The Boomer Education Ponzi
"We worked a summer job and paid for college."
The summer job paid for college because the floor moved and tuition didn't. Reagan's 1981 reforms began the shift from grants to loans. The cohort that paid USD 510 a year voted in the cohort that owes USD 37,853. Time to bust the third pillar of the Boomer Truth Regime.
Choose your boomer
The sticker price
Tuition / Year.
What a summer job covered
One Year Of Tuition, In Hours Of Minimum Wage.
What they left with
Zero VS Thirty-Eight Thousand.
The comparison
Three Of Four Countries Charged Zero.
Same cohort. Same year of enrolment. Four policy histories. In Australia, the UK and effectively in 1960s Canada the sticker price for a Boomer-era student was at or near zero. The US is the outlier on price and the leader on debt. Click any tile to switch the boomer.
What this does not count
The Gap Is Bigger Than This.
Every chart on this page understates the gap, not the other way around. Here is what we left out, and which side of the ledger it falls on.
Method and sources
Where These Numbers Come From.
The methodology for the country currently selected. Click a different boomer to switch sources.
References
Sources.
Filter by country. Switch boomer above and the filter follows.