The Old Days

When my grandson saw his first landline phone (at a hotel), he wondered what it was. He wasn’t sure how to dial it or talk into it.

He inspired my daughters to ask about the good old days.

I didn’t walk uphill to school both ways in the snow, because it doesn’t snow in Portland, Oregon. But we were so close to Beaumont Elementary that if we left home at the bell we could be in class before the tardy bell.

My mom remembered movies cost a quarter in the 40s, with another quarter for popcorn and a Coke. Comic books were a nickel.

In the 60s movies were a buck, as were concessions, comic books were a dime, or a quarter for the double-length “annuals” that came out in the summer.

When I arrived at MIT in 1970, the tuition was $2150, and had barely risen in decades. It rose every year I was there; there were performative “Tuition Riots,” in which the chant was “2300 is too damn much,” rising each year until my senior year, when $2900 was TFM (you figure it out). Now it is $62,000.

Homes weren’t $1 when I was a kid, as my daughters speculated. But my childhood home (3/1 with a finished basement) was worth about $50,000 (inflation adjusted) compared to $250,000 today (yes, Portland is cheaper than San Francisco).

Most homes had one telephone, usually in the hall. Because my father needed a phone in his office, we had an extension. Then, when I was in high school we had A SECOND TELEPHONE NUMBER for my brother and myself, undoubtedly one of the few in the whole city. The installer was baffled when he came to install it. I knew what a wireline phone was and how to dial it. Literally dial it, since I lived before TouchTone―which is all there is now.

Comments

[Harrison Klein]

You're a bit off in your recollections about tuition at MIT. When I arrived in the fall of 1967, tuition was $1900 a year. It wasn’t all that stable; it had recently gone up from $1700. It rose to $2150 in 1968 (my first experience with “tuition riots”). If it was still $2150 when you arrived in 1970, that was an unusually stable period. In hindsight, those amounts were an incredible bargain, because current MIT tuition is far greater than $25,000 — for 2024–2025 it’s a whopping $61,990 (and that doesn't include fees, room & board, books, etc.). But I think few students actually pay the full amount, since there are many scholarships and other tuition credits available depending on the student’s financial situation.

[Robert E. Malchman]

I hate to tell you, but MIT tuition for the upcoming year is over $62k. https://news.mit.edu/2024/financial-aid-and-tuition-rates-2024-25-0321

[pschindler]

Yuck and thank you for telling me. Gif, even at the turn of the century Columbia and Brandeis were much less.
Paul Schindler

[Paul Schindler]

Editor’s note: the item has been edited to correct the figure thanks to comments from Harrison and Robert.

[pschindler]

Your comment about students rarely paying full freight reminds me of healthcare industry pricing. For a variety of reasons therapists bill
for $130 an hour and are reimbursed by insurance for $60. Or my $60k hip replacement that cost me $600.

Paul Schindler