Mind you, I'm not knocking the quality, just the price tag.
I happen to live in Washington, near Seattle, so know the example schools. Seattle Pacific University is a fine institution. It's just f**king expensive. The UW is also f**king expensive as well, hence I wouldn't recommend anyone go there for 4 years if there is a practical way to do otherwise. It's just less expensive than SPU. Oh, and it is also an excellent engineering school.
I'm going to use a productive degree, Mechanical Engineering, instead of a "luxury" degree, like art history, for the purposes of this rant, since it plays into the end game of why one should pay to go to school - to get a better job. I'd suggest that if one wants to broaden their mind, there's no need to pay tens or hundreds of thousands - the library is free and one can buy university level text books if they so desire without paying big bucks in tuition.
4 years at SPU to get said Mechanical Engineering Degree will set you back about $140,000 (multiply the 35k /year 14-15 rate x4)
http://spu.edu/depts/ugadm/applyingtospu/tuition.aspOn the other hand, if one did a much less expensive route to the same degree, the cost savings would be huge. Let's say 2 years at Seattle Central Community College, followed by a transfer to the University of Washington for 2 years.
Seattle Central will set you back 1.33k / quarter for 15 credits. Total cost = 1.33k * 3 quarters / year * 2 years = $8,000
http://seattlecentral.edu/tuition/https://admit.washington.edu/Paying/Cost#freshmen-transferThe UW will cost 12.4k / year, 2 years about 24.8k
Total Cost: 8,000 + 24,800 = $32,800
So, there it is: 140k versus about 33k. Private is about 4 1/4 times the price.
Note: Comparison only made on tuition as books, fees and living expenses are likely to be similar between these two tracks. Also, for a local, they'll live at home and bus commute to / from campus instead of getting ripped off by the shitty and over priced dorms at either location, if they're smart.
Oh, and a certain large aerospace company that has the bulk of its operations in the greater Seattle area (which happens to hire a lot from these two graduate pools) isn't going to care if you got your ME degree from SPU or the UW. You, as a new employee however, will, as you'll be able to pay your ENTIRE tuition bill in your first year of employment, and still have a substantial fraction of your first year's pay to live on, if you did the CC / UW route. The SPU person on the other hand, will be dedicating every dime they earn after taxes for the first 2+ years of employment.....never mind what they live on during this time.
So, why would one choose to spend 4 1/4 times as much, to get the same level of employability?