Opportunity Cost In Education

If you were to by chance walk into a normal, bland Economics 101 class, you are almost destined to overhear a professor speak about one of the most important cornerstones of basic microeconomics, opportunity cost. By definition, opportunity cost is what one forfeits in order to pursue something else. A big decision of life that exemplifies the exact definition of opportunity cost is when teenagers go to college. Instead of getting a job at a low level right out of high school, many of todays concerned teens are giving up their ability to immediately labor for income and instead go straight to college in hopes of obtaining a higher level occupation. The concerning question on the mind of unknowing newcomers to the real world is, however, if college is all that it’s built up to be. The fact is, if you look at attending college in the long run, the ability to conceal a high paying job by the time of graduating is very high, making the opportunity cost very worth it.

Opportunity cost as defined by Merriam-Webster.com retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.Merriam-Webster.com/dictonary/opportunity cost is “the added cost of using resources (as for production or speculative investment) that is the difference between the actual value resulting from such use and that of an alternative (as another use of the same resources or an investment of equal risk but greater return).” Opportunity cost can be defined as what you give up in order to do something, a choice between two things. Opportunity cost may be expressed in terms of anything which is of value to a person. Waggoner (2016), says that people have opportunity cost with every decision they make. An example is the time chosen to write this paper I gave up the time I

Courtney Munna, a graduate of the prestigious New York University, has found herself $100,000 in debt at age twenty six. The photographer’s assistant has a degree in Religion and Women’s Studies, a program in which the cost is high, yet the value is not. Virtually no career paths exist that would compensate for Munna’s major investment. Munna’s education costs her $700 a month, and she states her regrets of the overpriced degree, “I don't want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back." While Munna’s sizeable loss can be attributed to her poor choice in degree, the all-encompassing trouble lies in the increasing need for student

13). According to an article in the American Economist (2015), an opportunity cost is defined as “everything [one] you must give up to pursue an action” (Stone, p. 20). In addition to abandoning honesty, teachers were preoccupied with test scores rather than the welfare of the students, especially disadvantage children. Their need to exceed trumped the need of the children. While the danger of being caught was eminent, the decision-making process was skewed by the need to achieve monetary gain and prestige.

In the recent past, the cost of post-secondary school education has rapidly risen in America. An adjustment of the financial aid that comes from both state and federal governments indicates that the cost of university or college education has surpassed that of health care and even inflation (Casselman, 2012). Some of the facets that have led to the increasing costs are state and federal revenue shortfalls and wrong use of cost offsetting. A recent article published in the Wall Street Journal indicates that students across America are plunging into more debt due to loans taken to pay their college education. Considering that America has experienced severe shortages of employees in the science related courses, rising costs of higher education continue to create more concern. The issue of cost has also featured in the current American primaries with presidential hopefuls like Hillary Clinton discussing the possibility of cheap or even a free college education. On the same note of costs, the following paper is a review of an article by Baum, Kurose and McPherson, ‘An overview of American higher education’, published in the journal of the future of children.

“The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.” by Bernie Sanders (College). As the famous candidate for presidency says, college education may serve a greater purpose, but the increase in unpayable debt is an issue for young adults who have a hard time in finding a reasonable payment plan when student loans exceed the living costs. Student debt has exceeded from 2003 to 2012 by 20% (Caldwell). If one would take out a loan for 10,000 US dollars by now it has grown to double that amount. How can anyone pay that much without getting a bad credit score? This continues as we can take a closer analysis of the bar chart below. Picture one shows us a bar chart of the trending increase in student loan (Lee). For younger adults the amount of student loan being taken by high school graduates has increased by almost 33%. In total, the amount of student loan increased from 2004 to 2012 is almost 400%. This is why most high school graduates heavily rely on parents because not one eighteen year old has the resources to lead a stable life. The young adults cant break away from their parents because they cannot pay off these debts. Most of these debts increase because none of them can be paid on minimum wage so a large monetary deficit appears in the student 's balance. In picture 2, we can see the balance between of the major loans being paid (Lee). HELOC means home

The cost of education has risen at such a fast pace that it has surpassed the average household income, plunged thousands into debt, and made the dream of achieving a higher education to better oneself even farther out of reach. Education does not need to be free of cost, but it does not need to put Americans in crippling debt either, we need to ask questions and together challenge the policies that are having a profound effect on us and future generations.

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.

Presently, education and the economy are great concerns in the United States; however, these topics are not mutually exclusive. Many argue that education offers those with low incomes a way to move into the middle or higher classes; others argue that education cannot resolve the problem of economic inequality. Two recent articles address and argue this issue. The first, “Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea” by John Marsh, was originally published in Marsh 's non-fiction book Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality in 2011 and later appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In it, Marsh argues that education is not the solution for economic inequality

Policies that influence the cost of education affect people’s decisions to attend college. Previous literature discuss policies and programs influencing marginal benefits and the cost of obtaining a college education, such as the Pell Grant (Seftor and Turner 2002, Rubin 2011, Kane 2003), financial aid and assistance programs (Cornwell, Mustard, and Sridhar 2006, Dynarski 2003, Kane 2007) and insurance provision (Cohodes et al. 2016, Miller and Wherry 2016). These studies provide evidence that increasing exposure to the information of assistantships and expanding eligibility of assistantship programs improves college enrollment. We assume health insurance works in a similar way to financial aid and assistantship programs by reducing the

I would like to study this topic to find out if students could mitigate the cost of education by taking a longer period of time to complete their degrees. Each year more and more students are getting deeper in debt attempting to pursue an education. There has got to be a better way for students to be able to accomplish their goal of earning a degree and not fall into a debt trap. It seems that the more time students take in earning a degree, they will lose potential income and they will also incur even more cost. They will have to pay for the extension of time that it will take to earn a degree in not only time but

Bal was born in one of the small villages in Nepal with substandard economy. He had to struggle his way out of the confines of a suburb life in order to gain quality education. He had a modest childhood as he went to a small village school where quality education was almost impossible to get. Since, the cost of education was in equal terms with the quality of education he received, it was not a big burden for his family to pay his tuition. Later, when Bal reached high school, a slight degree of financial strain began to press on his family. Giving up to the financial pressure, Bal started to teach when he was a teenager when his family’s financial situation aggravated by the absence of his parents who were in a different place in search

In the articles Top Ten Issues to Watch in 2015 and The Economics of Education, Dana K. Rickman discusses the issues that are occurring in education throughout Georgia. The author is the Policy and Research Director of The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Rickman partnered with the program manager, Elisa Olivarez, in researching and writing Top Ten Issues to Watch in 2015. The topics stated in both articles really cover most of the problems that Georgia is being faced with. The Georgia Partnership meets annually with the new legislative session to hear from experts in several fields including funding, education policy, teacher preparedness, and much more. Education reporters and editors from around the state are in attendance of this meeting. A panel of legislators provides understanding on the key education issues they will be handling during the session. The top ten report is officially released at this meeting. From the reading I know that Rickman’s objective is to educate the citizens of the state of Georgia about what’s going on in their state concerning education. From the readings I understand that Rickman is not only identifying issues but also outlining what is being implemented to correct them. I think the author noticeably acknowledged all that is important regarding the present glitches in education as well as informed readers on the changes that have been made.

An illustration: the administration needs to manufacture another interstate, however there area is rare (there is insufficient area), along these lines, the opportunity expense is to construct another government funded school. The opportunity expense is the proficiency and accessibility of transportation. The following best-option is typically cheaper however is in less quality/amount than the introductory great or administration.

American youth have more pressure to get a good education than ever before, but at what price? The cost of education is at an all time high and rising every year. Many Americans are struggling with a large amount of student loan debt weather they graduated with a degree or not. The only way to secure the future of students today is to invest in the students themselves rather than investing their money into the corporate market. By preparing students for higher education and providing financial resources students will have the knowledge to deal with student loans and the debt they may be accruing while in school.