The Cost Of A College Education

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.

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

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.

Since 1974, tuition has been on the rise and has reached new heights. One reason why tuition is increasing is because of “the state governments’ unwillingness or inability to raise per-student financing” (Davidson). The government is spending less on college and moving those funds into other categories, such as the military. Furthermore, colleges are spending less on each student than they did during pre-recession (Fox). Even after the recession, the government is continuously cutting more and more from education funds. As the government cuts more from education funds, tuition cost will steadily increase to compensate the loss. Tuition increased from 1994 to 2015 is depicted in the graph on the next page. Drawing a conclusion from the graph, it is possible that if this trend continues, public colleges will approximately reach the same price as private colleges one day. The amount of financial aid given is unable to meet the needs of lower income students,

“College Prices Soar Again!” “Budget Cuts Cause Even Higher Tuition!” “Higher Education Now Even Less Affordable” These are all statements that have been seen all over the media: newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. (3 SV: SV) Rising college tuition in America has been a problem for years. Many students drop out after a single year due to the pricey costs of tuition. The rapid rise can be attributed to many aspects of the economy, not just a single source. There have also been some propositions of how costs could be lowered, but these have yet to be seen. The United States has gone into a tuition crisis.

Today college tuition prices are rising. Paying for college can often be a stressful responsibility. A college education is very important for many students, but when stressing on how to pay for college gets in the way, it becomes more of a burden. Kim Clark effectively states the rising prices of college tuition in her article, “The Surprising Causes of Those College Tuition Hikes.” Clark states that the cost of attending a public university, even after subtracting out aid and inflation, rose more than fifteen percent in the last

In 1965, the President of the United States Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act of 1965. This allowed for many things needed in the higher education system, one of them being low interest loans to students who need financial assistance to get through college. This is where the debt problem begins, but does not get out of control until the most recent past decade. Some of the drastic increase of debt can be contributed to more people going to college, but can also be contributed to state schools receiving less money from their respective states and needing to raise tuition and all other fees to cover the difference. Schools do have other justifiable reasons to raise rates as well, such as utilities, upgrades to the campus upon requests of the student population, employee wages, no one is willing to work

So it’s not that colleges are spending more money to educate students, it’s that they have to get that money from someplace to replace their lost state funding; and that’s from tuition and fees from students and families (Sanchez 1). While most institutions tried to keep costs down, some took advantage of the public perception that a high tuition means a quality education (Sanchez 2). The problems that students face now are rising tuition, increasing loans and lacking financial aid to compensate. The fastest growing income for public colleges and universities in our country is tuition. Most students must take out loans to make it through college now.

Financial barriers for higher education has climbed over the last ten years. Today, over 40 million Americans have student loans. Of these 40 million, most individuals are struggling to maintain payments on the loans (Hillary for America, 2016). Since 2004, the tuition for in-state colleges and universities has risen by about 42 percent and with the recent Great Recession, states have continued to decrease spending on higher education at a rapid rate (Hillary for America, 2016). It is estimated that states are only contributing around $1,805 per student, which is estimated to be 20 percent less than what was contributed only seven years’ prior. The federal government in

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.

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.

As a result of this, states receive pressure to make up for this and must raise tuition. Grant donors are also becoming less generous in their contributions to students as well. This makes affording college even harder for students.

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 rising costs of formal education has become a real and concerning issue for most Americans. Whitehouse.gov states, the average income of families has remained roughly the same in the last three decades. In that time the tuition rates have more than tripled. This leaves families struggling to get their kids through school. According to Forbs, universities and colleges have been raising their tuition fees by 2 to 5% each year. Forbs also found that in public schools while students are paying more for their education, the college or university is spending less money on the student’s education. Forbs explains that the 2008 recession is largely to blame. On the contrary, that was 6 years ago and public schools are still spending less money on student’s education but charging the student more for it. This means that the tuition students are paying is not being