There is both good and bad news regarding the rising cost of undergrad educations.
The good news regarding the rising expenses for college education is that the United States makes loan funds easily available to students to pursue their vocational. undergrad, grad and professional education.
The bad news is that funds made easily available by the United States for students to borrow to finance their education allows schools to raise tuition and fees with knowledge that their students can merely borrow additional money without causing any significant decline in applicants.
High schoolers and their parents hopefully understand that the SUNY and CUNY systems provide solid educations without the debt or costs of privates.
Many of the posters on this site that are over 55 yeas old frequently give uplifting stories of how they worked two jobs during their summers and jobs after school to pay their St.John's tuition. Unfortunately the days that a St. John's student is able to work (by legal means) to pay all or even most of their tuition have long passed.
With the easy availability of student loan money St.John's has followed the lead of most other private schools and steadily raised costs without any seeming concern for the debt its undergrads incur. Information published by The College Board indicates that even with the publicized financial assistance which St.John's claims it awards, the average indebtedness at St.John's undergrad student at graduation is a crippling $35,451 compared with the more reasonable debt of graduates at the following SUNY and CUNY schools:
... SUNY Stony Brook $20,397
... SUNY Oneonta $13,697
... CUNY Queens $17,700
... CUNY Hunter $9,000
My reference to St.John's is not to necessarily single out St.John's for criticism although its undergrad debt appears to be larger than others similarly ranked. Undergrads at most private colleges in the New York region graduate with significant debt albeit generally less than St.John's.
For many years I have had friendly disagreements with The Honorable "OldFan" regarding this topic. My belief is that the business model of St. John's is outdated and that it is immoral for St.John's to accept students in distressed economic times for Degrees in run of the mill majors (i.e. social sciences, education, et al.) who are then saddled with massive debt when those students could have attended a SUNY or CUNY school and not incurred a likely life altering debt.
St.John's was founded in 1870 upon the noble mission of providing education to the masses but that mission was set at a time that there were very little opportunity for students, particularly immigrants to get an education. The St.John's graduate in bygone years was not saddled with massive debt. Things have changed. Neither the SUNY nor CUNY systems existed in 1870 when St.John's was founded. The SUNY and CUNY systems now provide less costly opportunities to the masses which did not exist when St.John's undertook its noble mission.
My hope is that St.John's remakes its model by reducing the size of its undergrad student enrollment which would allow St.John's to increase financial aid to enrolled students to reduce student debt while at the same time enhancing the academic quality of students attending St.John's and boosting its academic brand. The applicants that are not admitted to St.John's because of the reduced class size will have ample educational opportunities through the SUNY and CUNY systems and will incur far less debt.
OK, that is my proposal. Lets hear the criticisms of my proposal from those posters that graduated from St.John's in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. When you respond to criticize please indicate what debt you graduated with during your time at St.John's during the 1950's, 1960's or 1970's.
Thanks.
