Twenty Interesting charts for 2023
January 1, 2024 10:58 AM Subscribe
Kevin Drum is still blogging. Kevin Drum began blogging in the 2002–2003 era when the practice really took off.
Kevin has a knack for finding, presenting, and trusting the numbers for issues, regardless of his partisan political leanings.
Here are 20 charts from the last year that may surprise you.
Most of those old blogs I followed have long since gone defunct. While Kevin has changed his home several times (Calpundit, the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, and now back to his own personal blog), he’s kept writing blog posts for a couple decades now. Complete with the occasional cat picture or astronomy capture.
Most of those old blogs I followed have long since gone defunct. While Kevin has changed his home several times (Calpundit, the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, and now back to his own personal blog), he’s kept writing blog posts for a couple decades now. Complete with the occasional cat picture or astronomy capture.
It is as @JauntyFedora says (as occasionally happens, I do not need to go look at TFA because I saw it before I got here). But on the other hand I think that Drum has not shared the fate of MattY and Young Ezra, never having had the kind of chance they did to Sell Out.
Or maybe he had the chance but the price wasn't right. I wonder if Drum might have independent means, dating from the dotcom days. In any case, I'm still reading Drum long after giving MattY the boot, and bidding a sad farewell to Young Ezra who I guess probably is not so young anymore. He has his flaws but who among us does not?
For my part, I do wish he would STFU about self-driving cars and AI. For someone with a tech-adjacent background he seems to have an unreasonably hard time understanding what the obstacles to self-driving cars are, and how far they are from being overcome.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:03 PM on January 1 [5 favorites]
Or maybe he had the chance but the price wasn't right. I wonder if Drum might have independent means, dating from the dotcom days. In any case, I'm still reading Drum long after giving MattY the boot, and bidding a sad farewell to Young Ezra who I guess probably is not so young anymore. He has his flaws but who among us does not?
For my part, I do wish he would STFU about self-driving cars and AI. For someone with a tech-adjacent background he seems to have an unreasonably hard time understanding what the obstacles to self-driving cars are, and how far they are from being overcome.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:03 PM on January 1 [5 favorites]
Bonus: Come for the charts, stay for the predictions. See what I mean about AI and cars?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:06 PM on January 1
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:06 PM on January 1
Bonus: Come for the charts, stay for the predictions. See what I mean about AI and cars?
Those are—and I don't say this lightly—some of the whitest predictions I've ever seen.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:08 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
Those are—and I don't say this lightly—some of the whitest predictions I've ever seen.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:08 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
I found the predictions too … optimistic, shall we say? But at the same time, he’s understood a lot of things better than me, so who knows.
posted by teece303 at 12:10 PM on January 1
posted by teece303 at 12:10 PM on January 1
Wow, Calpundit, that really takes me back. Next thing you'll tell me is Atrois is still at it. Wait, for real?
posted by gwint at 12:24 PM on January 1 [6 favorites]
posted by gwint at 12:24 PM on January 1 [6 favorites]
Strange to me that he uses total days on strike as a measurement of the strength of the labor movement… not union representation? New organization campaigns? Percentage of successful elections? Successful contract negotiations? Even public opinion of strikes/unions? Strike is usually a last resort negotiation tactic. While success after a long strike does show great union solidarity, when people say it was a huge year for labor I don’t think they’re just talking about the number of strike days.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:37 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:37 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
I have questions about the college costs. First of all, it's only private colleges, so a huge chunk of data is completely missing. Second, it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:41 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:41 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]
CheeseDigestsAll
I have questions about the college costs. First of all, it's only private colleges, so a huge chunk of data is completely missing. Second, it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
This is exactly why I like reading Kevin, and still read him 20 years later. A little digging will generally explain the reasoning. He never argues in bad faith. If you raise a truly substantive issue he’ll address it. And … he doesn’t fudge the data even if it goes against something generally thought to be “true” (whatever that means).
I’ve had to adjust my worldview based on his charts more than once. And that’s a good thing.
posted by teece303 at 12:58 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
I have questions about the college costs. First of all, it's only private colleges, so a huge chunk of data is completely missing. Second, it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
This is exactly why I like reading Kevin, and still read him 20 years later. A little digging will generally explain the reasoning. He never argues in bad faith. If you raise a truly substantive issue he’ll address it. And … he doesn’t fudge the data even if it goes against something generally thought to be “true” (whatever that means).
I’ve had to adjust my worldview based on his charts more than once. And that’s a good thing.
posted by teece303 at 12:58 PM on January 1 [9 favorites]
I used to read a bunch of those political blogs bitd.
The linked post is just such a pure essence of that kind of center lib pundrity. Taking a particular little chart and then generalizing fro it into punchy statement and then plugging that into one of the Narratives... These people think they are avatars of truth and right-thinking but it's just propaganda scutwork.
FWIW Drum specifically is kinda shit on trans issues (anti puberty blockers; generally has a mild case of the anti-activism brain turds a la "gawrsh all those activists, why can't we just turn the heat down and make rational decisions? :3c" because some of us are fighting for our lives and rights and others want to destroy us, and the center has no historical credibility on this, that's why). Though he does at least take stands against the outright anti-trans bigotry of the far right...
I don't think he's made himself a total dumbshit by sipping from the "wokeness is real and it's an existential threat to civilization" chalice, but I bet he's held it in his hand at a party.
it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
I feel like you can swing this and decapitate 80% of the arguments of these nerds.
posted by fleacircus at 1:37 PM on January 1 [13 favorites]
The linked post is just such a pure essence of that kind of center lib pundrity. Taking a particular little chart and then generalizing fro it into punchy statement and then plugging that into one of the Narratives... These people think they are avatars of truth and right-thinking but it's just propaganda scutwork.
FWIW Drum specifically is kinda shit on trans issues (anti puberty blockers; generally has a mild case of the anti-activism brain turds a la "gawrsh all those activists, why can't we just turn the heat down and make rational decisions? :3c" because some of us are fighting for our lives and rights and others want to destroy us, and the center has no historical credibility on this, that's why). Though he does at least take stands against the outright anti-trans bigotry of the far right...
I don't think he's made himself a total dumbshit by sipping from the "wokeness is real and it's an existential threat to civilization" chalice, but I bet he's held it in his hand at a party.
it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
I feel like you can swing this and decapitate 80% of the arguments of these nerds.
posted by fleacircus at 1:37 PM on January 1 [13 favorites]
Those are—and I don't say this lightly—some of the whitest predictions I've ever seen.
Normally I would make a moue of exasperation and move on. But since it's New Year's Day and I have fuck all else to do, please explain. Are they bland and fairly obvious predictions? Indeed, though self-driving cars are going to kill a lot of people before they come to market. What do they have to do with "white"? Unclear.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:47 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
Normally I would make a moue of exasperation and move on. But since it's New Year's Day and I have fuck all else to do, please explain. Are they bland and fairly obvious predictions? Indeed, though self-driving cars are going to kill a lot of people before they come to market. What do they have to do with "white"? Unclear.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:47 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
trusting the numbers for issues
A middle-aged man on the internet making bar charts because he has been able to find two series with annual data (providing zero citations on supporting work, context, or commentary done by domain experts) is perhaps the second least surprising thing possible, only after a young man on the internet doing the same thing.
The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. —Kevin Drum
Too fucking true, Kevin Drum.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 1:52 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
A middle-aged man on the internet making bar charts because he has been able to find two series with annual data (providing zero citations on supporting work, context, or commentary done by domain experts) is perhaps the second least surprising thing possible, only after a young man on the internet doing the same thing.
The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. —Kevin Drum
Too fucking true, Kevin Drum.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 1:52 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
I'm not gonna pile on Drum. I used to read him all the time, and I sometimes agreed with his takes. But he always very obviously came across as a moderately well-to-do white cis guy with no kids, living in sunny California, and none of the issues he discussed ever came remotely close to having any effect on any part of his life*. Easy to be optimistic when that's the case.
I will say he has been a guy who has stubbornly predicted "fully driverless vehicles" were right around the corner for as far back as I can remember, and I read him even when he was Calpundit. Happy to read that he's literally still around, as I thought he had given up all blogging because of his cancer.
*I am a less moderately well-to-do white cis guy with no kids, and I am far more pessimistic than Drum ever was. Maybe it's the climate where I live.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:55 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
I will say he has been a guy who has stubbornly predicted "fully driverless vehicles" were right around the corner for as far back as I can remember, and I read him even when he was Calpundit. Happy to read that he's literally still around, as I thought he had given up all blogging because of his cancer.
*I am a less moderately well-to-do white cis guy with no kids, and I am far more pessimistic than Drum ever was. Maybe it's the climate where I live.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:55 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
To echo others, these should be looked at closely.
Eg, from the comments, the 'column capping' in #5 drastically underrepresents the volume of droning under Obama and underestimates Trump's 'credit' (causation/correlation, blah, blah) for starting the reduction. It's pretty squicky...but hopefully many of these are more creditable.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:09 PM on January 1
Eg, from the comments, the 'column capping' in #5 drastically underrepresents the volume of droning under Obama and underestimates Trump's 'credit' (causation/correlation, blah, blah) for starting the reduction. It's pretty squicky...but hopefully many of these are more creditable.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:09 PM on January 1
I have questions about the college costs. First of all, it's only private colleges, so a huge chunk of data is completely missing.
That's in the underlying reports.
In 2022 for public four-years -- this will be mostly Directional State Universities and Universities of State at City, not flagships -- Average published tuition was about $11K and average net tuition was $2250. There's a nice graph on p18 showing lots of things someone might be interested in.
Second, it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
Maybe. It could be skewed in either direction or unskewed.
I'm guessing you're coming into that thinking of how important it is to talk about median incomes instead of mean incomes. And in that context, it is, because there's effectively no limit on how rich some asshole can get and we have a very small number of very rich people. Those data are heavily right-skewed, which means the mean will be higher than the median and in some cases much higher. But it's just not the case the medians are better than means.
I can't think of any ex ante reason to expect net tuition to be right-skewed or left-skewed. Tuition is right-limited at the published rate -- nobody pays more than that, at least not as tuition. Likewise, net tuition is left-limited somewhere around negative-the-amount-of-room-and-board, but realistically somewhere mildly negative. But really we don't have any information here about the shape of the distribution -- we could have lots of students paying very low net tuition and so be right-skewed, or the modal student might pay full freight so left-skewed.
BUT: "They're using means instead of medians" isn't a strong criticism without more information. Certainly, it would be functionally impossible to see such a huge disparity between rack rate and what's paid without a whole shitload of people for-real and no kidding paying very little tuition. Except...
The way in which the data are weird and not very useful is actually something different, at least at first glance. I'm not going to really dig in to find out, but it looks like the data are simple averages by school. So it at least looks like they're counting 50,000 student Giant State U the same as 2,000 student Little Public LAC instead of weighting by size. In much the same way, their headline numbers are national averages, which is a weird thing to use. Average public rack rate was $11K and average grant aid was $8700, but these data don't show which schools are offering what discounts.
Anyway, these data show average public net tuition down about 10% since 92. This shouldn't be too surprising; that's about when several states (GA, FL, I forget where else) put into place pretty generous and widely-used assistance plans that were notionally merit based (AFAIK mostly intended to slow brain drain), and after Excelsior the median in-state SUNY student pays $0 tuition.
The same set of changes *have* meant that in a lot of states, the sorts of wealthy families that call themselves middle class, people in the top decile but not 0.1%, really are just getting hammered.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:22 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
That's in the underlying reports.
In 2022 for public four-years -- this will be mostly Directional State Universities and Universities of State at City, not flagships -- Average published tuition was about $11K and average net tuition was $2250. There's a nice graph on p18 showing lots of things someone might be interested in.
Second, it's showing average cost, rather than median, so it can easily be skewed.
Maybe. It could be skewed in either direction or unskewed.
I'm guessing you're coming into that thinking of how important it is to talk about median incomes instead of mean incomes. And in that context, it is, because there's effectively no limit on how rich some asshole can get and we have a very small number of very rich people. Those data are heavily right-skewed, which means the mean will be higher than the median and in some cases much higher. But it's just not the case the medians are better than means.
I can't think of any ex ante reason to expect net tuition to be right-skewed or left-skewed. Tuition is right-limited at the published rate -- nobody pays more than that, at least not as tuition. Likewise, net tuition is left-limited somewhere around negative-the-amount-of-room-and-board, but realistically somewhere mildly negative. But really we don't have any information here about the shape of the distribution -- we could have lots of students paying very low net tuition and so be right-skewed, or the modal student might pay full freight so left-skewed.
BUT: "They're using means instead of medians" isn't a strong criticism without more information. Certainly, it would be functionally impossible to see such a huge disparity between rack rate and what's paid without a whole shitload of people for-real and no kidding paying very little tuition. Except...
The way in which the data are weird and not very useful is actually something different, at least at first glance. I'm not going to really dig in to find out, but it looks like the data are simple averages by school. So it at least looks like they're counting 50,000 student Giant State U the same as 2,000 student Little Public LAC instead of weighting by size. In much the same way, their headline numbers are national averages, which is a weird thing to use. Average public rack rate was $11K and average grant aid was $8700, but these data don't show which schools are offering what discounts.
Anyway, these data show average public net tuition down about 10% since 92. This shouldn't be too surprising; that's about when several states (GA, FL, I forget where else) put into place pretty generous and widely-used assistance plans that were notionally merit based (AFAIK mostly intended to slow brain drain), and after Excelsior the median in-state SUNY student pays $0 tuition.
The same set of changes *have* meant that in a lot of states, the sorts of wealthy families that call themselves middle class, people in the top decile but not 0.1%, really are just getting hammered.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:22 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Now that more data is available, we can say pretty conclusively that both property crime and violent crime were either flat or down during the pandemic. However, murder spiked considerably. This is a big mystery since murder rates usually follow violent crime rates pretty closely. As far as I know, nobody has come up with a good theory to explain this.
Domestic violence and intimate partner femicide very nearly doubled in the 5 year period from 2014 to 2019. I cannot imagine those numbers didn't continue to rocket when women were literally locked down in their homes with their abusers.
So that's my theory.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:25 PM on January 1 [8 favorites]
Domestic violence and intimate partner femicide very nearly doubled in the 5 year period from 2014 to 2019. I cannot imagine those numbers didn't continue to rocket when women were literally locked down in their homes with their abusers.
So that's my theory.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:25 PM on January 1 [8 favorites]
I thought he had given up all blogging because of his cancer.He gave up blogging for pay because of his cancer. He didn't feel able to keep doing it on a schedule or whatever. His then-employer (Mother Jones) then gave him a very generous offer (if I remember correctly, unlimited sick leave), but he didn't feel right taking it, and is lucky enough to be in a position where he doesn't really need a job. So, he resigned, and started blogging on his own again, as the mood strikes and as he feels able.
Also, he blogs about his cancer fairly often, I think mostly but definitely not always when test results come back.
posted by Flunkie at 3:38 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
06. It really is all in your genes
Going to the supporting docs for this ... it's a reach from what they measured to what they infer it supports. (Don't get sidelined by the trigger words 'brain volume and structure', please. Or dive into individual responsibility from your generic dice-roll being incongruous versus both population divergence under natural selection as a collective act and blaming an individual for their circumstances rather than being civilised and giving everyone a hand up.)
It says that, if I had an identical twin and showed characteristics like 'reads for pleasure' and 'enjoys listening to music', then that twin would correlate wth my predilections at 0.95 and 0.4, respectively. If I had a non-identical twin and we shared the same safe environment to learn to be a reader, it doesn't say what the correlation was -- you might guess 0.05 as the 'non-genetic' driver to correlation but I don't think the conditional probabilities (or venn diagram) works like that. Especially when a family having time to read, access to books, somewhere warm/quiet/undisturbed to read is about wealth and not genetics, no matter how much wealth you've inherited.
I like the idea that you could infer that a highly correlated spread of intelligence scores for identical twins versus non-correlated spread of intelligence scores for non-identical twins show a genetic component because you've eliminated environmental noise. At the same time, I can't conceive of identical and non-identical twins having an exact same experience of nurture, it's a weakness of the study to conflate the two.
posted by k3ninho at 3:59 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]
Going to the supporting docs for this ... it's a reach from what they measured to what they infer it supports. (Don't get sidelined by the trigger words 'brain volume and structure', please. Or dive into individual responsibility from your generic dice-roll being incongruous versus both population divergence under natural selection as a collective act and blaming an individual for their circumstances rather than being civilised and giving everyone a hand up.)
It says that, if I had an identical twin and showed characteristics like 'reads for pleasure' and 'enjoys listening to music', then that twin would correlate wth my predilections at 0.95 and 0.4, respectively. If I had a non-identical twin and we shared the same safe environment to learn to be a reader, it doesn't say what the correlation was -- you might guess 0.05 as the 'non-genetic' driver to correlation but I don't think the conditional probabilities (or venn diagram) works like that. Especially when a family having time to read, access to books, somewhere warm/quiet/undisturbed to read is about wealth and not genetics, no matter how much wealth you've inherited.
I like the idea that you could infer that a highly correlated spread of intelligence scores for identical twins versus non-correlated spread of intelligence scores for non-identical twins show a genetic component because you've eliminated environmental noise. At the same time, I can't conceive of identical and non-identical twins having an exact same experience of nurture, it's a weakness of the study to conflate the two.
posted by k3ninho at 3:59 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]
Those are—and I don't say this lightly—some of the whitest predictions I've ever seen.
The China one seemed a little chest-beatingly optimistic in that it was phrased like a five year Capitalism Marches Ever Towards Victory, and the Waymo one… look, if there’s a company that’s going to pull it off soon then he’s picked the least insane option (as assessed by my personal criteria of “did this company attempt to hire me, a game developer?” Waymo hasn’t hit me up yet, ergo they are not yet proven wholly deranged). Still pretty out there, though.
The rest of the predictions seemed on the boring side of reasonable? I might be too much the white dude to understand what is wrong with them, but I’d like to try.
Drum specifically is kinda shit on trans issues (anti puberty blockers; generally has a mild case of the anti-activism brain turds…)
Oh. Ew. Fuck that, then. Why are discussing this asshole on Metafilter?
posted by Ryvar at 4:23 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
The China one seemed a little chest-beatingly optimistic in that it was phrased like a five year Capitalism Marches Ever Towards Victory, and the Waymo one… look, if there’s a company that’s going to pull it off soon then he’s picked the least insane option (as assessed by my personal criteria of “did this company attempt to hire me, a game developer?” Waymo hasn’t hit me up yet, ergo they are not yet proven wholly deranged). Still pretty out there, though.
The rest of the predictions seemed on the boring side of reasonable? I might be too much the white dude to understand what is wrong with them, but I’d like to try.
Drum specifically is kinda shit on trans issues (anti puberty blockers; generally has a mild case of the anti-activism brain turds…)
Oh. Ew. Fuck that, then. Why are discussing this asshole on Metafilter?
posted by Ryvar at 4:23 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Thanks teece303, I had just started up reading Drum's blog regularly again when he moved back to his own platform but since I find myself visiting Twitter a lot less these days, I have fallen off. The linked post is good, with supporting links for the the charts, and contra many people in this thread Drum is good, actually, and well worth reading.
posted by 3j0hn at 5:04 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
posted by 3j0hn at 5:04 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Looking at the source of the college data, i find the numbers somewhat confusing. For example, in Fig. CP-3, it shows that inflation adjusted costs for a public college has more than doubled since the 90s, though in the last decade, it's mostly flat.
But when they report the net price, they only show data from the last decade (CP-9). Similarly, when they show the amount of aid received, which would have to make up for the excess costs, the numbers only cover the last decade.
Based on that report, i can see that the net cost for the last decade for public schools might be flat, but not since the 90s.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:18 PM on January 1
But when they report the net price, they only show data from the last decade (CP-9). Similarly, when they show the amount of aid received, which would have to make up for the excess costs, the numbers only cover the last decade.
Based on that report, i can see that the net cost for the last decade for public schools might be flat, but not since the 90s.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:18 PM on January 1
Just for the record: I would say I have read at least 75% of Drum’s posts over the last 20 years. I have never seen any evidence he is anti trans. Sure, he’s a CIS white guy so trans issues are not his primary thing, but he is not anti trans at all in my experience, at least.
posted by teece303 at 7:11 PM on January 1 [6 favorites]
posted by teece303 at 7:11 PM on January 1 [6 favorites]
That labor take is… something. “The scale is saying I weigh more than ever, but if you remove my limbs from my total weight, I’m actually right in line with historical averages!”
posted by rhymedirective at 7:26 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 7:26 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
That doesn't seem like a very reasonable interpretation of what he seems to me to be saying. I don't think he's saying the actors' strike somehow doesn't count; rather, he's pointing out that there have been a bunch of years since 2000 that have had a large spike in the number of strike days due to a single large strike, and that they don't seem to have had much of an effect beyond that single large strike (i.e. didn't lead to an increase in striking in future years).
I'm not sure I agree with him in the base idea that "number of strike days" is a good proxy for the overall state of the labor movement, but if I were to grant that for the sake of argument, I think the rest of his argument is not unreasonable.
posted by Flunkie at 7:45 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure I agree with him in the base idea that "number of strike days" is a good proxy for the overall state of the labor movement, but if I were to grant that for the sake of argument, I think the rest of his argument is not unreasonable.
posted by Flunkie at 7:45 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
For example, in Fig. CP-3, it shows that inflation adjusted costs
CP-3 is rack rate tuition and fees, not costs.
Based on that report, i can see that the net cost for the last decade for public schools might be flat, but not since the 90s.
You need to look at the 2007 report too; it covers 1992-2007. When you do, remember that those are in 2007 dollars and not the 2022 dollars he was talking about and not the presumably-2023 dollars in 2023 report you linked to. Here's the conversion of net tuition and fees to 2023 dollars (using CPI, which might not be what they were using):
1992 $2,690
1993 $2,888
1994 $2,949
1995 $2,934
1996 $3,040
1997 $3,070
1998 $2,493
1999 $2,326
2000 $2,204
2001 $2,280
2002 $2,478
2003 $2,918
2004 $3,374
2005 $3,663
2006 $3,678
2007 $3,922
1992's $2690 is indeed just barely higher than 2022's $2670 in 2023 dollars.
The pattern isn't flat. Net tuition was rising quickly in the early 90s, fell in the late 90s, rose sharply again in the 2000s and plateaued at that level until 2020, after which they've been falling.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:13 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
CP-3 is rack rate tuition and fees, not costs.
Based on that report, i can see that the net cost for the last decade for public schools might be flat, but not since the 90s.
You need to look at the 2007 report too; it covers 1992-2007. When you do, remember that those are in 2007 dollars and not the 2022 dollars he was talking about and not the presumably-2023 dollars in 2023 report you linked to. Here's the conversion of net tuition and fees to 2023 dollars (using CPI, which might not be what they were using):
1992 $2,690
1993 $2,888
1994 $2,949
1995 $2,934
1996 $3,040
1997 $3,070
1998 $2,493
1999 $2,326
2000 $2,204
2001 $2,280
2002 $2,478
2003 $2,918
2004 $3,374
2005 $3,663
2006 $3,678
2007 $3,922
1992's $2690 is indeed just barely higher than 2022's $2670 in 2023 dollars.
The pattern isn't flat. Net tuition was rising quickly in the early 90s, fell in the late 90s, rose sharply again in the 2000s and plateaued at that level until 2020, after which they've been falling.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:13 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
I wish the blogosphere were still a thing
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:45 PM on January 1 [7 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:45 PM on January 1 [7 favorites]
I'm sorry but that college chart is total nonsense because the data it comes from is poorly communicated. First, it seems to include loans in student aid, which yes it is student aid, but not student aid that decreases the cost. It includes work study too! Hey you can work to reduce the cost of college. Weird how that works out. And federal loans at $17k dwarf grants ($10k) and tax credits ($400). That's terrible accounting. The charts about cost seem to only include grants (and not federal loans) but they are sorry (I mean the person who made them) in terms of their data representation.
Also, how the heck are housing and food falling in cost when they are rising for everyone else? Somehow, that doesn't get an explanation of the magic that colleges are pulling off there? (other than a silly footnote). Hey kids are tripling up in rooms and eating nothing but ramen for 4 years! Food and housing costs are stable!
Finally, I can agree that mean is occasionally useful, but in this case it is not. Let check in this case:
For public 4 year universities (CP11), 50% pay less than $5k year, 50% pay $5k+, and 15% of parents who make less than $40k a year pay ~40% of their income in college costs for their children. So the "Kohl's (crappy retail discount store) model of college costs - humorous comment from the blog post" is really screwing some people.
Even if you take the data as 'correct', then it begs the question was "college already far too expensive by 1992?".
My honest assessment of the chart in the post is that it is combining minor price increases in community college, combining small increases in small college and online-type educational technological advancements to bury increases in tuition for large numbers of people.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on January 2
Also, how the heck are housing and food falling in cost when they are rising for everyone else? Somehow, that doesn't get an explanation of the magic that colleges are pulling off there? (other than a silly footnote). Hey kids are tripling up in rooms and eating nothing but ramen for 4 years! Food and housing costs are stable!
Finally, I can agree that mean is occasionally useful, but in this case it is not. Let check in this case:
For public 4 year universities (CP11), 50% pay less than $5k year, 50% pay $5k+, and 15% of parents who make less than $40k a year pay ~40% of their income in college costs for their children. So the "Kohl's (crappy retail discount store) model of college costs - humorous comment from the blog post" is really screwing some people.
Even if you take the data as 'correct', then it begs the question was "college already far too expensive by 1992?".
My honest assessment of the chart in the post is that it is combining minor price increases in community college, combining small increases in small college and online-type educational technological advancements to bury increases in tuition for large numbers of people.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on January 2
First, it seems to include loans in student aid, which yes it is student aid, but not student aid that decreases the cost. It includes work study too!
Yes, those are forms of student aid, and they appear in the student aid section.
The prior discussion was about net price. The net price figures, tables, and text are always and only about comparing rack rate tuition and grant aid. Loans and work study aren't part of net price.
Also, how the heck are housing and food falling in cost when they are rising for everyone else? Somehow, that doesn't get an explanation of the magic that colleges are pulling off there? (other than a silly footnote).
I don't know what silly footnote you mean.
AFAICT, these are survey driven measures of what students and their families actually spend, not theoretical statements of what it would cost to do. It's not a measure of how much colleges charge for dorms and meal plans, except that the minority of schools that mandate them throughout attendance are presumably included in the data. Most obviously, housing and food costs can decline if more students commute from home; food especially is a classic place to find giffen goods. They can also decline if students avoid higher-rent apartments and cook more of their own meals.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:51 AM on January 2
Yes, those are forms of student aid, and they appear in the student aid section.
The prior discussion was about net price. The net price figures, tables, and text are always and only about comparing rack rate tuition and grant aid. Loans and work study aren't part of net price.
Also, how the heck are housing and food falling in cost when they are rising for everyone else? Somehow, that doesn't get an explanation of the magic that colleges are pulling off there? (other than a silly footnote).
I don't know what silly footnote you mean.
AFAICT, these are survey driven measures of what students and their families actually spend, not theoretical statements of what it would cost to do. It's not a measure of how much colleges charge for dorms and meal plans, except that the minority of schools that mandate them throughout attendance are presumably included in the data. Most obviously, housing and food costs can decline if more students commute from home; food especially is a classic place to find giffen goods. They can also decline if students avoid higher-rent apartments and cook more of their own meals.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:51 AM on January 2
For public 4 year universities (CP11), 50% pay less than $5k year, 50% pay $5k+, and 15% of parents who make less than $40k a year pay ~40% of their income in college costs for their children.
(a) That's 115%.
(b) That's a circumstance where means are more informative than medians, not less.
(c) That's not who gets screwed under the high-price-large-discounts model. The ones who end up having to pay a susbtantially higher price are the sorts of wealthy families that call themselves middle class, people in the top decile but not 1%. The sorts of people the WSJ writes about not being able to make ends meet.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:01 AM on January 2
(a) That's 115%.
(b) That's a circumstance where means are more informative than medians, not less.
(c) That's not who gets screwed under the high-price-large-discounts model. The ones who end up having to pay a susbtantially higher price are the sorts of wealthy families that call themselves middle class, people in the top decile but not 1%. The sorts of people the WSJ writes about not being able to make ends meet.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:01 AM on January 2
Also, how the heck are housing and food falling in cost when
Wait, where were you seeing housing/food falling, The_Vegetables? Any chance you were reading it backwards? Unless I'm reading it backwards, I'm seeing a 3.7% (public) or 4.4% (private) increase in room & board between 2022-23 and 2023-24 in the big pdf you posted (p. 10).
Or were you looking at the "tuition and fees and housing and food" charts (which do show declines) and assuming those declines were on the housing/food side of things?
posted by nobody at 11:34 AM on January 2
Wait, where were you seeing housing/food falling, The_Vegetables? Any chance you were reading it backwards? Unless I'm reading it backwards, I'm seeing a 3.7% (public) or 4.4% (private) increase in room & board between 2022-23 and 2023-24 in the big pdf you posted (p. 10).
Or were you looking at the "tuition and fees and housing and food" charts (which do show declines) and assuming those declines were on the housing/food side of things?
posted by nobody at 11:34 AM on January 2
Okay, I will admit that that table should be taken behind the woodshed and shot for putting 23/34 on top of 22/23 unlike the other tables in the document.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:41 AM on January 2
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:41 AM on January 2
(a) That's 115%.
No it is not. It's different cohorts. Obviously not all students who go to college have parents who make less than $40k a year.
(c) That's not who gets screwed under the high-price-large-discounts model.
It's not my data, nor my presentation of the data. I'd also say that paying 40% of your income counts as 'getting screwed', but of course the WSJ focuses on high income earners more than low earners. There's also an income chart in the data (CP17a). You could use that data. I'd say that the mean 3rd 40% who went from a mean of $102k earnings in 1991 to a mean of $141k in 2023 are not in fact 'getting screwed', but again that's an average for that quintile - we know not that many households actually earn $140k in that quintile. It's also misleading data. The actual income quintiles are $118k for #4 and $274k for the #5, from the 2022 ACS.
Did you have a hand in writing these reports? I stand by my assertion that they are more marketing material than actual data presentation.
Or were you looking at the "tuition and fees and housing and food" charts (which do show declines) and assuming those declines were on the housing/food side of things?
I'm looking at page 18 CP8 - Net TFHF as peaking and then falling.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:50 AM on January 2
No it is not. It's different cohorts. Obviously not all students who go to college have parents who make less than $40k a year.
(c) That's not who gets screwed under the high-price-large-discounts model.
It's not my data, nor my presentation of the data. I'd also say that paying 40% of your income counts as 'getting screwed', but of course the WSJ focuses on high income earners more than low earners. There's also an income chart in the data (CP17a). You could use that data. I'd say that the mean 3rd 40% who went from a mean of $102k earnings in 1991 to a mean of $141k in 2023 are not in fact 'getting screwed', but again that's an average for that quintile - we know not that many households actually earn $140k in that quintile. It's also misleading data. The actual income quintiles are $118k for #4 and $274k for the #5, from the 2022 ACS.
Did you have a hand in writing these reports? I stand by my assertion that they are more marketing material than actual data presentation.
Or were you looking at the "tuition and fees and housing and food" charts (which do show declines) and assuming those declines were on the housing/food side of things?
I'm looking at page 18 CP8 - Net TFHF as peaking and then falling.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:50 AM on January 2
Drum's traffic post is dramatically incorrect too, or at least built on terrible assumptions. The computed number of traffic trips for people going to work are small - literally 2 trips a day for the majority of workers - going to work #1, coming home #2. IE: driving to work (and therefore where people work) are not major drivers of congestion. Compare this to trips for every other reason (school, leisure), which is like 10X the number of trips. That's why traffic is not less.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:57 AM on January 2
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:57 AM on January 2
With the caveat that this is a single data point and may not be representative, I looked up the information for a local public school, Montana State University
Year Tuition/Fees Cost to Attend Student aid (avg)
2023 $29.5K $46.6K $12.4K
2013* $27.6K $44.5K $15.6K
*Inflation-adjusted (CPI)
So for this school, tuition has gone up 7% in real terms in a decade, total cost to attend is up almost 5%, and students are actually getting less financial aid. (Note that the split between grants and loans was close to 50/50 for both years.)
Also worth noting is this is the cost for a single year, so the students will pay that difference x4 and if the average student has $7k in loans for one year, they'll leave owing $28k after four.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:08 PM on January 2
Year Tuition/Fees Cost to Attend Student aid (avg)
2023 $29.5K $46.6K $12.4K
2013* $27.6K $44.5K $15.6K
*Inflation-adjusted (CPI)
So for this school, tuition has gone up 7% in real terms in a decade, total cost to attend is up almost 5%, and students are actually getting less financial aid. (Note that the split between grants and loans was close to 50/50 for both years.)
Also worth noting is this is the cost for a single year, so the students will pay that difference x4 and if the average student has $7k in loans for one year, they'll leave owing $28k after four.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:08 PM on January 2
I was curious, so I looked up his stuff on trans issues. How far should activists go? is I think the obvious big one, although he has made a number of posts about the sheer quantity of anti-trans legislation. He seems to think the Republicans are doing a wild culture war, but also at heart agree with some of their goals, just not their methods.
"I'm on the side of trans people. I'm also on the side of (trying to) ferret out the truth—precisely because this is almost certainly best for everyone, both cis and trans, in the long run. These days, I'm not sure where that puts me." (link)
My read is that he probably wants to have a dinner with Jesse Singal and commiserate, and has roughly the same kind of commenters, people deluded by fantasies of their own rationality and itching to find the survey that will justify them saying forced detransition is actually the health-conscious option.
Singal definitely reads his comments, idk if Drum does.
posted by Audreynachrome at 6:43 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]
"I'm on the side of trans people. I'm also on the side of (trying to) ferret out the truth—precisely because this is almost certainly best for everyone, both cis and trans, in the long run. These days, I'm not sure where that puts me." (link)
My read is that he probably wants to have a dinner with Jesse Singal and commiserate, and has roughly the same kind of commenters, people deluded by fantasies of their own rationality and itching to find the survey that will justify them saying forced detransition is actually the health-conscious option.
Singal definitely reads his comments, idk if Drum does.
posted by Audreynachrome at 6:43 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]
I'm looking at page 18 CP8 - Net TFHF as peaking and then falling.
Oh, yeah, then like all the other charts that graph includes Tuition and Fees, not just Housing and Food. (But this doesn't speak to any of your other points -- I was just responding to the "how the heck are housing and food falling in cost" bit.)
posted by nobody at 7:20 AM on January 3
Oh, yeah, then like all the other charts that graph includes Tuition and Fees, not just Housing and Food. (But this doesn't speak to any of your other points -- I was just responding to the "how the heck are housing and food falling in cost" bit.)
posted by nobody at 7:20 AM on January 3
I would say I have read at least 75% of Drum’s posts over the last 20 years. I have never seen any evidence he is anti trans. Sure, he’s a CIS white guy so trans issues are not his primary thing, but he is not anti trans at all in my experience, at least.
Yeah I wouldn't (and didn't) call him anti-trans. My impression though is that he is kind of prone to being a centrist mark on this issue. Let me try to back up my comment?
As far as what I base it on, like here he is deciding to weigh in on Maya Forstater for some reason:
I just don't know if I believe that he is a good spotter of honest research on this issue when he acts like there are only two sides in the scientific debate, the non-science activist side, and the science anti-activist side, that leads him to say "as near as I can tell, both sides in this progressive civil war really and truly believe they have the best interests of the trans community at heart". That is pretty much the Jesse Singal framing and I think it's an anti-trans one. The stance of like "I want the activists to just go away so the Serious People can decide this issue" is imho shit politics. Very naive about the existence of bias in institutions, and like, how social change happens, IMHO.
(I can't find the post about EU removing trans care stuff where he seemed supportive.)
Like I said, he also says some pro-trans stuff too. I'm not saying he should be cast into the outer darkness.
posted by fleacircus at 5:10 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Yeah I wouldn't (and didn't) call him anti-trans. My impression though is that he is kind of prone to being a centrist mark on this issue. Let me try to back up my comment?
As far as what I base it on, like here he is deciding to weigh in on Maya Forstater for some reason:
I don't especially agree with Forstater's views except possibly in a few narrow ways,² but I don't like to see people fired in response to mobs who are upset that someone feels differently than they do. That's regardless of the specific laws in question, which are harsher toward free speech in Britain than they are here.I think in this post he lays it his stance clearly. I give him points at the end for recognizing that the thing he wants -- "honest research publicly debated" -- is very easily co-opted by anti-trans political forces.
I would like to see more people calm down about transgender issues, but there are real concerns at stake on both sides and people routinely write and act passionately about their political views. That's OK—even good—as long as it doesn't veer into active harassment. The court ruled that Forstater's tweets didn't do that, so now it's time to figure out what compensation she deserves. Good.
I just don't know if I believe that he is a good spotter of honest research on this issue when he acts like there are only two sides in the scientific debate, the non-science activist side, and the science anti-activist side, that leads him to say "as near as I can tell, both sides in this progressive civil war really and truly believe they have the best interests of the trans community at heart". That is pretty much the Jesse Singal framing and I think it's an anti-trans one. The stance of like "I want the activists to just go away so the Serious People can decide this issue" is imho shit politics. Very naive about the existence of bias in institutions, and like, how social change happens, IMHO.
(I can't find the post about EU removing trans care stuff where he seemed supportive.)
Like I said, he also says some pro-trans stuff too. I'm not saying he should be cast into the outer darkness.
posted by fleacircus at 5:10 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
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Is he right some of the time, sure. But his missteps are well noted: supporting the Iraq war until he didn't. Taking a stand that the phrase "white supremacy" was overused in 2016. Complaining that Democrats presidential campaigns were too soft on immigration in 2018.
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:47 AM on January 1 [14 favorites]