One year at the prestigious Yale University will cost an average of $38,300 (collegeboard.com). Many students who deserve to go to this school may miss out because of the cost and lack of financial aid. The rising cost of college may put higher education out of reach for the average American. This paper will look into the reasons behind the steady rise in prices, the legitimacy of a college education, and why recent graduates are struggling to find jobs in this tough economy. A college education is now as necessary for success as a high school education was in the 1970’s according to the job industry. In 1970, only 40 percent of high school graduates went to college. Now 70 percent of high school graduates attend some sort of postsecondary education (“Are Too Many Students Going to College?”). This percentage has increased because graduating high school is seen as typical right of passage. In addition to that, in 1970 7 percent of Americans had a Bachelor degree by the age of 24. In 2008 that percent had raised to a solid 29 percent (“How Much Does College Cost, and Why?”). Because more students are graduating with higher education degrees, college degrees are less special and more prevalent. Therefore, one would think that college tuition would decrease (saturation of a market). However, that is simply not the case. The price of college has increased for a variety of reasons. Pubic Universities have had to raise their tuition fees because their state has a strained budget. State and local funding has taken a major hit since the 1908s. For example, the University of Virginia received 33 percent of their budget from the state in 1989. In 2009 they only received 12 percent from the state. Another statistic shows that since 1980... ... middle of paper ... ... Cohan, Peter. "Is a Degree From a Top College Worth the Price? - DailyFinance." Business News, Stock Quotes, Investment Advice - DailyFinance. 30 Dec. 2010. Web. 06 Feb. 2011 Collins, Hugh. “Young College Grads Struggle to Find Work”. Business News, Stock Quotes, Investment Advice, - Daily Finance. 9 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. “How Much Money Does College Cost, and Why?”. Left Business Observer. 29 Jan. 2011. Web. 01 Feb. 2011. Kelley, Rob. “College Cost Rise; Public Universities See Biggest Hike- Oct. 18, 2005”. Business, Financial, Personal Financial News- CNNMoney.com. 17 Oct. 2005. Web. 01 Feb. 2011. Kirst, Mike. “Executive Summary.” Stanford University. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. Vedder, Richard. “Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?” Home- The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 08 Nov. 2009. Web. 03 Feb. 2011.
From conducting this survey, I learned that many students,whether they attend a public or a private school are unsatisfied with the rising tuition prices. The findings support my hypothesis. The next step in this research would to ask more college students about their thoughts and opinions about rising tuition prices. I would ask more students from different types of college and students taking on different types of degree. An implication this research could have for other research is that rising tuition prices are hurting students financially.
Since the 1980’s the cost of attending colleges have increased rapidly. Rising costs of for Medicare, highways and prisons have caused many states to reduce a percentage of their budget for higher education. Colleges and Universities currently face a very serious challenge:
Lankford, Ronald D. "Chapters 2 and 3." The Rising Cost of College. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2009. N. pag. Print.
Imagine telling a student who just graduated from college that you have wasted four years of hard, stressful and even worse, expensive work. Unfortunately, in this cynical society today, the world isn’t just full of competitors, but it’s full of greedy money-grabbing businesses. The worst businesses aren’t manufacturing or electric companies, but colleges and universities. In Caroline Bird’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money,” she examines how college has been viewed for so long as the best place to send high school grads no matter whether they actually want to go or not. She adds that students don’t realize how much college costs and are wasting their parents time and money, which is especially a horrible thing to waste. Now that the economy is better since September 11th and states have been stabilizing their budget debts, it doesn’t make sense that tuition prices higher than ever for college students.
There was a time in America where college was based solely on merit, higher education and pursuing the American Dream to obtain a career and gain social status to be successful in society. According to the Economist newspaper, rising fees and increase of student debt, shared with dwindling financial and educational returns, are undermining at least the perception that university is a good investment. Now due to high cost of an average good university, students are leaving college owing back over $100,000 and are not getting the job of their original dreams.
Education comes at a high price for this generation and not just financially. Going to college can give students plenty of debt with no promise of a job in return, which can set a student father back on their course of life. Young adults trying to start their lives by going to college encounter many setbacks. Today the average cost for a private university is $25...
As The “Progress of Education Reform” suggests, tuition discounting is major contributor to the rising cost of college in the sense that while it provides a tuition discount to the one particular student receiving the grant or scholarship it places a heavier burden on the majority demographic that attends the university without such discounting. (The Progress of Education Reform” 1). In contrast to popular opinion, scholarships and grants which are normally regarded as blessings are ironically a contributing factor to rising tuition prices. Basically, the universities have to make up for the money they lost by awarding the scholarships so the majority of the student population who did not qualify feel it in their pocketbooks. A final cause of this ludicrous tuition spike is the shift in university budgets to cater to the administration departments of the schools. Jobs in this department are non-teaching jobs that provide student services ranging from student safety to counseling and wellness programs. These jobs are definitely
The price of a four year institution has soared over three hundred percent in the past twenty-five years or so. We would have to factor in general inflation numbers in order to figure out the real significance. After that, we see that in those twenty-five years, tuition has risen at a rate of two to four times that of the national inflation. That has not been the case with college, however, as enrollments only continue to go up. Ultimately this means that families are paying for a luxury they can no longer afford with money they don’t have. Families are looking at an expense that is thirty-eight
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.
Elementary school, middle school, high school, college―that’s how we’re told our education careers should go. After college you go on and get a job based on the degree you received. Seems simple right? According to Erik Lowe in his Seattle Times article “Keep Washington’s College Tuition Affordable,” he informs that people in his generation are the first to be less educated than their parents, in the United States. He explains that this is due to the high cost of tuition followed by a huge amount of student loan debt. Lowe believes that there needs to be a significant change in the country’s higher education systems (in reference to the tuition costs) or the decline of college attendance will continue. There needs to be a decrease of college tuition because as it currently is, many people are unable to go to college due to the cost and if they do, they are loaded with debt and faced with the daunting task of finding a job.
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.
As McArdle points out, the cost for a college education has gone up over the years, leaving students in debt. I agree with this statement, because a college education was more affordable years ago and now it has doubled it’s cost. According to the article, McArdle states “The average price of all goods and services has risen about 50 percent. But the price of a college
Higher education costs have been increasing at a rapid pace, faster than inflation for the economy as a whole, for the past fifty years. It started in the 1960’s when the federal government passed the Higher Education Act to increase the amount of people able to afford and attend college. Regardless of the Unites States Government efforts to increase the affordability of college, federal aid programs have not risen to expectations due to the ever-increasing college prices. To lower the price of college, the government needs to cut back on student financial spending to go only to the lowest income families and create tax incentives for families to start saving up on their own.
Even though there's no exact answer to what it costs to go to college today, it is possible to make a good guess. Figure out what kind of school you want to attend and find out how much it costs to attend. From there, tack on an estimated percentage increase — five percent per year is a good guess(Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation, 2014). According to Merkein(2013) the average sticker prices at the nation's four-year public universities rose 2.9% this year, the smallest annual increase in more than three decades, suggesting that the steeper increases over the past few years "did not signal a new era of accelerating prices," says a report out Wednesday(Merkein , 2013). “A college education is one of the best investments that students and families can make,” Coleman (Hechinger, 2013). Yet ...
As colleges’ funds dry up, colleges must turn to the public to further support higher education. By raising state taxes, colleges can collect funds to help improve the school’s budgets. The state provides funds from the taxes for colleges to receive a certain amount for each student currently enrolled. All community and traditional four year colleges collect these funds in order to maintain the school’s budget. As reporter, Eric Kelderman states, “less than a third of colleges’ budget is based from state taxes”. The school’s budget is how colleges are able to provide academic support programs, an affordable intuition, and hire more counselors. Colleges must now depend on state taxes more than ever for public colleges. Without collecting more funds from state taxes, as author, Scott Carlson explains how Mr. Poshard explains to senators “our public universities are moving quickly toward becoming private universities…affordable only to those who have the economic wherewithal to them” (qtd. in.) Public colleges must be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend. If colleges lack to provide this to students, it can affect dropouts, a student’s ability focus, and cause stress. The problem of lack of funding is that colleges have insufficient funds. Therefore, the best possible solution for the problem of lack of funding would be increasing and collecting more funds from state taxes.