Boomerang Kids on the Rise

College tuition will be the bane of certain student’s existence in the near future but it was not always this way. For quite a length of time, people did not pay much for their college degrees. However, in today’s day-of-age that is not nearly the case. A large portion of people are realizing that tuition is very unreasonable and want to change it to be more affordable. While researching college tuition I found not only that I was right about tuition being too high, but I also found that it has inflated more than I assumed it had. Since 1975 to now, tuition has increased by roughly four times the original amount at a four year university.

A college education has become the expectation for most youth in the United States. Children need a college education to succeed in the global economy. Unfortunately for the majority of Americans the price of an education has become the equivalent to a small house. The steep tuition of a college education has made it an intimidating financial hurdle for middle class families. In 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a private university was $20,566 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was $28,500 for an increase of 38.6%. Similarly in public universities there has been an increase in tuition: in the 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a public university was $8,454 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was actually $20,770 for an increase of 145.7%. Most families who are able to save for college try to do so, therefore their children are not left with large amounts of debt due to loans. Nevertheless, families are only able to save on average around $10,000, which is not enough to pay for a full educ...

For the past decade, The United States has stressed the importance of college education, to those seeking employment, and better careers. For most people, college is the logical next step in education, as it provides a working knowledge of a desired field and opens the door to many opportunities, but college has become increasingly more expensive as time goes on. Many people feel that college is no longer an option financially. Even with financial aid and scholarships, the cost of a college education can still be very taxing. This is due to massive price increase across the boards, but the main issue on most people’s minds is the debt that will be acquired from higher education.

Tuition rates have been rising exponentially since “World War II and the GI Bill…” which allowed for, “…an explosive increase in the number and proportion of Americans who go to college” (Nathan 148). This change, though largely due to inflation, has been rising past what families can afford to pay, and has led to difficulties for students exiting high school. These difficulties have been seen by campuses, and many already have a plan to help these students pay for the rocketing tuition prices.

One of the biggest things people are concerned about these days is the price of attending college. Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, the authors of Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?, write that “For most Americans, education their offspring will be the largest financial outlay, after their home mortgage, they’ll ever make” (179). The amount people pay to attend college is outrageous these days. To attend an in-state public university can cost up to around $25,000 a year. Private colleges can be around $45,000 a year. A student will be looking at $180,000 dollars of student loans if they attend a private college to get their Bachelor...

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2011, the average tuition for just one year at a four-year private university was nearly $33,000. While the median inflation-adjusted household income fell by seven percent between 2006 and 2011, the average real tuition at public four-year colleges increased over that period by eighteen percent (1). To prove how rapidly the cost to attend college rose, researchers compared college tuition to the increasing cost of healthcare. Research showed that college tuition increased at twice the rate of healthcare costs over the past twenty-five years. While college tuition rapidly increased, average income fell, which left families in deeper debt with each upcoming year. High tuition costs make getting a college education unattainable for many low and middle income students. Luckily, thanks to an up-and-coming alternative to the typical college experience, there is now a chance for some of these students to pursue their dreams of higher education.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, college tuition and relevant fees have increased by 893 percent (“College costs and the CPI”). 893 percent is a very daunting percentage considering that it has surpassed the rise in the costs of Medicare, food, and housing. As America is trying to pull out of a recession, many students are looking for higher education so they can attain a gratified job. However, their vision is being stained by the dreadful rise in college costs. College tuition is rising beyond inflation. Such an immense rise in tuition has many serious implications for students; for example, fewer students are attending private colleges, fewer students are staying enrolled in college, and fewer students are working in the fields in which they majored in.

Today in America, students graduate from college but struggle to pay off their student debt for years. Other times, smart individuals drop out of college because they cannot afford to pay the rest of their college tuition. In the 1960s and 1970s, tuition was only a small fraction of what it is today, and many were able to afford it with the money they earned over the summer. However, as the years went by, college tuition became expensive and eventually started to rise faster than inflation. Currently, tuition at selective and private colleges and universities has risen annually by two or three percent more than the rate of inflation, which has caused an ongoing controversy within America to

Declining state support, educational race for top rankings, uneven financial aid, or economy downfall: there are reasons all across the board as to why the cost of college tuition is getting out of hand. Envision a senior girl whose heart had been set on her dream college for years. An elite, honorable college where everyone seems to want to go. She has been telling her parents from an early age she was going to one day be a member. While on a visit to the college in late fall of her senior year, she fell in love with the beautiful campus which seemed to spread for miles. The advisers and professors she met with were polite and unquestionably convincing. Her favorite part of the visit was seeing how happy all of the current students seemed to look with their college decision. Overall, she believed she had found her home for the next four years. She went home excited to tell her parents the good news. This is where the excitement soon ended. 35,000 dollars a year was the outrageous sticker price for her dream college. Her parents said there was no way possible they could ever afford to send her. Tears started flooding down her face; her dreams were crushed. Now what was she going to do? Where was she going to go? Although this story has been made up, similar situations like these are arising more and more often. College tuition has reached an all time high; with the economy in its current standings, there needs to be solutions so every young adult has an equal opportunity to go to college.

Steve Cohen shows the disparity between the rising cost of college and a family’s capability to afford it. Cohen explains “Tuition has risen almost 1,200 percent in the last 35 years, and the sticker price for many four-year private colleges and out-of-state public universities exceeds $250,000.” Moreover, he goes on to say that even at public universities, it is about $80,000 for four years for tuition and other college related expenses. Later in his article, Cohen explains how this leaves middle-class families in a very uncomfortable situation. The parents or other money-making entities in the household want their student to go to college and earn a degree, but now there can be an element of stress in figuring out how the fees will be paid for. Furth...