Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Case-Shiller Index, National Center for Education Statistics, made with seaborn
Housing costs dont look right at all… everything in my area doubled in price 2021 and never really came down or came down only a little bit.
As I tell younger people all the time: I don’t have student debt because college education was much cheaper when I got mine (late 80s).
I’m not smarter than you. I’m not better with money than you. I’m just older than you.
Education has a higher return on investment than housing, especially at these levels. The more you learn the more you earn.
Is that sticker price for education? Cause no one pays sticker price
So does that mean 1973 ushered in a forever recession in the US?
I really wish there would be more push back on the colleges and universities for this. No one ever seems to want to blame them
Universities really started a racket. Bloated administrations, state-of-the-art facilities that most students don’t use, and an endless amount of money for sports (which has nothing to do with academia. It provides income, but never reduces tuition or pay the athletes that are bringing in this money.)
Hrm. It occurs to me that another graph that would follow the 4 year degree trend is healthcare costs.
People want X, government offers to help pay but leave the profits private, businesses that sell X raise prices because they know the government is paying.
What exactly did COVID do to make college more expensive?
For Pete’s sake — people were online!
I don’t know if redditors do charity.
When you give money to the food bank or whatever, $1000 is a huge fucking number. People go crazy when they get that.
When you give money for education even a cool $1,000,000 only pays for one family with 3 kids at private colleges. It’s basically nothing.
This is what happens when you let dumb 18 year olds take out massive loans to universities who are more than happy to take advantage of that free money by increasing prices every year thanks to government backing
I think I remember seeing some crazy statistic somewhere that a majority of universities are mostly operating in the red, and a lot of what brings them into the black is either sports or patents. Which is wild to think about considering that the average amount that colleges get from each student a year is $32k…
Very few people pay the sticker cost of tuition. The net cost of tuition has stayed flat for a long time.
That’s not what I meant- I know they are audited to account for the money they spend. That’s worthless to curtail spending.
I mean a prospective audit to force them to show how each new dollar would be spent. That every future dollar would have to be justified. There is no way what they are spending is legitimate. There is no way they need the administration that they have. They have bled America dry for too long
You’d think the increase in cost would somehow reflect the quality of the education and eventual earnings of the student, but that connection is fuzzy if it exists at all.
We need a Nation-wide Multi-sector Multi- industry WORKERS UNION
Why is the green line above the red line when it’s number is less than ?
Would be better with the monthly cost of mortgage instead of the price of the house sale given the range of interest rates.
Also I assume that the college cost is the amount actually paid and not the sticker cost (which is often not the true cost to most students)
Don’t like it don’t go to college. Most US students can save a bunch of money by doing their first to years while living at home and doing a community/state college for their associates. Also most college grads earn more than the average and more people are going to school so the data is skewed in multiple ways. People are becoming more entitled and less motivated in my opinion.
This shit is not beautiful. But I AM really glad I never had children.
It would appear that the entire purpose of this graph is to highlight how expensive education is, but by removing 2-year degrees and not using net cost you’re completely poisoning the data and misrepresenting reality. This is a bad, misrepresentation graph. The lowest quintile actually pays LESS now, inflation adjusted, than they did in 1990.
You’re essentially trying to look at what SUVs cost over time and saying that cars are really expensive now.
![[OC] Growth in U.S. Income, Housing Cost, and Education Cost (1950-2025)](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/bvykaieacrpf1-1920x1024.png)
22 comments
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Case-Shiller Index, National Center for Education Statistics, made with seaborn
Housing costs dont look right at all… everything in my area doubled in price 2021 and never really came down or came down only a little bit.
As I tell younger people all the time: I don’t have student debt because college education was much cheaper when I got mine (late 80s).
I’m not smarter than you. I’m not better with money than you. I’m just older than you.
Education has a higher return on investment than housing, especially at these levels. The more you learn the more you earn.
Is that sticker price for education? Cause no one pays sticker price
So does that mean 1973 ushered in a forever recession in the US?
I really wish there would be more push back on the colleges and universities for this. No one ever seems to want to blame them
Universities really started a racket. Bloated administrations, state-of-the-art facilities that most students don’t use, and an endless amount of money for sports (which has nothing to do with academia. It provides income, but never reduces tuition or pay the athletes that are bringing in this money.)
Hrm. It occurs to me that another graph that would follow the 4 year degree trend is healthcare costs.
People want X, government offers to help pay but leave the profits private, businesses that sell X raise prices because they know the government is paying.
What exactly did COVID do to make college more expensive?
For Pete’s sake — people were online!
I don’t know if redditors do charity.
When you give money to the food bank or whatever, $1000 is a huge fucking number. People go crazy when they get that.
When you give money for education even a cool $1,000,000 only pays for one family with 3 kids at private colleges. It’s basically nothing.
This is what happens when you let dumb 18 year olds take out massive loans to universities who are more than happy to take advantage of that free money by increasing prices every year thanks to government backing
I think I remember seeing some crazy statistic somewhere that a majority of universities are mostly operating in the red, and a lot of what brings them into the black is either sports or patents. Which is wild to think about considering that the average amount that colleges get from each student a year is $32k…
Very few people pay the sticker cost of tuition. The net cost of tuition has stayed flat for a long time.
That’s not what I meant- I know they are audited to account for the money they spend. That’s worthless to curtail spending.
I mean a prospective audit to force them to show how each new dollar would be spent. That every future dollar would have to be justified. There is no way what they are spending is legitimate. There is no way they need the administration that they have. They have bled America dry for too long
You’d think the increase in cost would somehow reflect the quality of the education and eventual earnings of the student, but that connection is fuzzy if it exists at all.
We need a Nation-wide Multi-sector Multi- industry WORKERS UNION
Why is the green line above the red line when it’s number is less than ?
Would be better with the monthly cost of mortgage instead of the price of the house sale given the range of interest rates.
Also I assume that the college cost is the amount actually paid and not the sticker cost (which is often not the true cost to most students)
Don’t like it don’t go to college. Most US students can save a bunch of money by doing their first to years while living at home and doing a community/state college for their associates. Also most college grads earn more than the average and more people are going to school so the data is skewed in multiple ways. People are becoming more entitled and less motivated in my opinion.
This shit is not beautiful. But I AM really glad I never had children.
It would appear that the entire purpose of this graph is to highlight how expensive education is, but by removing 2-year degrees and not using net cost you’re completely poisoning the data and misrepresenting reality. This is a bad, misrepresentation graph. The lowest quintile actually pays LESS now, inflation adjusted, than they did in 1990.
You’re essentially trying to look at what SUVs cost over time and saying that cars are really expensive now.
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