What's the Future for College Tuition?

Sewannee is on the front side of a giant wave. For centuries colleges have had a corner on the market for tickets to the best jobs. They could charge whatever the trade could bear in order to feather the nests and buy groceries for a cadre of PhD's, administrators, semi-professional sports teams and other camp followers. They stand up in classrooms, talk for most of an hour at a time on things that are largely incomprehensible to their student audiences and then send them back to their meager but high rent chambers to teach themselves. At the end of a period of years and numerous arbitrary tests and exams their progress is measured and reported on a single piece of paper and they are handed their "ticket", another single piece of somewhat nicer quality paper. The price of these two pieces of paper can run as high as a quarter of a million dollars for the ones with the right words printed on them. The cost can be half a lifetime carrying a burden of debt, a type from which there is no bankruptcy escape, that in many cases is crippling.

The people who take the tickets are delighted that they hardly have to lift a hand to sort through these job applicants. The sorting is already done for them. All they have to do is look at the ticket, size up the supplicant for characteristics such as personal attractiveness and make an offer.

If this sounds absurd to you, especially in a new age of communications and expanded access to knowledge, then you and I are probably in agreement.

I think the Sewanee folks are beginning to see this also.

Ed Weldon

I was able to pay as I went for my BSME back in mid to late 80's by working part time and full time in the summer. Now with tuition up about 5X what I paid and the wages stagnant, or even less then I made, it is impossible for your average Joe to put himself through college without incurring outrageous debt.

I feel sorry for the folks coming out of college now. Many would be better off with a trade skill and no debt.