Now I manage a PhD in anthropology and our students finish, on average, in 8 years with an annual stipend (for the 50% or so of students who are supported) of $13K/year.

Our economy needs people going through higher education to do the high value added jobs (and no, working for Goldman Sachs does not count!) such as research, medicine, starting productive companies, etc.

Other countries are doing this far better than we are and the increased tuition is another step towards making the U.S. economy far less competitive in the future.

Whenever the government steps in to support any aspect of our lives, there seems to be some type of bubble. I’m worried that all this government intervention now will come back to haunt us later on.

I do think tuition increases are a huge problem; I had never really thought of it as a bubble before, but I suppose it is. I just hope it pops soon…I used some calculator that said if I had a child today a private college could cost nearly a half million dollars in 18 years. WHAT?

On another note, Edwin my anecdotal experience has been the same: My friends in PhD programs are paying their way through school with TAs and such. They’re poor at the moment, but they aren’t going into the boatloads of student loan debt like the MBA, law and med students.

I hear you on the entitlement thing, though. I remember the semester that all my business writing students (who were retail and consumer science or family studies majors, mostly) said they expected to make $60K as a starting salary when they graduated. Oh, and they were all going to be buyers for Macy’s. Straight out of college. I couldn’t think of anything to say but my mind was like ?!?!?!?!

With the crazy inflation of tuition rates I’ve seen plenty of articles written about whether college is actually worthwhile. And even with all the differing viewpoints the answer is a resounding yes.

Even with having to bear a giant debt right into ones working life, the value added from a college education more than makes up for it. So while tuition is increasing greatly, it is still valuable. This is quite a contrast to the housing market where the house prices were increasing, but the value (price to rent ratio) was become worse and worse.

Another, non bubble related, issue with tuition is that students tend to think its a free ticket to whatever job they want so don’t put in the actual work required to get their desired job. So they sit on their thumbs waiting for the job to just drop into their lap rather than expanding into different lines of work that can use their expertise.

I have a PhD and have really only ever worked in universities, so lots of reasons and experience behind my prediction

It will be interesting (and probably inevitable at this point) because on the one hand, student loans do not get discharged in bancruptcies, so you still have to pay…yet on the other hand, if you can’t make your payments I am pretty sure that your loans stay with the lender (i.e. don’t get sold to collectors like other types of debt).

Obama is trying to forestall this by capping the percentage of your salary lenders can set repayments at, but what’s going to happen when you’ve borrowed so much that the capped payment amount doesn’t even cover interest on the loan? Capping payments does no good unless you’re actively trying to discourage people from borrowing, and THAT’S not happening…