Comments on Debunking Conventional Wisdom on Debt

• Financial transparency?
• Posted by L.L. on August 30, 2006 at 7:05am EDT

• This just underscores, thousands of calls (including the recent Stallings Commission and Vedder) for financial transparency by PUBLIC and private colleges. Also this --

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210794,00.html

  Wonder why the public has lost confidence in higher-ed? If you weren't sure if you were being treated fairly on the price of something -- how would you feel? If you could not get the basic facts about what something actually cost -- how would you feel? Buying used cars is easier ..

  Higher-ed has no one to blame for itself, for this mess. It can fix it, under its own steam -- or someone will do it for them. Their decision.

• Posted by Lucie Lapovsky on August 30, 2006 at 12:25pm EDT

• From the data base that we have used from the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges for a forthcoming paper that Sandy Baum and I have written, "Tuition Discounting, Not Just a Private College Practice", we find that the student debt level, on average, at private colleges and universities is higer than at the public four year colleges and universities. In 2004-05, the average student debt level per FTES at the public four year colleges is $3166 compared with $4677 at the private colleges. In addition, the average parent debt per FTES at the public four year colleges is $913 compared with $2021 at the private institutions.

• Cost of attendance
• Posted by feudi pandola on August 30, 2006 at 1:25pm EDT

• I have written here before that schools should be legally required to provide their Cost of Attendance to the public via their websites and on promotional literature they send to students. Tuition is just one part of the cost of attending any school and most students and parents do not understand the concept of the Cost of Attendance.

  Many school do publish their tution rates, but it is often difficult to find on their websites, and the Cost of Attendance is often ignored completely. Schools should be mandated to have an actual "radio button" on their websites giving all of this information
  in a clear, concise manner.

  I agree that Higher ED MUST become far more transparent in its finances. If we don't, the public and the feds will force us to do so...and we must reduce our cost and wastefulness, and that includes greatly limiting or eliminating tenure.

• debt burden for college students and their families
• Posted by Jeanne Madden on September 5, 2006 at 9:25am EDT

• Personally, and I know I'm not alone on this, I think the upper middle class bears the brunt of the debt burden for college costs. At a certain income level, the only tuition help available comes in the form of student and parental loans. The current system does not take into consideration that a family may have only just begun earning a certain income. After taxes and tuition bills, including student loan payments, we should be considered on an even par with families with less income during the next school year. At 45k per year at many private schools, we are not only paying the cost of attendance for our children, but for those who wind up carrying so little debt after college. If tuition costs were to be reevaluated and education became affordable for more people, the middle class would not have to bear this burden all alone. Everyone could pay their way, and the schools could spend their financial aid money on whatever it is that has has allowed costs to spiral out of control. This situation just has to do some self-correction somewher. We don't live lavishly at all, save every dime we can, but it will never be enough. The absurd cost of a college education doesn't keep out low income kids-they qualify for aid-100% of need at many schools, it keeps out middle class kids, unless they and their parents are willing to take on enormous debt.