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Is college worth the money? This question has become increasingly prevalent as prices rise. The answer is a very hard one but I would have to say NO it is not worth the exorbitant amount of money that we have to pay in the United States.
Access to higher education is a necessity for any modern society. We need to find a solution to this national problem. Government, state funds, and the university administrators should work together to devise a solution. The rise in tuition costs in this country has affected both private university and public university sectors. There have been many studies that show a huge increase in the administrative cost and the student service cost. The tuition cost increase is making it increasingly difficult for people to be able to get an education without having huge amounts of debt that will follow them through life. College shouldn’t be so expensive so why is it; well we will be touching on why college is so expensive, why so many students are in debt and what are some ways we can try to combat this issue.
First, why has college become so expensive? Well, Amanda Ripley addressed the concern for the high cost of college tuition in the U.S. in her article Why is college in America so Expensive? (The Atlantic 2018) in which she states that, according to the 2018 Education at a Glance report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. spends more on college than almost any other country.” Yet, this report also shows that a third of developed countries offer college free of charge to their citizens and also indicates that another third of the developed countries keep tuition very affordable, under $2,400 per year. This illustrates that the spending per student in U.S. colleges is exorbitant, and it has virtually no relationship to the value that students could get in return. The main reason identified for the difference in the cost of college tuition between our country and the rest of the colleges in Europe, Canada, and other developed countries is that American college students are more likely to live away from home, and living away from home is very expensive. But housing and Food are usually an added cost anyway.
Students in the US are in so much debt it is causing disadvantages to those who don’t have money to be able to support their education. Education is something that should not be based on social or financial status, and Camilo Maldonado investigated this in his article Price of College Increasing Almost 8 Times Faster than Wages (Forbes 2018) the fact that student loans currently make up the biggest U.S. non-housing debt is appalling. Camilo presents the importance that a college degree has in the workplace since it is a basic requirement for professional jobs. But when you start a career with a mountain of debt it makes people question if college is still a necessity. Nevertheless, starting your career with a mountain of debt is also a disadvantage. As stated by, Adam Davidson in an article called Is College Tuition Too High? (The New York Times 2015) in which he presents data and states that the cost of higher education has increased four times in just one generation. Davidson also presents the importance of higher education and the need to make it affordable to all not just for the benefit of the individuals but for the benefit of society as a whole “Education exerts something of a multiplier effect; it transforms not only the lives of the educated but of those around them as well. Workers with more education are more productive, which makes companies more profitable and the overall economy grows faster. There are also significant noneconomic benefits. Educated populations tend to be healthier, more stable, and more engaged in their civic institutions and democratic debate.” (Davidson)
There have been some initiatives from individual universities to address the problem of affordable universities. A good example is the University of New York Medical School initiative. This university has created a board that recruits fundraising to ensure that they can provide free tuition to all medical students accepted into their program. This is an innovative approach to try to resolve the huge debt that medical students face. This university realized that they were losing very strong possible students who did not apply due to not being able to afford the cost of tuition. A lot of schools have become competitive based on who has money rather than talent and it is something that needs to change. Other institutions think that the Federal government should be responsible for funding higher education and relieving part of the tuition cost to students. However, The university budgets have grown over the years to such a big scale that the government is not capable of providing funding in a fairly distribution way across all existing universities. Another initiative that has been created to solve this problem has been the creation and expansion of online higher education. Many universities have created an online platform to provide college degrees to students more affordably and conveniently. By eliminating the physical campus and all the student services needed to students who attend in person to school, these online universities can cut down the costs tremendously and they are offering higher education degrees at a much lower cost.
Like many people, I believe wholeheartedly that the educational system is in crisis. Many factors have triggered this crisis, from financial disparity to curriculum stagnation. But, somehow despite this crisis, college education has been rising in the past 20 years, and experts predict that it will continue to rise. The cost for higher education is not sustainable and it is very concerning if the new generation can not access a college degree due to its cost. Our society needs the new generation to be educated to stay competitive in science and technology to face global competition.
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