and various other tasks.  They were given living quarters but had to provide their own meals.  

Noel  

3 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

IMHO, college/university education should be free

I have to disagree.  First, is there enough space to accommodate everyone who seeks to attend?  There are those who think college is a good way to prolong their adolescence and spend a couple years goofing off.  How do you weed those out?  What is the selection process for a limited number of placements?  Would poor grades be sufficient to send someone packing?

There has to be some sort of payback.  If not monetary then some sort of public service.

The National Guard pays tuition for those who serve in it.  My Weather Flight had several troops who wouldn't be there but for the tuition payments.  One weekend a month and two weeks in the summer is little enough to have your tuition paid.  Of course you are subject to call up in case of war or other emergency like tornadoes or floods or hurricanes.

Noel  

 

Student Aid is a very old idea. Kwai Chang got into Kung Fu U on a musical scholarship!

4 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

IMHO, college/university education should be free ...

Fully disagree.  Have seen  too many who got a free ride or close to it and they showed no commitment, did nothing with the education they did receive, and just took up space.  Too much of that today!  And enough of this.  It is likely to begin getting political, or value based, which to most often viewed as political.  

Work pays off.  Hitching a ride to work does not if it is not followed by work ethic.

25 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Fully disagree.  Have seen  too many who got a free ride or close to it and they showed no commitment, did nothing with the education they did receive, and just took up space.  Too much of that today!  And enough of this.  It is likely to begin getting political, or value based, which to most often viewed as political.  

Work pays off.  Hitching a ride to work does not if it is not followed by work ethic.

I agree 100% but a college degree shouldn't cost $100,000 either... There is NO reason that the cost of college should go up beyond the inflation rate especially at state schools.

First, nothing is free--*someone* is paying for it.  In places where actual quality education is obtained without cost to the student, it is usually also rationed, as we can't afford to send every person to a good college.  I'd be OK with government-funded advanced education if degrees were apportioned out in some relation to the job skills needed in society, and only the best-qualified were admitted (on the basis of ability/aptitude and nothing else).  We can all benefit from government-funded engineers, doctors, bioscientists, mathematicians, physical therapists, nurses, etc.  But if you want to major in something where a degree is unneeded and often useless--like a degree in music, art, theatre, sociology, etc--then *you* pay for it.  There's plenty of room in a 4-year degree program for elective courses in the arts, but to major in them and enter the work force with no better job prospects than a high-school graduate isn't something society should pay for.

The reason the cost of a college education has exploded is pretty simple supply-and-demand economics: when you make the ability to fog a mirror the only requirement to access massive amounts of money through unsecured debt, then that huge supply of money finds itself chasing a fairly steady supply of product (in this case university seats).  Prices, as a result, go up--a lot.  If we were to shut down the easy-money pipeline, and make lenders take on and deal with the real risk of making student loans to kids with lousy college aptitude or those getting German polka-dancing history degrees with no obvious path to repayment, then I think we'd have less people burying themselves in debt (because the banks wouldn't make the risky loans).  There's no rational explanation for loaning a kid $100,000 or more for a degree in journalism.  Writing propaganda doesn't require a college degree...heck, half of them can't even spel any more anyway.

 

 

1 hour ago, z06z33 said:

I agree 100% but a college degree shouldn't cost $100,000 either... There is NO reason that the cost of college should go up beyond the inflation rate especially at state schools.

Hard to argue with that but I placed into an excellent job fresh out of college.  A bachelor of science degree in business from a state based college.  Started at $12K.  It was in the top 10% of offers for my class. Thought I was Hollywood. Stats for 2021 show that just the average placement for a business school grad from all institutions at $60,000. Have to say that fives times that $20.000 starting pay in debt back when I graduated would have been unheard of.  But then nobody borrowed such a high percent of their total costs either,

On the other hand I have a younger relative who has piled up over $150,000 in debt because he continues to take and borrow for graduate school courses, all because borrowing more today delays repayment of the accumulated debt from yesterday.  He has completed one graduate study but has done absolutely nothing with it.  He continues to work in a relatively low paying local government job and his objective in doing so is to continue to stave off student loan repayments and retain paid benefits that most in private sector do not receive.   And he continues to take a minimum load in school with additional borrowing to stave off the wolf!

He is salivating over the prospect of student loan forgiveness.  How a society can in essence reward what he has done is 100% beyond me.  

Used to be years ago a TV series called the Naked City. It would start each episode with a statement of "there are 8,000,000 stories in the Naked City.  This is one of them"? Had to be a fictional reference to NYC as at the time no other American city had that population.  But how many like my younger relative are out there?  He is just one story.

Edited November 6, 20214 yr by fppilot

I know nothing about student loans except the GI Bill benefits I got for flying lessons.  They eventually demanded that the flight school students kick in some percentage of the cost so it wasn't absolutely free.

I think student loans started out with a high minded purpose but it got out of hand like most government giveaway programs do.  And there are those who feed off such programs who have not intention of using the money for the purpose for which it was given.

Don't have money for tuition and want to go to college?  Join your state's National Guard.  You get your tuition paid for 38 days commitment a year.  And you get paid for those 38 days.

Noel

I attended an elite prep school -- The Lawrenceville School -- in New Jersy between 1974 and 1978, receiving full scholarships for all four years.  I went to Cornell University, an Ivy League school in upstate New York, between 1978 and 1982.  I Received grants and scholarships, so I essentially received a "free" college education.  I also was not spoiled by not having to pay for my education, as I followed up Cornell with a law degree from the State University of New York, at a substantially reduced rate for in-state students.   I personally believe that if a person has the qualifications to be admitted to elite schools, that person should not be denied the opportunity to receive attend the school because of price.  Mike Gutierrez, North Hollywood, California.

I grew up in Southern California in the late 60s - early 70s. As others have noted, community colleges and state universities were tuition-free for residents. Students paid for textbooks, lab fees and some other minor administrative charges, but no tuition. 

That changed after 1978. Public education in California had been funded primarily by property taxes, and because of increasing assessed values and the raging inflation of the 1970s, many California homeowners, (especially the elderly), were being priced out of their own homes because of the steadily increasing taxes.

Proposition 13 was a state ballot measure spurred by a man named Howard Jarvis , a life-long anti-tax crusader. It capped property taxes at a maximum of 1 percent of full market value, among other things. The ballot measure passed overwhelmingly in 1978. The loss of tax revenues meant the end of tuition-free college in California from that time on.

Interestingly, Howard Jarvis made a cameo appearance in the movie “Airplane”. He was the passenger in the taxicab that Ted Striker left stranded at the terminal at LAX for the course of the entire movie, (while the meter kept running and accruing higher and higher fees). It was a California-specific “in joke”, since Howard Jarvis would have been well-known and eminently recognizable to any Californian living there at the time the movie came out.

Edited November 7, 20214 yr by JRBarrett

My wife’s sister got her four year nursing degree at the University of North Carolina paid for by the state.  She was obligated to practice in the state of North Carolina for a minimum of six years. I admired the old gal for that. So much so I married her sister.