After watching the film "Ivory Tower," I became aware of how difficult it is to obtain a college education today. This film highlights a number of the problems relating to higher education. We are living in a time where college tuition prices continue to rise to outrageous costs, student loan debt is higher than credit card debt, exceeding over one trillion dollars and many are concerned whether or not college is worth the cost anymore. Rather than promoting quality learning, colleges seem to be promoting newly updated, fancier facilities. Receiving a college degree is becoming much harder to obtain due to the expense of college tuition. The continuous rise in college tuition prices is also making it more difficult for families to put their …show more content…
While viewing this film, the audience was able to see how Arizona State University is portrayed as strictly a "party school." The university was named the number- one party school in the country. Students here are spending less time studying, reading, and writing and more time partying. It was noted that a large number of students are spending less time in the classroom and more time distracted by the temptations that are associated with partying. Students are attempting to take the least demanding courses possible in hopes to get a better grade than they would receive in a more challenging course. This corresponds with any college experience, and it can even be present at Assumption College. It is inevitable that a number of students will go to any extent to make the college work load less rigorous for themselves, whether it be dropping a course that "seems to difficult" before the first week of classes is over, or using websites like "Rate My Professor" to discover which professors will be the most lenient. At Assumption College, it is also easy to find that a fair number of students would prefer to spend their Sunday night partying with friends opposed to studying for Monday morning's exam. As a result, this can create larger problems. As college tuition prices continue to rise, parents are spending more money for their …show more content…
As college tuition prices continue to rise, it puts stress on all families worldwide who trying to put their children through school. Every parent wants their son or daughter to have the privilege of receiving a college education. However, the price of college makes this seem unobtainable for some families. Many families face the struggle that they not only have to put one child through school, but they may have to put two or three children through college. Therefore, this family will be spending outrageous amounts of money on college tuition each year. One college bill is expensive enough, never mind the thought of adding two or three college bills, at unreasonable prices to the list. For example, my parents will eventually have to put four children through college. My parents work exceptionally hard so that I will have the privilege of receiving a higher education. Middle class families receive very little financial compensation when it comes to college due to what their credentials look like on paper. With the cost of college rising and the lack of financial aid that middle class families receive, college continues to get more expensive and more difficult to afford. This is simply
Bruni begins by describing the golden promise of college as it appeared for baby boomers. In that time getting into college and completing a degree was enough to be successful. He acknowledges that this idealized vision of college may be inaccurate, however, he asserts that the issue is far more “complicated” than it once was. Bruni makes use of a recent (2012) debate over student loan interest rates in the U.S. to explore the issues surrounding college education today. While rising student debt is certainly part of the problem he suggests that the issue extends beyond that. College is now a “luxury item with newly uncertain returns” (Bruni). While rising costs make college a luxury item that not everyone will be able to afford, even those who can and do manage to go to college are not guaranteed success.
Community colleges and vocational tracks are not wrong about the high cost of traditional higher education. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, one year at a public, four-year institution costs upwards of $23,000 on average, while private institutions will cost nearly $10,000 more on average. Coupled with the fact that prices at public institutions rose 42 percent and private institutions rose 31 percent between 2001 and 2011, it’s not a shock that parents and students alike worry about paying for college. However, this won’t always be the case, as this rise in prices simply cannot continue the way it has. Eventually, people will be unable to pay the price that colleges charge. They will either settle for com...
Tuition and fees has extremely risen over the past years which makes it extremely difficult for both social economic groups to invest in a higher education for their families. Today’s college students borrow and accumulate more debt than previous years (The White House). For instance, “In 2010, graduates that borrowed money graduated with owing an average of more than $26,000”(The White House). As a result, President Obama has expanded federal support to help more families and students to afford higher education (The White House). Also, he believes that it is a shared responsibility of the federal government, states, colleges, and universities for making higher education
Long ago, receiving education was once something only the rich could afford; it was a luxury. Nowadays it is open to everyone, but many students enter college only to discover that they are underprepared, and in turn they become disenchanted. David Leonhardt’s article, The College Dropout Boom, addresses the issues that are apparent in the education system and how it contributes to the gap between the upper and lower class while Access to Attainment by Abby Miller, Katherine Valle, Jennifer Engle, and Michelle Cooper calls to improve access to college education for today’s students. This is incredibly important because many students either drop out or never attended college and in today’s time, having a Bachelor’s degree has become a requirement
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.
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.
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...
For those who wish to have children in the future, imagine putting ten dollars a week aside from now until they turned eighteen. That money would hardly accumulate up to even a portion of the costs for just a single year of higher education. In the article, “America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree”, an essay from the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2008, author Marty Nemko discusses all aspects that should be considered before pursuing a serious interest in educational institutions. Being a current student at a four-year institution it concerns me for not only myself but also fellow peers if we are making the right decision. The costs of higher education are increasing drastically along with the amount of Americans in debt from student loans. The value of a bachelor degree is declining and students are faced with the question, do the benefits of a collegiate education out weigh the costs?
In “The Dark Side of College (Un)affordability,” authors Katharine Broton and Sara Goldrick-Rab take a formal approach to enlighten those who may be unaware of the financial challenges that many college students face as well as persuade those who may be in a position to help improve the lives of those struggling with food and housing insecurity in higher education. Financial burden hinders a student’s learning and creates a negative impact on their education as well as their health. Students who lack the means to essential self-care have a harder time focusing and applying learned material (Goldrick-Rab et al.). Several colleges
So the system that is supposed to lead to financial stability later in life causes families to use nearly one hundred percent of their revenue in a given year to continue the cycle for their kin. The main culprit in this treacherous cycle is, you guessed it, the government. According to Paul F. Campos in his article “The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much” he cites Sandy Baum saying, “it’s not that colleges are spending more money to educate students, it’s that they have to get that money from someplace to replace their lost state funding — and that’s from tuition and fees from students and families.” (Campos). Essentially, the government has been cutting funding over the last decade due to various reasons. The recession in 2007 was a major contributor to this loss of funding. In fact, Lynn O 'Shaughnessy writes in her article “Why college tuition keeps rising”, “Since 2008, when the recession hit, total public funding for higher education has declined by 14.6 percent.” (.O’ Shaughnessy). Public funding is a lifeline for middle and lower class families when it comes to sending their children off to college, with such devastating cuts it is nearly impossible for
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...
Making College Tuition Cheaper I believe that college tuition should be cheaper for everyone no matter what economic level your family is in. College tuition should be very affordable for everyone, so everyone has a chance to get an education without being in debt. There are kids and adults all over the country and world that would love to go to college. Should universities turn down people because they can't afford it? Of course there are numerous scholarships, financial aids, and loans available, but sometimes they don't help everyone out that much because the average family can’t fully support the child going to college, and make a living comfortably in residence.
As public support for colleges is reduced, as tuition and fees skyrocket, and as financial aid is shifted away from poor and working-class students to students with affluent backgrounds and high SAT scores, students are going into greater and greater debt in order to go to college at all. These days, two out of three students getting bachelor’s degree have student debt. At public universities ‘only’ 62 percent of graduates are in debt, at private nonprofit
How does the rising cost of college tuition affect us? Every year thousands of students attend a college or university, usually of their choice, with the goal of achieving a higher education and to better their future. The cost of attending college is too high and it needs to go down; there needs to be more scholarship and grant opportunities. The high cost of attending college is a major reason that students aren’t able to achieve higher education; others take this as a challenge and it is motivation for them to work harder to achieve their goal. One might ask why would someone want to spend money to receive more education and miss out on more years of work that they could’ve performed? For many, it is so they can receive more salary for the jobs that they will have later in life, also so that they can get training for their wanted career. The cost of attending college is high and continues to rise without indications of decreasing. The rising cost has many benefits such as earning more pay, but it also has its disadvantages such as the debt that is accumulated from student loans. Not everyone can afford to drop down thousands of dollars and attend school for a few more years. Students who wish to receive a post-secondary education must decide whether it is the right choice for them depending on their financial standpoint, meaning that they must decide if they have the resources to further their education.
Many significant questions regarding higher education are in relation to its cost, raising fears that higher education has become unaffordable. Education fee for universities and colleges has continuously grown to become one of the largest expense for most students and parents over the years, especially with the never-ending dramatic tuition fee increases resulting from public funding cuts for education by the federal and state governments. Selingo (para 3) reported that higher education cost definitely has a direct impact on access, thus, the frequent increases in cost are logically of great concern to many, including parents, students, and education policymakers. In other words, this has disadvantaged the poor families, resulting in unequal education opportunities for Americans and putting attainment of higher education in danger of becoming a hereditary privilege rather than a right for all people (Selingo para 6).