What is the reason for the high cost of a college education?

@BizSuitStacy The reason for the rising costs of college are due to college price gouging because they KNOW they will get their government guaranteed tuition, regardless of how high they price gouge the consumer.

@BizSuitStacy When you have a monopoly you can charge what ever you want, If you convince people they must have the product that you have a monopoly on......

@Reason10 libs heads exploding everywhere after reading that... they. just. can't. grasp. it, captain.

@BohemianBabe
They all have the same credentials if they all graduated from the same school and majored in the same things.

@swirlie Yes, at that point it becomes more competitive. That's why I said a degree doesn't guarantee success, but it is required.

@SteelHands

@sunsporter1649 Yeah. And don't forget to worship a cow. Lol

@Reason10 Anyone who can memorize the qwerty keyboard impresses you.

@ToddpicogramakaSatan I would ask for you to define inflation, but that would be useless.

I'm surprised that 71 percent (so far) have picked the one about the federal government subsidizing student loans.
Let me walk you through this process:

1. There is ONE rate of what colleges can charge, it would be based on only the student (or student's parent) could afford. If that were to happen today, the price of a college education would plummet and there would be an exodus of useless college professors FIRED.

2. When you add private student loan companies, that means a student can borrow for an education. Colleges see that it's not based on what they can afford. So colleges raise their prices, inflate their budgets, PRICE GOUGE. In other words, they are partially protected from market forces. But this only gives them students who have good credit ratings, who have shown they can pay the loan back.

3. When the government is a student loan cosigner, all bets are off. The student might pay it back, or he might not. But the taxpayers are on the hook. So colleges can REALLY price gouge, inflate EVERYTHING (property upgrades, professor salaries, additional professors, aides up the yin yang.) When you take the market forces away, bad things happen.

This is the law of supply and demand. Supply stays the same, demand goes up, price goes up.
Student loans created unnatural demand. The supply remained the same. So price goes up.

@Reason10
But the elite institutions you mention above are sufficiently well endowed and in demand not to be dependent upon students with publicly subsidised loans. Their costs and fees increase exponentially because of the buildings and facilities that are needed to attract the brightest students in an international market. Take away student loans and little will change other than closing those institutions to students from less wealthy families.

In the UK, there is a cap on the maximum fee that can be charged to domestic students. This is subsidised by international students who can be charged market rates.