1
$\begingroup$

For as long as I can remember people in the US have complained about the high cost and trajectory of college tuition and healthcare expenditures. I've also read that inflation has been low for awhile now. How can these opposite trends occur at the same time? Reasons I can think of:

  • Inflation metrics do not account for healthcare and tuition or emphasize them less than other expenditures. Perhaps our current measures of inflation are somewhat inadequate
  • Rises in healthcare and college tuition are not as bad as the news would have you believe
  • The large costs of healthcare and tuition today are more to due slow but steady compounded growth over a long time, so their impact on inflation is less noticeable from year to year but more noticeable over 20-30 years
Improve this question
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ Inflation is measured using a plethora of variables including healthcare and tuition. Could be the case that the other price levels (housing prices, insurance, groceries, etc.) are not rising quite as much. Would be an interesting avenue of research though, you should look up how they calculate it. I agree with your latter point as well, you always see massive increases in tuition since the 80s reported in the news but not the 0-5% increase year in year. $\endgroup$
    – Brennan
    Jul 28, 2019 at 17:09

0

Reset to default

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.