January 2022 – By Bob Veres

One of the biggest differences between attending college in the pre-1980s era and today is the enormous cost difference, to the point where virtually every college student has to take out student loans in order to matriculate.  These loans then sit on the graduates’ balance sheet for years and sometimes more than a decade, reducing their standard of living in the early years of employment.  In the 1980-81 school year, tuition at a private, non-profit four-year college cost an average of $11,810 in today’s dollars.  Last year that cost had risen to $38,780.  Tuition at public four-year universities rose from an average of $2,620 to $10,980—again, in today’s dollars.