A Modern Day Setback That Affects The Majority Of Americans

Why does the tuition cost so much more? This leaves college students baffled and stressed about how much money they’re paying and what they’re even paying for.

With this increase in tuition costs it is making a college education more and more unaffordable and putting students in more debt.

College tuition is too high. Since the demand for an education and the supply of schools are both high, cost should be low. What we see,

College tuition has been an increasingly intense topic of discussion over the years. The costs of higher education have been debated by many people, and it has been discussed as to whether costs are becoming too high for students to afford. College has become more and more popular, and now as many as 20 million students attend universities reported by The National Center for Education Statistics (1). The value of a college degree is immense, but college tuition is becoming too expensive for students to afford, and furthering the problem are students’ lack of knowledge on how to pay and earn money towards their college degree.

College tuition is a subject that I am certain is on every college student's mind. The current cost of college has become so outrageously high and so students are graduating college with what you think is a feeling of excitement for their lives starting, when in reality they are entering a pool of stress due to high amounts of debt and no job guarantees. With that being said overly expensive College Tuition is merely taking away opportunities from potential students. According to Collegefactual.com, you will see that 20 years ago the average college tuition for a student at any University was around $6,285 for the room, board, and tuition. Today, according to Niche.com, the average tuition for almost any college is over $30,000 for those same things. Today, this isn't even offered for those same colleges, we don’t even know what is actually causing the raising tuition. At this point in time, we are paying for the name. Just like clothing, we pay more for the “high end” (a.k.a the college name) items. This is an issue that not only affects college students, but people who want a good education. College tuition should be lowered because the average student debt is too high, FAFSA results can be misleading and not high enough, and there is not enough access to college for deserving students.

Increased tuitions are results of a variety of factors. Shrinkage of state budget and low endowments cause by the recession forcing colleges to make up the cost somehow (Lee). The government has increased their support during the recession. For example, in the form of Pell Grants which doubled over the years. Andrew Kelly, director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute, writes “... the increase of federal spending has been completely eroded by the rising tuition prices”(Bidwell). Higher tuition defeats the purpose of the federal government increasing their support.

Rise in tuition is often seen as a school trying to gauge as much as money as they can from the students. A view most forgotten in this argument is that of the school. The school has to have money to feed the students and house the students plus teach them. Those three things are a necessity for the students. Schools would face lawsuit after lawsuit if they failed to feed the students. The school also has to pay its employees and hire new ones that leave.

In today's generation college students struggle to attend higher education. Tuition has been higher than ever before to attend college. This is true, college students battle to go to college. A book that I read "They Say, I say" mentions, "many families are indeed struggling, in depths of recession, to pay for their children's college eduction." (Sanford, 191). Paying for college funds affect families as well as the student.

In 1976, the average cost to attend a four year public university was $2,175; today, the average cost to attend a four year public university is $25,000 (Snyder). This means it is 1150% more expensive to go to college in The United States today than it was 30 years ago. This obviously would create a problem on how we as people are going to pay for our higher education. Today college has become almost a necessity to have a satisfactory life, and with these rising prices some individuals believe student loans are the only option. There are many reasons as to why the prices have risen, but the one undeniable fact is that this has created a problem within our country. Which, is known as the student debt crisis, and it has been on the rise the past couple years. This problem is affecting people all around the United States, and is causing multitude of problems for them all because they wanted to pursue higher education. Wanting to better your opportunities by bettering yourself is not something that needs to be punished, and sadly that is what is happening. This problem is something that needs to be fixed for the sake of Americans and our economy, but will also take time and a multitude of steps to correct.

Colleges are noticing a drop in students’ interest in a higher education, because it forces them to fall into poverty. Obtaining a higher education is a dream of many working class citizens, but the price to go to a choice college is not available economically. The majority of students use some type of student loan, they have become the norm for attending college (Johnston, Roten 24). College is becoming unaffordable to many lower class students. With tuition prices this high, students are backing out of school and looking for jobs that only require a high school diploma. Student loans should help people, but it is only hurting them because they feel like they can never repay it. Especially since student debt continues to rise. “Student loan debt rose by 328 percent from $241 million in 2003 to $1.08 trillion in 2013, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York” (Johnston, Roten 25).

There have been arguments when discussing the price of attending college. The main argument that we have is whether college tuition is too expensive or not. Over the last few decades the college tuition rates have increased drastically, but is a rate increase necessarily a good or bad thing. I personally believe that the cost to attend college is too expensive especially for low and middle-income families. There are many reasons why tuition could be considered too expensive they include, rise of tuition, little financial aid, and lack of college savings to name a few. The first reason why college tuition is considered too expensive is the continuing rise of tuition itself. Between the years 1973 to 2008 tuition for a four-year increased

Families are now aiming low when it comes to college- or are simply not going at all. Money could play a huge part in this decision- after all, the cost of college has skyrocketed over the years, and so has the amount of student loan debt. This is something even Leonhardt admits, stating that, because of this, only about 33 percent of young adults get a four-year college degree today, while another 10 percent receive a two-year degree (Leonhardt). And even though many colleges offer financial aid packages, that money may soon be cut and the cost of college will continue to grow. It is true that, in my personal experience, just because a student is awarded financial aid does not mean they have a golden ticket to University. This leaves many desperate students the only option of taking out as many loans as they think they can handle- often more than they should. Debt is not a new issue for America, but it is still a problem. Although David Autor, an M.I.T. economist, laments: “not sending [young adults] to college would be a disaster”, no one can ignore the rising rates of loan defaults, and some think it

Paying for a Higher education in the United States is still yet to be affordable for the common student, regardless of all financial help, it's still a burden. Due to student loans and other financial helps, student debt has become a crisis, that many Americans continue to struggle with throughout years without absence. The current economy is leaving no choice than raising tuitions. "But from now on, unless inflation is halted, there's no choice in the matter but to continue raising tuition", according to the Los Angeles Times. Student debt enlarges with the current inflation.

The cost of tuition at colleges and universities in the United States has seen a steady increase over last several decades. Since the 1980s, the list price for tuition has risen by roughly 7% per year, while the inflation rate has averaged 3.2% per year. The effect of this mismatch in the rise of the cost of tuition versus the average inflation rate has had monumental effects on the ability of students to afford a higher education. This, in turn, has forced more students to take out increasingly large amounts of loans, causing for the national student loan debt to grow to over $1 trillion dollars, more than total credit card

The increases are due to an increase in spending or a decrease in funding. The easiest way to fix a problem like this is to increase the tuition of the people that go to these schools. And it's these increases that are causing the outrageous price it costs now a days to attend a university, and causing all of the people who go to college to graduate with massive