Literature Review #4

1.     

2.      Thelin, John. "Why Did College Cost So Little? Affordability and Higher Education a

Century Ago?" Society 52.6 (Dec. 2015): 585-589.

3.      The reading discusses the question of why college is so expensive today in relation to how it was 100 years ago. College was a lot cheaper back then and its’ costs were kept low, even when adjusted for inflation. However, the benefits were not nearly as high as they are now.

4.      John Thelin is a professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Kentucky. He is also an author and his latest book, A History of American Higher Education was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

6. “For example, annual tuition at a prestigious, private East Coast university remained constant over two decades at about $120 to $150 per year (indexing for inflation, this would be the equivalent of a tuition charge of about $3000 today).” (586)

“Dependence on low costs suggested drastically lean curriculum and services. Academic advising was informal if offered at all.” (587)

“In conclusion, one answer to the question, “Why did college cost so little?” was that, unfortunately, a century ago often colleges – even those celebrated as “Great American Universities” – provided so little.” (589).

7. This information is valuable to my research because it shows that colleges were not always so expensive and that there obviously has been a rise. Although the direct causes are not mentioned, it is interesting to note that the prices of colleges were so inexpensive back then because they did not offer a lot to their students but nowadays colleges offer everything they can to a student.