"In other words going to hum drum community college and state school put us in precisely the same employment positions as people who paid 4 to 5 times as much."

It's no doubt more expensive today, the school budgets are different, tuition is different, grants are less available. But it's still possible to go from high school to an advanced degree for the price of a low-end family sedan instead of a Porsche.

Using today's dollars here's what my education would cost today (minus books because I have no way of knowing what the cost of used books for all of the courses would be plus most courses honestly don't use the books and aren't needed).

Community college: 2 years, A.S. degree (okay, 2 A.S. degrees, but that's not the point). 60 credits. ~$140 per credit in my area. Total: $8400.

That's the first two years of the undergrad down.

Transfer to local state college that possesses an agreement with the local community college to transfer the A.S. and place the student as a junior.

Current tuition around $9k per year. So $18k to finish up the undergrad.

Total undergrad tuition from the local state school $26,500.

Add $18k for the grad program. $44,500.

Now subtract Pell grants (only available for the undegrad): $5500 per year or $22000 for the undergrad. (it was I believe $6500 when I went so there's that).

Final tuition $22500 in 2012 dollars.

Which isn't too bad, only $7500 more than what I paid in 2001.

Of course there's books and such, but like I said usually you can get them used, don't need them at all, and can return them after the semester and get some of the money back. I'm also not counting housing, food, other misc expenses, which is a significant expense for many students. One school I looked at charges ~$20k for housing and meal plan.

By comparison, MIT is $20,885 per term. In other words, even before Pell grants, my entire program, from High School to Graduate Degree costs around what one year costs there.

Tufts university, another well regarded school, run $41,998 per year.

Sidenote: it's interesting how hard it is to find tuition and rates at expensive schools. I picked MIT and Tufts because they were relatively forthcoming about it (even if the information was buried someplace). Other schools play fun games by showing per credit rates, and leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how many credits their major requires, then do the math to figure out their tuition. Or they show per credit rates after financial aid for a family of the median income or other such nonsense. My favorite is where they'll list their tuition, and then not make it clear if it's per semester or per year. Stanford's tuition rates are almost absurdly cryptic (when the tuition rates page is even up) -- for the record it's $40,050 per year, add in other expenses and it's $52,341 per year or around $200k for an undergraduate degree, 10 times my program which gets you a graduate degree.

It's also very telling when most non-state schools I look at feature "financial aid" on the front page of their site. They know their tuition is too high.

Second sidenote: Tufts recommends $800 per year for textbooks if anybody wants to figure that in.

The reason why it's virtually impossible to get tuition & prices at expensive schools is because it's socialist. "From each according to ability, to each according to need." Tuition at MIT is free if you (or your parents) make under $100K/year. Same with Stanford.

The price you pay for any income range between there and full price depends upon this incredibly convoluted form, the FAFSA, that basically involves listing every asset and income source available to you, and then the college quoting a price back to you, which will be some combination of parental contribution, work/study, and loans, with the remainder made up by grants from the college.

Sticker price at Amherst when I went was just over $40K/year, including room & board. My parents actually paid about $12K/year, I think, with another couple thousand in loans for me.

Right. And I think this is a whole different and also entirely interesting topic. I'm constantly surprised how many families don't simply "cut loose" their 18 year old so that they have virtually no income when filling out their FAFSA paperwork. It almost guarantees favorable student aid.

More importantly, when private universities do post their tuition, they don't post them as "max tuition pending review of financial status", but increasingly they are as no reasonable person will pay something closing in on a quarter million dollars for an undergraduate degree (I'm thinking tuition, books, supplies, food, housing, the whole shebang) that some schools these days are commanding. And I think it's because the universities spend quite a bit of effort trying to figure out how to shift the tuition to a deferment rather than a waiver or reduction. So we get a "tuition" link right next to the "financial aid" link and a wink and nod from the school because surely everybody knows those rates are negotiable.

I think I return to my main point which is that a decent undergrad education in the U.S. doesn't really have to cost $100k-$250k no matter the school one attends. However, the ridiculous rates private schools post doesn't help things. Their actual average tuition rate is likely much much lower - and the full price is a "penalty rate" for coming from money.

What's troubling is how a relatively simple breakdown like I provided earlier up this thread or yours seems to be a great mystery.