Easy Sunday: College costs, then and now.

1971 Spring Semester: Tuition. Board, and Room.

Starting this fall, Harvard University students with family incomes of $200,000 and under will have their tuition covered. 

The previous cutoff was family income of $85,000.

Current Harvard tuition:               $  59,076

Books and supplies:                    $    1,000

Room and board:                         $  20,374

Health plan and other services    $    5,794

         TOTAL                                 $ 86,244

In 1967-1971 college cost me about $5,000 a year, all in, including travel from Medford to Boston. Tuition my first year was $1,800 a year. It grew to $2,000 a year in my senior year, as illustrated in the photo above.

College is about 17 times as expensive now as it was for me 58 years ago. That is about two and a half times the rate of general inflation over that period, which is a multiple of seven. With about $1,000/year help from my parents, plus summer jobs fighting forest fires, plus a melon crop, plus work-study jobs during the school year, I got through four years without taking on debt. The $1,000/year from my parents was a sacrifice for them. My father was an elementary school principal and my mother was a secretary at the Bureau of Land management. That $1,000/year was about seven percent of their pretax income. Notice the $350 credit in the college bill. That scholarship was an amount slightly greater than my cost for board. The dollar amount seems small now, but it was large in relation to costs. It was essential to my being able to attend.

The income a young man could earn then was far greater in relation to college costs than it is today. My work-study job cleaning dorm rooms and checking out books at the main research library paid $2.00/hour, rising to $2.20/hour my senior year. That meant that 909 hours at that job would have been sufficient to pay my tuition. That job checking out books exists today, and it pays $15/hour. The ratio of work-to-costs has changed dramatically; 909 hours of that work today would be $13,635, less than a quarter of the tuition cost. 

A few things are less expensive now. A 15-minute phone call home to Oregon during late night hours used to cost me $3.50 -- or almost two hours of work. Now better-quality calls, with video, are free. Cross-country air travel was far more expensive in 1970, when compared to college costs. Flying "student standby," which meant half-price if there were unsold seats -- which I found were always available -- meant each one-way trip across the country was about $100, equal to about 5 percent of my tuition. (I dressed up to fly in a coat and tie.) Today Expedia shows a cross-country flight, Boston to Medford, as might be booked by a student flying home for the summer at the end of May this year, would be $157 -- incredibly cheap! -- or about a quarter of one percent of the tuition cost.

Harvard was the most expensive college in America back then. Now many private schools are more expensive. Harvard gets criticized for being "too rich," but I am happy it has its endowment and can put it to good use. If I were going to college now, with parents doing the same jobs as they had back in 1970, college would be tuition-free. If I had not had the melon crop as the second summer job, I could not have swung it.

Below are the kind of melons I grew and sold at Blunt's Ranch Market on Highway 99 south of Medford, and at Sherm's Thunderbird Market on West Main Street in Medford.

Tuscan-style cantaloupes 

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Catalyst: The Townsend Plan

Before Social Security. 

Before the GI Bill. Before Medicare. Before Medicaid. Before the Child Care Tax Credit. Before talk of Universal Basic Income:

There was the Townsend Plan.

Multiple problems converged during the Great Depression. There was widespread poverty among the elderly. Americans got income from working, and when people were too old to work their income stopped. The second problem was the widespread collapse in demand and overall economic activity. Money wasn't circulating. The third was unemployment among able-bodied men who wanted to work and couldn't find jobs.

In 1933, California physician Francis Townsend proposed a solution to those problems. He presented the "Townsend Plan" in a letter to the editor of a Long Beach, California newspaper. The idea caught fire. It had four primary elements:

1. Every American age 60 or over would receive $200/month. There was no means-testing. Everybody except "habitual criminals" was eligible.

2. The recipient needed to be retired -- i.e. not taking a job wanted by some younger job seeker.

3. The income had to be spent in its entirety that month. That money went right back into circulation.

4. The plan would be paid for by a two percent sales tax.

Townsend Clubs sprang up across the country urging the government to enact this plan. 

Townsend Club meetings, reported in the Rocky Mountain News, December 18, 1935

A close look at the plan's finances in congressional hearings revealed that the plan wasn't financially sustainable. The average wage at the time was $100 a month, so the payments were an enormous transfer of wealth. The two percent sales tax was far from sufficient to pay the benefits. 

Excitement about the Townsend Plan flagged, but it established some expectations that persisted and became law in the Social Security Act in 1935. One expectation is that seniors have a responsibility to get out of the way, and not take jobs sought by younger people, an idea that persists in the earnings limit on people who take Social Security at age 62. That norm runs counter to another norm that has emerged in recent decades, the prohibition on ageism and age discrimination. The Townsend norm lost that battle.

The Townsend Plan norm of seniors spending their wealth to put it back into circulation is also a lost battle. It runs counter to the reality of the switch from pension-based retirement into 401-(k)/IRA-based plans. Defined-benefit pension plans spend down stored wealth to a zero balance at a pensioner's death. Contribution plans incentivize the opposite. A cautious retiree dare not spend down an IRA, since that nest egg needs to persist for an unknown length of time.

The dominant idea in America now is that it is an absolute right of seniors to live, work, and spend however they choose. I agree with this, but there are problems with this ethic. One problem is government gerontocracy. The seniority system rewards staying in place, and officeholders do so. 

A change will require a change of mind, so I suspect it won't happen quickly, but President Biden's debate with Donald Trump was a warning about elderly leaders. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, was another warning. So was Texas U.S. Representative Kay Granger, described as "one of the most powerful GOP members of Congress." Then came dementia, and she landed up in a memory care facility.

The demographic trends guarantee that in future decades there will be more seniors with more private wealth and more voting power. What is not certain is how those seniors think about their obligations to future generations. Young Americans revolted in the 2024 election. They switched from strong support for Democrats to support for Trump -- the first time in decades that young people preferred a Republican. They wanted change. Trump represented the manly bull in a china shop. Democrats made their choice and found out that the public would rather have a vigorous grifting demagogue than a party that cosseted a weak and apparently-addled leader who ignore obvious problems at a border.

That is an incentive to project a different attitude, one that recognizes an obligation to future generations. Perhaps Democrats will find a leader who can voice the value of passing the torch to a new generation. Democrats did so in 1960. President John Kennedy's appeal to sacrifice and patriotism on behalf of the public good seems quaint in this era of Trump: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Does a generation willing to sacrifice for the future seem hopeless and naive? It does, but it isn't impossible. Norms change. People used to think it was okay to smoke anywhere and everywhere. People use to have sexual harassment practices in offices that are unthinkable now. Attitudes toward inter-racial marriage and same-sex marriage have changed. Attitudes can drift, if there is leadership and the right incentives. 

Young people are getting squeezed, and they vote. That's the incentive. Something needs to change. So it will.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you'll find
You get what you need

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The rich spend a lot. They don't spend enough.

The richest 10 percent of Americans do 49.7 percent of all spending. 

Those are households making $250,000 a year or more.

I don't do financial planning anymore, so this post isn't tax or planning advice meant for you specifically. People have different priorities, obligations, assets, and health, and those affect your best course of action. Consult your own advisors.

The wealthiest 10 percent drive consumer spending.

Thirty-five years ago the wealthiest 10 percent represented 36 percent of the overall spending, the same amount as did the next category of people, the three-times larger 30 percent of Americans in the next lowest income group. That has changed. The richest group spends more. Everyone else spends less.

Here is another way to look at that data:

The scale of spending by the wealthiest Americans re-affirms the notion that income distribution may be exacerbating political division in this country. Being in the bottom 90 percent of income pushes a person farther from the very visible people on top. How can there not be some frustration?

Premium seats are the ones selling out on airplanes. River cruises, which are preferred by upscale vacationers, are in growing demand. Meanwhile, Big Lots filed for bankruptcy and Dollar Stores is closing stores. My advice for a young person with flexibility to choose a career path is to find an arena of expertise and service that caters to the needs of wealthy people. That's where the money is.

The wealthiest 10 percent are spending because they have money and are getting wealthier. The price of homes and stocks have gone up faster than inflation. Our economy rewards assets, not earned income, and the wealthy have assets. They experience the "wealth effect." When asset prices go up they feel richer and more free to spend a part of their growing wealth. People with fewer assets aren't getting richer. They see inflation, and pull back on spending.

Spend more. Save the country. One way to address the social and political problem of income and wealth concentration is for the wealthy to spend more. Or donate more. Or otherwise to enjoy that wealth by exchanging it for goods and services provided by the 90 percent. It may seem "against type" for a financial advisor to urge people to spend down savings, since the cliche is the planner who urges early, regular savings and prudent accumulation, and is armed with growth calculators that compound wealth into infinity. There is a problem with that advice. At some point, money is there to be used, not compounded.

Except for public employees and a few union plans, the American retirement system has switched from a pension-based one to a do-it-yourself 401-k and IRA system. The risks of poor investment choices or outliving one's money got transferred to the individual. The result is that retirees consider that nest egg a precious safety net. They mentally divide it into two categories, income and principal. Income they can spend. Principal they cannot.

Lifetime wealth transitions from earnings into capital, but it doesn't get spent down.

Retirees are willing to spend approximately 2 percent per year of that principal, which is about its after-tax, after inflation income. That is substantially less than its total return in recent decades. The psychologically comfortable thing to do is to die rich, which is a satisfactory outcome if one has far more than enough money, a significant charitable bequest motive, or if one has heirs who need and expect it. But it is a far from optimal strategy, if one wants to maximize the use for the retiree. Money doesn't get spent for current needs. It accumulates "just in case." 

Annuitization via insurance or a charitable gift annuity transfers accumulated wealth into a lifetime income stream. That solution is uncomfortable to people who spent decades accumulating. Annuitization reduces the person's nominal wealth, which conflicts with the mindset of more-is-good and the reassurance of seeing a growing portfolio value on an account statement. In fact, there is more value, and in two forms. There is more safety because one has eliminated the risk of outliving one's money. There is also more spendable money, because with longevity risk transferred to the insurer, the retiree now feel free to enjoy spending income.

Something else good happens, and that is to the economy and politics of the country. The assets, having been turned into spendable money, which circulates from seniors who have money to the younger people who earn it, who then spend it so it circulates yet again. We need more of that.

Further reading: Working Paper: "Retirees spend lifetime income, not savings"

Tomorrow: A look at a proposal that preceded and informed the Social Security Act, the Townsend Plan. It is relevant to today's post.

Dr. Francis Townsend

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The Canada strategy

Trump praises Canada and says it "would be our biggest, most beautiful — it would be great, this state.”

Meanwhile he demeans the country and its leaders saying Canada has nothing Americans want, and that it leaders are incompetent and "nasty."

Strange. What does he think he is doing?

Frame One: Trump is the real estate developer who thinks big. Maybe President Trump is simply reverting to type. Real estate developers are builders. They aren't satisfied to sit back and enjoy the rent-checks and their current portfolio. They are on the lookout for the next big project in the form of some underdeveloped property. Trump's career is full of these. Some work out, some don't. Trump saw opportunity in airlines, vodka, a university, property on Fifth Avenue, Atlantic City casinos, and a TV show. Canada, like Greenland, is a growth opportunity with potential.

Atlantic City before casinos

Trump is belittling Canada to get the price down. He is showing he is not a foolish buyer willing to overpay. 

Frame Two: Trump leads a regional power and wants to extract tribute. This impulse is as old as humanity itself. The strong do as they will and the weak suffer as they must. Trump's view of the world is a diversion from the 80-year post-war consensus that we achieve peace through a rules-base global system. Trump believes a "rules-based order" is a sham and always has been. Strong countries pretend there is international rule of law only when it serves their interests. When it doesn't -- as with the U.S. in Vietnam, China in the South China Sea, and Russia in neighboring Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine -- it serves their purpose to ignore law, so they do. Trump believes in power, not law.

Trump has a notion of neighborhood, built upon the the ability to project military power where others cannot. Canada and Greenland and this hemisphere are America's neighborhood. Logistically, the U.S. can dominate. Russia has its own neighborhood. Eastern Europe will be dominated by the big power, which is Russia. It is the nature of power and geography.

Frame Three: Trump is playing out the oldest, most primitive of male behaviors: fighting for the only thing worth having, women and progeny. Billionaire Aristotle Onassis is alleged to have said, "If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning." In a biological and anthropological context, all human achievement, all efforts to seek power, resources and glory, are efforts by men to compete with one another, to impress women and to find mates. 

The U.S. is experiencing a self-conscious backlash against second-wave feminism, supposedly-effeminate civilization, and rules-based globalism. Republican men are growing beards, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg praises "masculine" corporate values, Trump gropes women, and Elon Musk has 11 children that we know of. (This is nothing compared to Genghis Kahn, whose military achievements resulted in descendants numbering in the hundreds of millions.) Male competition and one-upmanship fits a pattern that flows logically from the difference between the few big gametes in females and many small gametes in males. Men compete for women, who offer sexual access and bear children. JD Vance warned that women who misunderstand this biological imperative and seek career first become childless cat ladies.

Male gorillas compete to hold their harem and keep sexual access. Male chimpanzees form alliances for the same purpose. Modern Americans sublimate this competition and exercise it though the media of modern civilization and economies, where women work outside the home and expect political equality. Trump is actively trying to re-establish traditional sex and gender norms, and is deleting federal web pages and signage that he considers remnants of "wokeness." Trump is re-normalizing male dominance displays, including violent sports, but he cannot simply go to the neighboring tribe and hit a woman over the head and bring her home.

Trump can sublimate. He is surrounded by richer men, but none of them have the capacity to demand that the winsome country to the north join his team. Other men can buy planes and islands and elections but they cannot command an army to seize and consolidate a continent. Trump can. Trump may be playing out his instincts to be the alpha male.

He appears to be doing this courtship with Canada foolishly, by pushing Canada away while courting her. There may be strategy and purpose. Trump is trying to damage and destabilize Canada enough that its best option is to join the U.S.  A bachelor gorilla who seeks to poach from a silverback gorilla's harem will sometimes do a surprise attack on the harem, grab an infant gorilla, and tear it in half. Its mother grieves. But shortly after she sometimes leaves the harem to join the interloper. Why? Because her former leader demonstrated that he could not do the primary job of a silverback gorilla, which is to protect her infants from invaders. She does the necessary thing. She moves to the male who showed he has the capacity to kill her babies.

If Trump can demonstrate that Canada and its leaders cannot protect its citizens from an aggressive and hostile bully like Trump's USA, then Canada may choose to seek refuge in the arms of its abuser. It would be the necessary thing.

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A garden columnist talks to AI

I apologized to my sister for accidentally bumping into her, and began with the words "Hey, sorry."

My i-Pad spoke up in the familiar female voice of "Siri," asking how she could help me. (My i-Pad is alert for the prompt, "Hey, Siri.")

We are communicating with computers whether we know it or not. They eavesdrop. They assist. And in some places where people are doing complex tasks, they are replacing us. But they aren't replacing college classmate Jeff Lowenfels.

Jeff has used computers for half a century. He writes the longest-running garden column in North America, never having missed a week in 48 years. It runs in Alaska's Anchorage Daily News. He gives Alaska readers advice on how to manage their home gardens.

His first book, 2006

An important element of his advice deals with soil management, as indicated by the title of his books; Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Nutrients, Teaming with Fungi, and Teaming with Bacteria. They are written for a general audience, but there is a lot of science involved, as suggested by the subtitle of his most recent book, "The Organic Gardener's Guide to Endophytic Bacteria and the Rhizophagy Cycle." What in the world is that? Read the book to find out.

Most recent book, 2023

An increasing amount of the work product done by people in the "content generation" professions is done by, or at least assisted by, artificial intelligence. Jeff's newspaper column and books aren't among them. (Nor is this blog.) His columns and books are a labor of his knowledge, his insights, and his words he types into the computer. Jeff has a quirky, humorous style that shows up in his work.

He shared with me an imagined conversation with an AI program as he reviewed his history with word processing. It's a walk down memory lane. Human memory.

Guest Post by Jeff Lowenfels

Dear AI,

I know everyone says it is only a matter of time before you take over and write everything for me. Already, as I type a word, you offer suggestions to finish; all I have to do is push the space bar and the missing letters fill in. Sometimes you type the missing letters, and other times the proper spelling flashes beside my word with an X next to it to select it. There is probably a way to regulate this and just go with one, but you are so damn sure you are going to take over, you don’t have an instruction manual.

Let me tell you, however, I have history here and that makes a difference. Lots of history. I don’t care how well you can write a column, I have been writing for just about 50 years, and I have learned a few things, felt a few things, experienced feedback over more than a few things. You won’t. I have history.

I started writing my weekly column on yellow legal pads and took my columns into the newspaper every week. Mercifully for my editor, I switched to the legal typewriter I stole from my brother. He lived in New York and I figured he would not come to Alaska to retrieve it. I needed it to take the bar exam because I was worried the examiners wouldn’t be able to read my handwriting. I still have it, by the way. I also have the shooter’s earmuffs I donned that week so I could shut out the others who were typing their exams. What a dork I was. But those were the times. Electric typewriters had little balls.

Anyhow, history. I got one of the very first computers to write my column, an Osborne. It was a bit bigger than a sewing machine and twice as heavy. It was considered portable, and I worked on it in bed. I know I was pretty upset when my wife tripped over the chord getting into bed herself. She banned it from the room.

Osborne Portable

Then I discovered this very cool little 32 bit computer, the Tandy Model 100. Someone came up with a modification and sold it so you could squeeze in three lines of type instead of just one and gave it more memory, up to 64k. Cops used them in their cars. You could plug into the internet. It fit into a manila envelope. Wow!

Tandy

A myriad window operating machines followed and ended up in the garage where they still sit. Successively smaller, thinner, lighter and more powerful portables. Soon, they even stopped having handles.

Then my son came home from MIT with a Mac. WTF!!!!? He made us use Windows and now he was on a Mac!

I wrote my column from then on using a Mac and survived through all those years of changes in printer plug designs, dial up modem improvements and different word programs starting with WordPerfect. I used dot matrix printers and sheet printers and laser printers. This all added to my experience; gave me history.

Dot matrix printing

You, AI, will never know because you have no history and don’t need it. You are a vacuum cleaner and suck up my history. But it won’t be the same. And when others read what you write, my history will be missing. There is still a big plus for being a human writer.






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Signs of change

The past persists in the signs that have not yet been changed.

The future shows in the ones that have.

Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington D.C. went up in 2020.

A workman installing the new name

Trump directed that "Black Lives Matter" paint on the street be removed and the plaza renamed. That is taking place now:

Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, Florida, where I am finishing a vacation, I see signs that reflect a different era.

At the entrance of the museum dedicated to Salvador Dali:

A separate bathroom on each floor is available for men, women, and for "all genders," as the sign put it.

A museum in the city center has a special section in a video noting the participation of Blacks in the military. There is a large room dedicated to the rise of women as full participants in public life. These sections are woven into a larger narrative, but there is a deliberate effort to note these two groups. The Tuskegee Airmen were mentioned specifically, as was the history of racial segregation in Florida prior to the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibits also described the suffrage movement of the early 20th century and then featured prominent women -- White and Black -- in past and current government. These exhibits are self-conscious attempts to show divesity and inclusion. Trump calls this attention to specific groups "woke," and is writing this out of federal websites, but it still persists in Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' Florida, perhaps by inertia or inattention.

Both Google Maps and Apple Maps have updated their names for what had been the Gulf of Mexico.

Google maps

Apple maps

Tourist areas sell two kinds of T-shirts. Some read "Gulf of Mexico, est. 1550." Others look like this.

One boat out of hundreds in a sheltered bay off St. Petersburg flew a Trump flag.

A tour guide who described the scenery as the boat left a cove to enter the Gulf, announced, "We are now entering the Gulf of Whatever. Look, I work for tips and I don't want to make half my customers unhappy, so let's just call it 'whatever.' Around here, mostly we have always just called it 'the Gulf'."

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To shut down or not to shut down? That is the question.

There is a better question.

It is who gets the blame for the disruption and waste of a government shutdown.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wrote me saying I should be "furious" that some Senate Democrats went along with minority leader Chuck Schumer to avoid a government shutdown. Progressive Democrats characterize this as caving to Trump. 

Chuck Schumer wrote a New York Times op-ed explaining his view. It was widely read as enabling Trump. Critics said this political moment requires that Democrats dig in and show resistance. Democrats should fight with every tool. Schumer is yet another college classmate, so it is consistent with this blog to publish it. This is a free article, without a NYT paywall:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/opinion/trump-musk-shutdown-senate.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4k4.ezMo.lw9vwR9OJnka&smid=url-share

News stories emphasize the split in the Democratic Party. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is described as "lashing out" at Schumer while she contemplates a primary bid. Some of the divide is political, measurable on a progressive to moderate, or progressive to establishment axis. The divide is generational, too. Younger members of both chambers want a fight. Schumer represents the old guard establishment Democratic Party. Schumer gets flack from two directions, both from people who see him, along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as an ageist regicide who forced out Joe Biden, but also someone who himself, at age 74 and a senator since 1999, and before that in the House since 1981, part of the Democratic gerontocracy. 

Schumer's position was that Republicans are sending a loud message of chaotic destruction of government. They have staked their ground as the chainsaw party. Democrats cannot stop the destruction, but they can stake their own ground as the party that opposes arbitrary and mass layoffs. He argues that Democrats should avoid muddling the clear divide between the two parties, which they would do if they triggered an even greater mass layoff event. Since Republicans are digging a hole for themselves, avoid jumping into it with them. Keep the sides clear.

This is a case where the messenger is intrinsically part of the message. Schumer's very being and presence shouts the message of old, tired establishment status quo. He carries in his aura the legacy of a party that chose to cocoon and protect an old and badly-diminished Biden while ignoring a failed immigration policy and unpopular positions on cultural issues. 

Had Democrats of a younger generation, ones representing a new, optimistic, prosperous future, argued the case that Schumer made, that this was the smart and strategic way to stick it to Republicans and make them stew in their own toxic juices, this might have been a unifying position. Framed that way, as a fighting stance, by someone who looks and sounds like a crafty leader with a long future, this might have looked aggressive, not like caving. But Schumer waving his arms and chanting "We will win! We will win!" has quality to it, one that even I, in his age cohort, perceived as sad and pathetic. Wrong person, wrong message. Leave campus protest chants to 20-year-olds.

Since Schumer is the face of the Democratic Party, a decision that I suspect is the correct one politically -- a message that Trump and his GOP enablers are alone responsible for destroying services -- will get lost. We are left with a message of a GOP with unity and purpose, while Democrats are led by seniors who have lost the confidence of their members. 

Things are not hopeless for Democrats. The solution is for the next generation to step up. Old men in power rarely give it up gracefully. It is wrenched out of their unwilling hands by people with the courage to take it from them.

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