The BBC website has this article, entitled Is an American university degree worth the cost?:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31384217

As far as I can see the article is about bachelor's degrees. How typical are the costs given in the article? Comments about other aspects of the article are also welcome.

The costs are typical for private universities. My daughter attended New York University. It was over $50,000 each year, including the dormitory, but not including food or books. Three years post-graduation (magna cum laude), she earns about 45,000 per year, and shares an apartment with two roommates, because she cannot afford to live on her own.

My son is at Pace University, a 'lesser' university, but the cost is also over $50,000 per year. Just looked up his account. He was charged $30,864 for the Fall semester, and $29,206 for the Spring semester. (The difference seems to be the mandatory health insurance, that was a one-time payment for the entire year.) He still needs to eat and buy books.

Yes, those costs are typical. And without getting financial aid in the way of scholarships, $120,000 in loans for four years seems right. I was surprised the one student had only $10,000 in loans a year. For one reason, when you apply for them, the financial aid officer at the school usually puts down the maximum amount to borrow every semester. I remember arguing with her I didn't need that much. She kept saying I could put the rest in the bank. Except ... It doesn't work that way. The money goes straight to the school. Students don't get a check.

For the one guy with $120,000 in loans, to have paid back $4,000 already seems right too. When taking out a loan, there is the option to pay it all back, with all the interest, starting nine months after you graduate, as long as you are not a student again taking a minimu of six credits. The other option is start paying back the interest only immediately. I know many I went ot school with didn't see a reason to pay back more money, even $5 more, a month with those monthly interest payments. I always paid more than the interest only.

Books for each class are $100 per class, if your lucky. Sometimes more. That price can also be per book and some classes require more than one book. I never lived in a dorm so didn't have to pay for that. But I did have to pay rent then a morts age while a student. (I bought my house shortly after turning 20.)

Many states (I don't know how many, it may even be all 50) have a public university system. If you are a resident, the tuition is cheaper, more than half the amount less than some private universities/colleges. But if you aren't a resident of that state and attend a public university, you get charged private tuition rates.

The reason for the nine month delay for paying back student loans is the theory and hope the student will have gotten one of those "good paying jobs" so many hear about by then and be able to afford paying back the loan. I got a bachelor's and a masters at the same time. Education was my hobby and who needs a social life? I also had scholarships for the last two years and was lucky to escape with only $30,000 in loans. This was in 2001.

Very expensive (at least at the private universities)!

This is the current cost of tuition only for one semester at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a public school, the state four year college in Suffolk County:

For nonresidents of New York State: Undergraduate 9,795.00
fees: 1,130.00 total: 10,925.00

For residents of New York State: Undergraduate 3,085.00
Fees: 1,130.00 total: 4,215.00

Both the fees and tuition change on a regular basis.

It's a bit silly to be judging the American education system by a single pricey private school's tuition bills -- especially when you can argue the same point successfully with the considerably lower yet still ridiculously high costs of more typical colleges.

One thing they only mention in passing is books. Wanna know how they're scalping students these days? They know they can't compete with the internet, so colleges take a book, request a chapter or two cut out of it, change the cover and call it "Custom Edition For Our School" and thus charge double for it (often upwards of $200) and ensuring that they have a monopoly over it being bought and sold. It's such a hasty job that they don't even remove references in the book's index to the pages that are missing. Book prices are about double what they were when I was in college 10 years ago, and I thought things were pretty bad then.

Even better, a lot of courses are now requiring online subscriptions to places like Pearson, etc. Those can easily cost $100 or more on top of your $200 book. Their main purpose seems to be making it somewhat easier for the professors (keeping track of grades, auto-generating homework), but all costs get passed straight to the students. Having helped students with them a lot over the past few years, I can assure you that they are often unbelievably picky about how you enter answers, and there are serious content issues that require a lot of wrangling to get fixed (assuming that ever actually happens, which is sometimes).

The prices you are all quoting for books seem cheap to this Canadian. We were happy when a textbook was only $100.

The high cost is why I am currently teaching in Korea and paying off my student loans rather than going back to get my master's degree, which I hope to do eventually...

Far out. I often listen to Dave Ramsey podcast and, having never gone to uni here, I probably know more about the US system than the Australian one :p. But I do know that you don't start paying back on your higher education loans until you start earning a certain amount of money.

Is it a case of people not really thinking of the long term consequences or borrowing what can be a huge amount of money so young?

Higher education has become very expensive in the US. There is a federal grant system, Pell grants. But the funding has been cut so much, any money from it, if you get any at all, doesn't even make a sand grain sized dent in the cost. First time I went to college (or university), I had a scholarship that covered tuition. And I got a Pell grant for $4,000 or so. I worked for a few years and went back full time, which cut my income. That time my Pell grant was $50. It must have cost more to do the paper work for that. I never got another Pell grant despite fluctuations in income.

Even when savings accounts are set up for college costs, the actual cost has gone up so fast, parents and kids cannot save enough, unless they are related to a robber baron family. Even working full-time while attending school full-time cannot pay for the costs. Besides exhaustion for years, that plan doesn't really allow the student the chance to get the most out of going to school. I fell asleep in class more than once due to that plan, including during a midterm once. I'm lucky that, for the most part, I had sympathetic professors. The general rule (or hope) is more education = higher earning power later in life. So unless someone wins a tax free multi-state lottery that hasn't had a winner for a year, massive amounts of money have to be borrowed.

Do you think there is anything that can be done? Because where you said " Even working full-time while attending school full-time cannot pay for the costs" is just nuts!

I doubt it and yes.

Good grief, that is a huge amount.

What does it cost in other countries for a four year and two year degree (the American equivalent of a Bachelor's and an Associate's degree?

In England* most undergraduate courses last for three years and the cost of tuition ranges from about £6,600 to £9,000 pounds a year for home and European Union (EU) students, depending on the university. For students from outside the EU the fees are at least double.

The National Union of Students estimates the cost of living away from home at an average of about £12,000 outside London and about £13,400 in London. (The figure for the cost of living outside London seems a shade high to me).

For a quick, simple conversion into USD multiply by 1.5 but in practice you'd have to pay a little more. (Today the pound closed at USD1.5349 (middle rate).

*Fees for Scottish students in Scotland and for Welsh students throughout the UK are lower and Northern Ireland has its own arrangements.

See: http://www.topuniversities.com/student-i...t-cost-study-uk

Education costs are out of hand. My nephew's tuition for 1 year of a private high school will be more than I spent for 3 years at Rutges University(State University of New Jersey). My advice: get a civil service job.

Except many civil service jobs now require you to take continuing education credits to keep your job. For some, such as teachers in New York State, a master's degree is required to get the job. Then the pay is low, unless one is the superintendent of schools, which generally requires a doctorate.

My niece is a teacher. She was thrilled to get a job with starting pay of $32,000. She went to a public university, won scholarships, and my brother (her dad) had saved for her education since she was born. She's still living with dad because many of her friends became teachers and they would need a small apartment with 6-8 of them as roommates to meet expenses. She found any job she could while in school, including mucking out stables, and still has tens of thousands in debt.

In other words, even as young adults they have to share bedrooms - or have I misunderstood something?

That's not sharing a house. That's sharing a one bedroom apartment or a small two bedroom apartment.

Wow.
I'm going to guess that the parents are getting themselves into debt as well to put the kids through? Or would it all go on a kid's student loan. It must, in some cases, delay people starting buying homes .. marriages .. kids .. with that much debt over their heads.

I'm confused. Your niece is a teacher, making $32,000 a year. Her friends are teachers, who presumably also make that salary. Where do they live that 6-8 people would have to bunk in a small apartment to make ends meet?

$32,000 is not a large starting salary. She teaches music and special ed so she actually has a higher starting salary than other teschers in her district. No, it isn't a lower income district. Maybe it's because we live on Long Island in New York where pretty much everything is more expensive than the most of the country.

As for Copago's question, there are loans for parents called PLUS loans. But most of the money borrowed is borrowed by the students from the federal gov't without any co-signer needed.

My daughter makes $45,000 a year, and needs two roommates in order to be able not to live at home. Most new graduates are looking at 10 years of paying back student loans, so whatever their starting salary, it is immediately diminished by the fact of the loans. Forget about saving for a house, much less retirement.

Presumably, most college students and their parents think that, despite the years of debt lying ahead, a degree is on balance worthwhile - or do many college graduates seriously say that the whole thing was a waste of time and money?

This prompts me to ask what kinds of jobs are available to people who want to earn full time after successfully completely high school.

I think that most college graduates, and their parents, think it was worth it. In general, the jobs, as well as the pay, are better with a degree, than without.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything... from homeless graduates, to Bill Gates, who attended, but did not graduate from, Harvard.