In the United States, a college degree comes with the promise of a bright future, but also the guarantee of an average of $33,000 in debt (Izzo). Many of us have hopes and aspirations to attend prestigious Universities across the country, but perhaps that dream may be more expensive than we envisioned. Costs of a college education in America have skyrocketed since 2005 (Izzo), and have left newly graduated students searching for help. In order to offer a helping hand to those affected by tuition costs, we must first look at the root issue: The high cost of tuition. Lowering tuition will not only save thousands of people from debt, but it will also boost the economy, and keep us competitive with other countries. The cost of attending college …show more content…
Currently, attending a college in the United states can cost anywhere from $9,000 a year at a public college, to as much as $30,000 at a private university (collegedata.com). However, those numbers are only averages for tuition, and don't represent the extreme prices that some colleges charge. As of 2014, America's most expensive school is Sarah Lawrence College, which comes in at a whopping $65,480 per year (Goldman). As stated by Phil Izzo,"From 2005 to 2012, average student loan debt has jumped 35%, adjusting for inflation, while the median salary has actually dropped by 2.2%." This means that not only has the amount of money needed to be payed increased, but the amount to pay it with has decreased. Student loan debts are extremely unfair, because in order to get a college degree, which can give the money needed to support one's self, an individual must first pay a ridiculous amount which will hold them back for several years. The only way to end this cycle is to remove the cause, high …show more content…
The results that I found shocked me. Not only was school abroad much more affordable than in the United States, but it was free in several countries. Yes, you heard that right, an education that would cost the price of a small house in the United States would cost you practically nothing overseas. According to Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a senator in Hamburg, Germany,"tuition fees discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.” An enlightening look on education from a political standpoint, countries like Germany give us in the United States something to strive for in terms of education. However, if we are the so called leaders in education as we claim so often to be, why do we continue to charge? After all, if several international powers can offer free education, then why can’t
In today’s world there are few things more important to obtaining a good career and being successful in life than acquiring a college degree, but this increased importance on getting a degree has also coincided with a large increase to the financial cost of obtaining one. This majority of this cost comes from ever increasing tuition rates and the rising price of textbooks, neither of which appear to be slowing down. Additionally, as the financial burden of attending college continues to grow, the students who are being forced to shoulder the majority of these costs are acquiring large amounts of debt due to college loans or simply foregoing a college education altogether. As the cost of education nears a breaking point, we must ask ourselves what measures we can take to improve the situation.
The United States needs to look to other nations that have figured out the necessity of higher education to be at an affordable cost if not free. In 2015, college graduates are facing on average just north of $35,000 in student debt (Berman). In part, the government has reduced the federal funding that each college receives each year. Therefore, colleges have constantly raised the
The U.S. is home to some of the greatest colleges and universities in the world. But with an overwhelming 1.3 million students graduating with an average student loan debt of $29,000 each and with youth unemployment elevated, the question of whether or not college tuition is worth the money arises (The Institute for College Access & Success, 2013). Higher education faces intimidating challenges: continually rising costs, access and completion problems, constant changing of technology, and responsibility pressures from state and federal officials. But no challenge is more intimidating than the fundamental question that many Americans face to ask themselves, "Is college worth the cost?" As a result of the economic turn down, many students who graduate are not finding well-paying jobs, either within their field of study or not.
Student debt is one of the top causes of crippling debt. If you want to get a college education in today's world, you will need to either be very wealthy or suffer the consequences of student loans. College costs had risen five hundred percent since 1985, imagine how much more that has risen until 2016. A tuition at a private college was projected to cost $130,000 on average for over four years. As state cutbacks in the wake of the financial crisis, caused the cost the price of public higher education to raise by 15 percent in a two year
Higher education comes at an extremely high price. The excitement of graduating college to land the six-figure job is soon destroyed when students realize how much debt they’ve obtained. Dreams of owning a house and starting a family are shattered by the money borrowed to provide and guarantee students an excellent future. Instead of waiting to land the ideal job, students work multiple jobs to help ends meet. Struggling to stay afloat, millions of students become victims of one of the major economic crisis in the United States today; Student debt.
With 19.9 million students and $33,000 in debt on average in 2013 and 2014, the worth of a college education is becoming a huge debate. College has always been known as the next step after high school. It’s what most people look forward to for their whole school career. Now some colleges are so prestigious people make it their dream to get in. Not only do students need to worry about getting in but now they also have to worry about the prices. College prices are higher than they have ever been and they are increasing exponentially. The amount of student debt is also increasing vastly. Although student debt is a lot to pay off, college is worth the experience, connections, and opportunity.
The most overwhelming task for high school seniors is deciding what they want to do after high school. Some receive scholarships to colleges, some don't go to college at all, and some can't afford to go to college. Everyday high school students think about how they plan on paying for college, which includes tuition, books, dorms, among other hefty payments. College tuition is becoming a financial issue for students and parents around the world. Tuition and fees should be lowered; to understand this argument it is important to examine stats on the unaffordability of college, how it holds back lower class students, and how the cost can be lowered. It is also vital to show how the lowering of college costs
The cost of attending college has risen drastically over the years. Statistics show that there has been a 260% increase in tuition costs since 1980. The increase in tuition cost equates to an increase in money borrowed to fund higher education. An increase in money borrowed results in an increase in debt accumulated over time. As a result of the rising figures, the economy as a whole has also suffered because of the restricted financial space many graduates find themselves in upon completion of their degree. In this paper, we will discuss college costs, reasons why they have risen, and the best way for students to pay for it.
There is no escaping the fact that the cost of college tuition continues to rise in the United States each year. To make it worse, having a college degree is no longer an option, but a requirement in today’s society. According to data gathered by the College Board, total costs at public four-year institutions rose more rapidly between 2003-04 and 2013-14 than they did during either of the two preceding decades (Collegeboard.com). Students are pressured to continue into higher education but yet, the increasing costs of books and tuition make us think about twice. Sometimes, some of these students have to leave with their education partially finished, leaving them with crushing debts. It is important to find the means to prevent these
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.
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.
The cost of tuition for higher education is quickly rising. Over half of college freshmen show some concern with how to pay for college. This is the highest this number has been since 1971 (Marill and O’Leary 64-66, 93). The amount of college graduate debt has been rapidly increasing also. With limited jobs available because of the high unemployment rate, college graduates find themselves staying in debt even longer. Although grants and financial aid are available to students, students still struggle to pay for their college tuition. Higher education costs are prohibitively expensive because the state’s revenue is low, the unemployment rate is high, and graduates cannot pay off their student loans.
Today colleges are growing more and more necessary for attaining a solid path towards a successful career, yet the rapidly increasing cost of tuition is driving students away from their dream of attending college, due to the preposterous amount of money that is now being demanded by colleges across the nation and world as a whole. It is sad to see students being turned away from a successful future due to the money-hungry nature of the universities that dot the globe. More and more impossible it is becoming to have a “rags-to-riches” scenario that used to highlight the American Dream, as if a student doesn’t have the riches to afford a higher education and the tuition that is drug upon its coattails, then our society is doomed to be clothed in rags forever, unless major changes are brought about to restructure and end the indefatigable growth of tuition rates across the board.
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 increasing cost of higher education in the United States has been a continuing topic for debate in recent decades. American society emphasizes the importance of education after high school, yet the cost of undergraduate and advanced degrees continually rises at a greater rate than inflation. According to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, cost factors prevent 48% of college-qualified high school graduates from pursuing further education (McKeon, 2004, p. 45). The current system requires the majority of students to accumulate extensive debt with the expectation that they gain lucrative post-graduate employment to repay their loans.