Rapid collapse of birth rates in Argentina and South America

[earlyretirement]

Congrats Mike and Wally! I feel your pain with a college freshman and one heading there next year. One of the problems with tuition is you have these consultants running around telling every school they can charge more because they might only be in the 2nd or 3rd quartile relative to peers. So they all keep cranking tuition 10% a year and it's a never-ending upward spiral. The bloat at these places is just out of control, many of them now have more admin staff than faculty (Yale famously has more admin staff than undergrad students). The hypocrisy can be tough to swallow too, they'll blather on and on about social justice when the one thing they have direct control over that could actually affect social justice is the cost of university. But... we swallow it because they're our kids 🙂

Thanks everyone! Ha @CraigM, I know from our many chats on the phone you are in the same situation as I am. Totally agree about these consultants telling all the schools they can charge 5% to 10% more each year. When my daughter got her acceptance I almost cried seeing the prices and then worse when they told us, "but those are last year's prices. The new prices haven't come out yet but it probably will be 7% more than last year".

I don't know how parents save enough these days. My sister just sent me this. Her son got into NYU. I was complaining about the price increase of steaks in BA. She sent me this Whatsapp and told me to shut up. Cost she will pay for 4 years for her son. Insane.

View attachment 10360

Yes, that was one of the 6 schools my daughter applied. Cost of attendance (COA) there is about the same as NYU. It is all shocking.

There doesn't seem like any shortage of kids applying even at these nutso prices! My nephew told me that the acceptance rate is very low and they have kids applying all over the world to get into NYU so it doesn't seem like there is any shortage of parents willing to pay these prices. My guess is until parents refuse to pay these prices the rates will never go down.


Thanks for sharing that article Craig. Interesting. I never imagined an institution could have as many teachers as students!

Very true @Cardiac Arrest! There is a long line of kids around the world trying to get into these Universities with a good reputation and programs. So I think they can probably charge whatever they want and you will have a lot of families that won't have an issue. Even being selective they don't seem to be having any issue with the # of kids fighting to get into many of these schools. They told us the Questrom School of business for incoming freshman only had an 8% acceptance rate for this year. So it sounds like they can take their pick of applicants. Most of my daughter's friends applied there and didn't get in.

The problem that I believe many kids are going to have is there aren't going to be enough jobs especially with AI. I was shocked! I went to a birthday party for a good friend this weekend. I live in a very nice affluent community and most of the people at the birthday party lived in the community or the surrounding area. I was shocked talking to 4 friends that I haven't seen in a while. Their kids graduated last May 2025 and they were unemployed. In speaking to others that had kids graduate last year or this year that all had great jobs lined up, they went to good top ranked schools.

But the others went to very meh schools and was shocking to hear their kids still didn't have jobs and lived at home with the parents. 2 of the kids studied marketing, one studied computer engineering, and one graphic design for making videos. I'm sure they probably would have a much better shot if they moved out of San Diego. Here good jobs are few and far between. But we are running into other friends that had kids graduate last year and still unemployed. And the crazy thing is even those mediocre schools the parents spent a fortune paying out of state tuition.

But one of the people told me her son is valeting cars..... shocking...

 

[lemonade]

Thanks everyone! Ha @CraigM, I know from our many chats on the phone you are in the same situation as I am. Totally agree about these consultants telling all the schools they can charge 5% to 10% more each year. When my daughter got her acceptance I almost cried seeing the prices and then worse when they told us, "but those are last year's prices. The new prices haven't come out yet but it probably will be 7% more than last year".


Yes, that was one of the 6 schools my daughter applied. Cost of attendance (COA) there is about the same as NYU. It is all shocking.


Very true @Cardiac Arrest! There is a long line of kids around the world trying to get into these Universities with a good reputation and programs. So I think they can probably charge whatever they want and you will have a lot of families that won't have an issue. Even being selective they don't seem to be having any issue with the # of kids fighting to get into many of these schools. They told us the Questrom School of business for incoming freshman only had an 8% acceptance rate for this year. So it sounds like they can take their pick of applicants. Most of my daughter's friends applied there and didn't get in.

The problem that I believe many kids are going to have is there aren't going to be enough jobs especially with AI. I was shocked! I went to a birthday party for a good friend this weekend. I live in a very nice affluent community and most of the people at the birthday party lived in the community or the surrounding area. I was shocked talking to 4 friends that I haven't seen in a while. Their kids graduated last May 2025 and they were unemployed. In speaking to others that had kids graduate last year or this year that all had great jobs lined up, they went to good top ranked schools.

But the others went to very meh schools and was shocking to hear their kids still didn't have jobs and lived at home with the parents. 2 of the kids studied marketing, one studied computer engineering, and one graphic design for making videos. I'm sure they probably would have a much better shot if they moved out of San Diego. Here good jobs are few and far between. But we are running into other friends that had kids graduate last year and still unemployed. And the crazy thing is even those mediocre schools the parents spent a fortune paying out of state tuition.

But one of the people told me her son is valeting cars..... shocking...

What will everyone do when there aren't enough jobs to go around?

 

[GlasgowJohn]

What will everyone do when there aren't enough jobs to go around?

very good question, @lemonade

 

[Blockchain]

What will everyone do when there aren't enough jobs to go around?

Elon Musk says that everyone will have a robot and no one will have to work. 🤣🤣 He says that there will be a basic universal income. That companies will be rolling in money.

I don't buy that. The poor and middle class won't be able to buy robots. The rich will get richer and the poor poorer. There won't be enough jobs to go around. Think of all the landscape, construction, house cleaning and other blue collar jobs that will all disappear. Where will the money come from the Universal basic income? The US is already broke and in debt.

I think the chances of civil war before they really gave a basic income. Probably why gold prices are skyrocketing.

 

[CraigM]

There doesn't seem like any shortage of kids applying even at these nutso prices! My nephew told me that the acceptance rate is very low and they have kids applying all over the world to get into NYU so it doesn't seem like there is any shortage of parents willing to pay these prices. My guess is until parents refuse to pay these prices the rates will never go down.


Thanks for sharing that article Craig. Interesting. I never imagined an institution could have as many teachers as students!

I wish they were referring to the number of teachers, at least kids would be getting a great education there 🙂 That figure is just for administrators, which are the bureaucrats of universities. The number of administrators at US colleges has absolutely exploded the past 20 years, and tuition costs along with them.

 

[Betsy Ross]

I wish they were referring to the number of teachers, at least kids would be getting a great education there 🙂 That figure is just for administrators, which are the bureaucrats of universities. The number of administrators at US colleges has absolutely exploded the past 20 years, and tuition costs along with them.

Yes I was going to say probably a very small fraction are teachers. It is like here in Argentina where Milei fired many public employees. They weren't really doing anything and drawing a salary. I would guess it's the same situation where they could fire many and you wouldn't feel any difference. I don't see any public services suffering with all of these public employee terminations.

It is shocking to read. Craig after reading your article I went down the wormhole to see and it's shocking to read about. I had no idea it got this bad. No wonder these universities are charging what they are!

 

[CraigM]

Yes I was going to say probably a very small fraction are teachers. It is like here in Argentina where Milei fired many public employees. They weren't really doing anything and drawing a salary. I would guess it's the same situation where they could fire many and you wouldn't feel any difference. I don't see any public services suffering with all of these public employee terminations.

It is shocking to read. Craig after reading your article I went down the wormhole to see and it's shocking to read about. I had no idea it got this bad. No wonder these universities are charging what they are!

Agreed Betsy. Last year the University of Michigan closed it's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after an expose showed they had over 160 administrators. Think of the annual cost of 160 people with salaries, healthcare, pension plans, office costs etc. And that is just for DEI which is a very new institution.

 

[VINO]

Agreed Betsy. Last year the University of Michigan closed it's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after an expose showed they had over 160 administrators. Think of the annual cost of 160 people with salaries, healthcare, pension plans, office costs etc. And that is just for DEI which is a very new institution.

But how does that happen Craig? Do you have a link to the expose? I wonder if these were new hires or were they already working for University of Michigan? Did they just move to other departments there or get fired? Sounds like Argentina! 🤣

 

[Edmonton]

Agreed Betsy. Last year the University of Michigan closed it's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after an expose showed they had over 160 administrators. Think of the annual cost of 160 people with salaries, healthcare, pension plans, office costs etc. And that is just for DEI which is a very new institution.

Where does all the money come from? Just tuition? Now I understand why tuition is so expensive! But I would guess once they fire all of these people the tuition never goes down. Just keeps going up.