First it was the tech stock bubble from 2000, taking hundreds of billions in shareholder equity from stock prices that were totally divorced from reality. Then there was the real estate bubble that drained trillions from homeowner equity, cut housing prices in half and wiped out the housing construction industry.

The next bubble that will (hopefully) pop is the college tuition bubble.

As this article from today’s Washington Post notes, ” . . Since 1980, the average cost of tuition and room and board has grown by a staggering 121 percent while median household income has risen a mere 18 percent . . . ” The credit crunch, housing crash and cuts to state colleges have resulted in a toxic mix of fianances for the upcoming college class of 2014.

How high can these prices go? This list from CNN of the top 10 most expensive colleges (one year of tuition, room and board and fees):

1. Sarah Lawrence, $55,788
2. Georgetown, $52,161
3. NYU, $51,993
4. George Washington, $51,775
5. Johns Hopkins, $51,690
6. Columbia, $51,544
7. Wesleyan, $51,432
8. Trinity College, $51,400
9. Washington University, (St. Louis), $51,539
10. (TIE) Bates College and Vassar, $51,300

My alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, must have just missed the list, checking it at $50,310 for a year.

Neither of my parents graduated high school. My father drove a fuel oil truck and my mother worked in the office of an electrical supply company. Yet between grants and loans I was able to complete a 4 year degree at RPI back when tuition and fees were about $14,000 a year. I graduated with a total of $9000 in loans, and I remember sitting there thinking how the heck am I going to pay that??

Now?? My wife and I are both college graduates, yet how the heck can I afford to send my kids to a college for $50-$60,000 a year?? These costs are totally out of whack with reality.

I remember senior year in college when students at RPI were complained about tuition, which in 1982 was about $8900. The dean reminded us of the equation to use for engineering students: 4 years of tuition equals one year of pay, which was true. Four years at $8900 a year was about $35,600 which at the time was the starting salary for an engineering major. But tuition for 2009 is now $30,000 and I don’t think engineers are pulling down starting salaries of $120,000. Tution has more than tripled in 25 years, yet starting salaries have not even doubled.

The colleges will say that the price is deceptive, that with financial aid the actual costs are much less. Well then how come there are kids graduating with $40 or $50,000 in loans??

UPDATE: I see that Instapundit picked up on the same theme. Maybe I’m onto something??

During the first New Jersey gubernatorial debate, Republican Chris Christie pointed out that New Jersey was losing residents as people got fed up with the high taxes and high cost of living. Governor Jon Corzine then made the outlandish statement that it wasn’t true, New Jersey was actually gaining population. I laughed at my computer monitor when I heard that one, I yelled “BS!”

Well CNN has posted the statistics, and New Jersey had a net population loss of over 31,000 in this past year.

The top 6 losing states for the year June-30-2008 to June-30-2009:

1. California, -98,798
2. New York, -98,178
3. Michigan, -87,339
4. Illinois, -48,249
5. Ohio, -36,278
6. New Jersey, -31,690

In 2006, the first year of the Corzine reign, the number was worse, a net loss of 77,000.

It would have been worse for these states, except that the collapse of the housing market made it tougher to move since you had to sell your overpriced California pad in order to get out of the state.

Oh, and for the decade New York lost an incredible 1,686,583 residents. I bet you that even though the state population declined, the number of New York government employees went up big time.

All of this matters because census is used to determine the number of seats in the US House of Representatives. Look for New York and New Jersey to lose seats in the reapportionment.

• Suspect Charged in Airline Bombing Attempt. Let me get this straight. This is a single guy flying alone. He pays cash for his ticket. His visa says he’s going on vacation but he doesn’t check any bags. His name is on a terrorist watch list. And his dad notified the authorities that he was concerned about his son’s jihadist tendencies. I thought this was the kind of guy who is supposed to be taken aside and given a detailed interrogation (and a cavity search?). Instead he waltzed through security and nearly takes down an airplane with nearly 300 passengers. This is what several hundred billion dollars in security buys??
• Boom decade for raises in Atlantic City. Yeah, the casinos have been taking in less money for the past two years compared to the boom years. And Atlantic City schools are amongst the worst. And most of the city west of the Boardwalk is crime ridden. But city employees have done great!! The city has an incredible headcount of 1500 government employees, and the salaries from 2000 to 2009 increased 60-70%. Any city employee who is given a city issued pager or cellphone gets $50 a week for being on call. There are raises on top of increases in pay scales. And the city is facing a $35 million dollar deficit next year. Must be Christie Whitman’s fault.

  How bad are the casinos doing? Atlantic City’s casinos revenue for November 2009 was down 13.4 percent compared with the same month a year ago. And November 2008 was an awful month, the first full month of economic meltdown. The city is doomed, and unfortunately a lot more money will be wasted as it goes down.

• New Jersey Lawmakers Object to ‘Jersey Shore’ . They mean the MTV show, not the region of the state. Hey, I used to go down the shore when I was a teenager and do stupid stuff. But that’s the thing, I was a teenager. Two of the guys on this MTV show are 27-28 years old. Time to grow up guys, and get a real job and move out of your mommy’s house.

Well, this is my first try at embedding a YouTube video at DynamoBuzz. This is from the Christmas Eve 2009 service at Stonecrest Church in Warren NJ. The little girl in the white dress is Liliana. She has a speaking part at the beginning, and again at the end of the song.

I made it through another Christmas. I find the stress level rises to new heights during the Christmas season. Between work, school, shopping, kids activities, cooking and cleaning there’s barely anytime to sit back and enjoy the season. It was much simpler when I was 10 years old.

Merry Christmas to all from Daniel, Allison and Liliana and my wife and me.

And just a little reminder of what Christmas is all about (think Charlie Brown Christmas special):

Am I the only person to see a common theme in all these recent stories about the economy??

Consumer Sentiment Index For December Unexpectedly Revised Downward

New Home Sales Unexpectedly Show Steep Drop In November

New U.S. Jobless Claims Jump Unexpectedly

US home builder sentiment unexpectedly ebbs in Dec

Economy Watch: New jobless claims unexpectedly rise

Service sector shrinks unexpectedly in Nov.

It seems to me the ruling class feels that if they just keep on saying the economy is doing fine and dismiss all the bad news as “unexpected” then all the common folk will think that happy days are here again.

When does the unexpected become the expected??