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Society
Published in: Society 6/2015

19-10-2015 | Social Science and Public Policy

Why Did College Cost So Little? Affordability and Higher Education a Century Ago

Author: John R. Thelin

Published in: Society | Issue 6/2015

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Abstract

Public concern about rising costs of higher education in the United States often leads students and their parents along with policy makers to argue that college has become unaffordable. The claim that the price of college today is “too high” is problematic because it is untestable without historical context on how the costs and price of college have changed over time. This analysis attempts to remedy that void by connecting past and present in looking at college tuition and other expenses from a century ago.
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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
Donna M. Desrochers, Colleen Lennihan, and, Jane V. Wellman, Trends in College Spending: Where does the Money Come From? Where Does the Money Go? What Does the Money Buy? (Washington, D.C.: The Delta Cost Project of the AIR, 2009). Robert Archibald and David Feldman, Why Does College Cost So Much? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). John R. Thelin, The Rising Costs of Higher Education (Santa, Barbara, California: ABC Clio Publishers, 2013).
 
2
Jim Kuhnhenn and Kimberly Hefling, Kimberly (Associated Press), “Obama Calls for Linking Federal Aid to Tuition Costs,” Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader (January 28, 2012) p. A15. Janet Novack “Obama’s Student Loans Paid Off, Will Yours?,” Forbes. Com Personal Finance Blog (June 14, 2011).
 
3
Ronald E. Ehrenberg, Tuition Rising: Why Does College Cost So Much? (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000).
 
4
Robert Archibald and David Feldman, Why Does College Cost So Much? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)
 
5
Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).
 
6
Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Private Power for the Public Good: A History of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1983).
 
7
Edwin E. Slosson, “Preface,” Great American Universities (New York: MacMillan, 1910) p. x.
 
8
Bruce A. Kimball and Benjamin Ashley Johnson, “The Beginning of ‘Free Money’ Ideology in American Universities: Charles W. Eliot at Harvard, 1869–1909,” History of Education Quarterly (May 2012) vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 222–250.
 
9
John R. Thelin, The Attrition Tradition in American Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 2010).
 
10
Adam R. Nelson, Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872–1964 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001) pp. 39–40.
 
11
Jesse Barnard Sears, Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922).
 
Metadata
Title
Why Did College Cost So Little? Affordability and Higher Education a Century Ago
Author
John R. Thelin
Publication date
19-10-2015
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Society / Issue 6/2015
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-015-9953-8

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