See
Is College Tuition Really Too High?
by Adam Davidson in the NY Times magazine. Excerpt:
"In 1974, the median American family earned just under $13,000 a year. A new home could be had for $36,000, an average new car for $4,400. Attending a four-year private college cost around $2,000 a year: affordable, with some scrimping, to even median earners. As for public university, it was a bargain at $510 a year. To put these figures in 2015 dollars, we’re talking about median household income of $62,000, a house for $174,000 and a sticker price of $21,300 for the car, $10,300 for the private university and $2,500 for the public one.
A lot has changed since then. Median family income has fallen to about $52,000, while median home prices have increased by about two-thirds."
The timeline chart below is from the U.S. CENSUS BUREAU report
Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013. If you look at the line for all races, it is just a bit under $50,000 in
1974 and just a bit above that in 2013 (all in 2013 dollars). Also, why
would we have such a different answer using household income vs. family
income? The annual report by the Census Bureau I think only reports median household income.
I've read on other blogs that household income is the problem. There were fewer households in 1974 because the divorce boom had not happened yet. When people divorce, they create two households instead of one. Instead of combing incomes into one household, two lower numbers are averaged in.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say is true and I think I have heard that before. But why would household median income be up (but just a small amount) when, as Davidson claims, family income is down?
DeleteThey posted a correction
DeleteCorrection: September 27, 2015
An article on Sept. 13 about college tuition referred incorrectly to CUNY when describing a program that helped improve the graduation rates of its community colleges. It is the City University of New York (not Universities). The article also referred incorrectly to a measure of income in a comparison of 1974 income and current income when adjusted for inflation. It is median family income, which has risen to about $64,000 a year from $62,000 in 1974, not median household income. And the article also described incorrectly the change in median family income over the past 40 years. It has risen slightly, not fallen.