As I attended my oldest grandson’s high school graduation ceremony this past weekend, I thought about the general trends of higher education. I wonder how the continuing upward spiral of costs will play out in classical economic terms.

People are generally shocked and amazed when I tell them of my own educational experience. I graduated from Truman High School 56 years ago. Having been granted a Curator’s Scholarship to Mizzou in Columbia, I received free tuition. In the fall of 1970, that was a whopping $460 per year. I don’t remember whether it was higher my sophomore year or not. Room and board for nine months was $895.

For this next year beginning in August, the estimated tuition costs are $14,764 to $18,852, depending upon one’s major. At the lowest cost, this is 32 times the 1970-71 rate. If compared to a gallon of regular gasoline, the gas—then about 19 cents–would now cost $6.08.

As these college costs have skyrocketed, the community colleges gained a new acceptability and perhaps respect as parents and students could see that learning the basics in two years at a much lower cost was financially rewarding. One can still enter their work or professional life after graduating from the more prestigious university with only two years of exorbitant tuition.

As of 2025, the total student debt in the United States was reported to be $1.83 Trillion. Almost $1.7T is federal program debt. (Sourced from the Education Data Initiative, Lending Tree, and the Federal Reserve.) According to the Brookings Institution, the same total for the year 2000 was $387B. So 26 more years have given the US almost 4.7 times the level of debt. Is this sustainable?

After two years, I miraculously was admitted to transfer to Stanford University in 1972 and paid $6,000 in tuition. Of interest to me is that its tuition for the next year is $67,731, only 11 times the rate of 54 years ago. And that cost was frozen from this last year to the upcoming year. I certainly would not have guessed that Missouri’s public university would have risen almost three times the percentage of increase for Stanford. The number of students at Mizzou is certainly not that many more.

As we now know, not everyone who went to college in the past 50 years needed to attend. They would not have had the debt with which they entered the work force and they would have probably been happier providing skills now in short supply such as welding, electrical, plumbing and the like. Or they would have been just as well off attending the affordable community college.

In economics, it is said that high prices are the solution for high prices. Either the demand will reduce or the supply of a good or service will expand through competition. Let’s hope that as a nation, we can figure out the best solutions for our young citizens. In any event, their future should be bright!

(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)