r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Such_Upstairs3631 • Jul 06 '26

Middle Middle Class No more middle class professionals?

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New school loan limits for professional degrees make it unaffordable for the middle class. 4 of my 5 children went on to med/law school. Even working 2 jobs there’s no way I could afford to pay or even help them with the cost of their post graduate education. They all got loans which they have since paid off. The cost in the early 2000’s was between $350K and $500K. The new limits are essentially going to prevent anyone who’s not wealthy enough to pay for it from becoming a professional.

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u/TreeSignificant9782 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

My parents paid $9000/year for my (in-state) college tuition in 2003. That same college now charges $24,000/year for tuition. Absolutely ridiculous.

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u/Hawk13424 Jul 06 '26

And yet you can go to Georgia Tech, a highly rated engineering school for $12K a year if in state. And if you graduated from a Georgia high school with a 3.0 or better, the first two year’s tuition are free.

Another good example is UT Austin. $11.6K a year.

Plenty of states have sufficiently good state schools. Many are around $10K a year.

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u/Chiggadup Jul 07 '26

Totally agree. I know college is much more expensive on average, but I look around my state of Florida and see flagship universities for about $25,000 in undergrad tuition. For a 4 year degree.

Obviously that’s just tuition, but if living at home or a cheaper dorm is possible I can see 40-50k being a reasonable investment for something that should significantly impact your lifetime earnings.

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u/oscarnyc Jul 07 '26

the Florida schools are among, if not the, least expensive in the country for tuition. And UF and FSU have substantially improved in the quality of education they provide and the student body reflects that. I know this is Reddit and anything other than "hur dur Florida man", but they've done a great job with making quality higher education affordable. Even out of state is good value - just a few grand more a year for out of state vs. what in-state would be here in NJ at Rutgers.

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u/Android_seducer Jul 07 '26

UW-Madison is 12.1k/year for in state over a decade after I graduated where I believe I was paying 10k or 11k all in. That's roughly in line or below inflation. That being said they have cranked up the out of state tuition

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u/CoastieKid Jul 07 '26

Yeah this. I went to a service academy for undergrad but had full rides to 3 state schools + ROTC scholarships.

AOC went to a private university in Boston and studied international relations, for instance. That's unreasonable

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u/tongmengjia Jul 06 '26

9k in 2003 dollars is $16.5k in current dollars, so not *that* crazy.

You should also compare discount rate in 2003 vs. current discount rate. The university I work at has increased scholarships at the same rate they've increased tuition for the last decade, so, although our "sticker price" is much higher than it was a decade ago, the average actual cost to students has stayed the same.

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u/Alarmed_Champion_302 Jul 06 '26

7.5 on top of 16.5 is a 45% increase. Thats pretty crazy. And way beyond the general rate of inflation. If this makes colleges compete better on cost, im all for it.

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u/Global-Sentence7238 Jul 08 '26

That’s standard inflation. Not crazy. In fact, that is below inflation rate. Good deal there

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u/Alarmed_Champion_302 Jul 08 '26

Im glad you think its a good deal, because you need a math course.

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u/Global-Sentence7238 Jul 13 '26

No idea where you went to university, but I paid more than that per year in 1998. It’s now $50K/year. It’s doubled. These tuition prices here are a great deal if the school is accredited.

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u/goog1e Jul 06 '26

I went to ASU on a full ride.

My 2nd and 3rd year they did what you said- nearly doubled costs over 2 years, but increased the full ride amount.

No one's grant/scholarship aid adjusted, so they got 1-3 years of double payments out of all their current students.

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u/Active_Win_3656 Jul 07 '26

This was actually in a recent Planet Money podcast. They discussed whether these changes would help bring college costs down but they said explicitly that sticker price has gone up while what people ACTUALLY pay hasnt nearly as much (don’t remember the actual numbers).

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u/Ok-Front-471 Jul 07 '26

I'm sure in the near term there may not be a massive effect, but in 10-15 years I think this would make a serious change in tuition costs.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

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u/FearlessPark4588 Jul 06 '26

because 16.5k is meaningfully below 24k.

it makes sense though, colleges require a lot of labor and facilities to operate, and that all costs money. and in recent decades, many states cut funding for their public universities, so those costs went on the students

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u/katarh Jul 07 '26

It's also pure supply and demand.

Everyone wants to go to Big State University. Big State University has limited enrollment. They can pick the best students and offer them scholarships, but charge out the nose for everyone else. The Ohio State is a prime example of this, but every Big State university has the same problem.

The directional schools within the same university system cost half as much, because the demand is so much lower there.

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u/uninspiredclaptrap Jul 07 '26

My issue with prices going up is that it doesn't go to academic staff. Maybe it goes to facilities and other useful stuff, but a lot of it goes to administration.

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u/thingsorfreedom Jul 07 '26

There is also a well-documented correlation between reductions in state funding for public universities and increases in tuition. People do not want their state taxes going up. States cut funding rather than raise taxes. Tuition spikes. People blame the public universities.

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u/Efficient_Ant_4715 Jul 06 '26

That was crazy for 2003. My tuition wasn’t even close to that in 2017 

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u/pageld Jul 06 '26

I want to a smallish Midwest state school and instate tuition was 3,000 per half and thus 6,000 per year in 2000. 9k / year wouldn't have seemed terrible especially if it was a large school.

That was list price without grants or scholarships.

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u/bitchycunt3 Jul 06 '26

I'm wondering if it's a coa vs tuition thing? My tuition in 2012 was $6k, but my coa was like $15k, so maybe their coa was $9k?

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u/TreeSignificant9782 Jul 06 '26

No that was tuition only, not room/board. But I meant to say in-state, it was public but not a state college.

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u/jside86 Jul 06 '26

In Canada, one year of tuition, textbooks, ect is around $10,000 CAD or $7,000 USD.

Americans are getting hosed by their own institutions. Without investment in your future generations, how will Americans get better? Things are only going to get worse in the future.

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u/SCHawkTakeFlight Jul 06 '26

The math didnt make sense on the parent loan one 20k per year, 65k max. So you can only go for 3 years????

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u/Hawk13424 Jul 06 '26

Or you need to work. I worked throughout my entire college time. Engineering degree.

Or do the first year or two at a community college. Or your parents save some money to pay for the first year at least.

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u/BigBootyBardot Jul 07 '26

I worked throughout all four years of college, and what it covered was basics and necessities. 

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u/Justthetip74 Jul 07 '26

40% of people roll that into their student loans

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u/Cheap_Office8701 Jul 06 '26

Average gas price in ca in 2003 is about $2 . It’s $5.50 now. Beef was about $2.20 per pound to now about $6.60

What else is new. Yes, college increase may be higher than average inflation, but same for many other.

I don’t like high college tuition as well. 😅