Reasons For Rising Tuition Prices

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Each year millions of high school students start thinking about which college they want to attend. With an annual sticker price of “$21,228”, students know a college education is not cheap. Students understand that tuition prices are not stagnant “Between 2003–04 and 2013–14, prices for undergraduate tuition, fees, room, and board at public institutions rose 34 percent, and prices at private nonprofit institutions rose 25 percent, after adjustment for inflation” Parents and students often wonder what the cause for these increases are. Unfortunately, there is no one simple answer. The painful truth is the reason for rising tuition prices is the result of several factors. The first reason for increases in tuition prices is collegiate sports. …show more content…

In his article “Resisting the Exploitation of Contingent Faculty Labor in the Neoliberal University” Schwartz accuses the collegiate establishment of hiring more employees than needed. In his article, Professor Schwartz claims “Academic administrative and staff positions have grown two-hundred and fifty percent over the past twenty years, while the number of faculty positions increased only thirty percent (with the total number of tenure-track positions staying basically flat).” (Page 517) What Professor Schwartz is claiming is that instead of hiring more professors, universities are hiring more administration. The need for more administration is due to the need to advertise their college. “Universities are increasingly ruled by professional administrators who conceive of the university as a competitive economic entity that must maximize revenue from lucrative corporate patents.” (Page 517) What Schwartz is asserting is that colleges are now attempting to sell themselves to companies as well as students. This overall increase of employees causes an increase in tuition …show more content…

In their article “The Credits That Count: How Credit Growth and Financial Aid Affect College Tuition and Fees” authors Katherina Best and Jussi Keppo devised a model of supply in demand for higher education. They found that there is a direct association between tuition prices and demand. In other words colleges have found that the more they raise prices the more in demand they become. In the article, the authors declare, “Our results indicate that consumers desire a more expensive education, but are hampered by credit constraints. Schools can thus use prices as a signal of quality, providing incentive to raise prices.” (Page 593) In this quote, the authors are stating that they have found a correlation between higher tuition prices and desirability. Students are willing to pay a great deal more for an Ivy-League level education rather than a State College. The apparent link is understandable, the more you pay for school the better your education. While this assumption is logical, it is not necessarily

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