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Originally Posted by RainMaker
Previous generations paid significantly less for their college education. This was due to massive investment in education by our government (both state and federal).
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I think this is the same flawed approach to thinking about education that we often have in healthcare. The world simply isn't the same as it was. Using your 50-year timeline, we spend more as a % of GDP on education now than we did in 1970, at which time it was sharply on the rise from previous levels.
Specialization of labor, training, overdependence on college education as compared to vocational skills as I've talked about in the past, all of these have had an impact. It simply isn't true to frame it as 'too bad we won't invest like we did in the past'. To do free college for everyone or whatever you have to be willing to invest several orders of magnitude more than has been done before.
There's definitely an argument to be made for that, but this isn't it. Some aspects of life cost more now largely because of the advances we've made - there are possibilities available that simply weren't there a half-century ago at *any* price.