We have recently come to a time where college education has grown to mean little apart from the increasing concern over high college tuition. Maybe it is only fair given the unreasonably huge cost which the colleges are charging, one which is rising even faster than inflation itself. But it is worth exploring the true benefit which is beyond the monetary cost itself here. College is far beyond its worth in money and people from previous generations are quite likely to be in agreement of what college meant and the benefits that it brought into their lives. With all of these benefits aside, college had lately become a greater concern as opposed to an opportunity for growth, and in the midst of this very high college cost, we have lost sight as to what we are supposed to be walking away with when we leave with a college degree in hand; if we manage to do so despite the monetary challenges that hinder our path.
There are countless economic benefits linked to a quality of education after high school, and this was a matter which was proved to us in the year 2014 when the gap in between the earnings of high school students and college graduates reached the record high. This was the time when the true worth of the college education was truly revealed to us, and we realized how much role it played in our lives. (Leonhardt) This is a claim which was made by David Leonhardt at the New York Times by making reference to an analysis presented by the Labor Department and the Economic Policy Institute. As per the same analysis, Americans who had a four-year degree to show for their accomplishment were earning 98 percent more in an hour compared to their counterparts who were working only with a high-school diploma in hand. (Leonhardt) This is a trend which is suggestive of the fact that the American economy is in desperate need of more skilled and educated workers because, without that demand in the economy, this gap in between the earning of college graduates and the rest of the workers would not have hit a record high.(Leonhardt) This trend is also suggestive of the fact that even though more students are aspiring to go to college in the present day, these are less who are coming out with a four-year degree or skill to show for their efforts.
According to Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, college gives us the pursuit of happiness, and it gives us gifts which make us worthy of being called wise and knowledgeable human beings. College made Cohen feel like he belonged to a community and he found at his college teachers and mentors who delivered more than just knowledge; he learned the art of facing criticism while he was at college and that is something very few could teach us. (Cohen) All of Cohen’s arguments aside, there has to be a reason why we cannot seem to make it past the money that we spend in college versus how much we make once we are done with our four years there, because surely we cannot all be wrong in obsessing over this issue needlessly. We think and talk about it because the problem affects the best of us and that is what makes it a harsh reality we all have to face.
The issue is that in the recent few years, almost all of the students who have chosen to go to college have spent more while there and on coming out, they have earned less. By the close of the year 2013, the combined student’s loans in the United States had exceeded far beyond a trillion US dollars. When these students embark on their career after getting out of college, they carry the burden of college debt, and that is a factor which forces them to put off many of the life’s major decisions. (Abel and Dietz, p.1)
What makes matters worse after indebted college students enter the real word to earn what they have spent is the fact that they can hardly find jobs to be able to fend for themselves. The same statement could be backed up by the data presented by the Census Bureau and by the Department of Labor both of whom claim that 54% of the recent graduates were either unemployed or underemployed. (Bennett and Wilezol, p. xi) On the other side of the story, there are millions of jobs out there and just as many positions which are unfilled because there is a serious lack of skilled and an educated workforce. (Bennett and Wilezol, p. xi) Both of these pieces of evidence are suggestive of the fact that the talent the present day colleges are producing does not fulfill the demands of the current state of the market. While positions that require skill remain unfilled, those who come out of college only have qualifications which could fill the jobs which require little skill and since the demand for jobs of such nature is so very high, not every college graduate is able to find a position to fill.
These are all problems with the current state of college education in our country. What are the consequences of the obscenely high cost of college education, though? The high cost of college tuition has transformed the college experience into a more burdensome pursuit rather than an intellectual experience which could offer significant value addition. (Renehan, p.1) This rise in college tuition has also changed the means that the students use in order to get through their four years there. There was a time when working through the college was an option. Today, however, support from the parents or sources of a scholarship have become essential to get through the financial burden of college.
In the midst of all of these pressures, the attention of the students has shifted from the acquiring of the knowledge and the wisdom to grimmer issued like how they are going to pay for the college expense and other requirements over the next term. These increased pressures and the lack of resources in the average American household has increased the rate of dropouts in college and also the trend of students switching towards the public schools which offer education at an affordable rate in comparison. The story of Nathaniel Bryant is no different, a junior at Syracuse University who aspired of running a non-profit for educating the poor kids. He had to drop out because the cost of college was simply too much to bear. These are trends which have left these students at an economic and an intellectual disadvantage and because of these pressures and the switch from private to a public system, they are not being sufficiently prepared to handle the challenges of the real life and those of maintaining a career.
This is a concern for us as a community, and this is because this lack of educated and skilled individuals is bound to leave us at a great disadvantage. This is because education is a remarkable benefit not just for those who enjoy the benefits of this education, but also for the rest of the members of the community. Workers who have a higher level of education are seen to be more productive, and they contribute to the companies growing faster and the economy thriving more. (Davidson) This is why these educational institutions should be provided with incentives to reduce their demands in college tuition. We are a nation which can accomplish whatever we put our minds to it, and the government has always been there to make certain that we do. It is time that the people in charge be reminded of their duty so that they could regulate this cost. Higher taxes could be one option of providing colleges with this incentive, cutting government aid could be another.
With all of these problems that students and their parents face in arranging for college fees, colleges are still able to justify these soaring costs. These faculty members say that they have to charge higher to get students to come to their institutes. These education providers have to create attractions for the college youth to get them to opt for college, and these libraries and sports teams and stadiums and college wings require investment. This investment has to come from somewhere and for these education providers, the students are the main targets. We see college advertisements which boast about their great physics department with the latest equipment to aid in their learning and our children are smart enough to realize the benefit that these facilities could bring. But alas! They require substantial investment.
With all of these expenses, it is only natural for there to be an uncontrollable rise in college tuition year after year because these services including the faculty, sports trainers, and various equipment do not come cheap, and students know it too. In the midst of this battle between quality and college expense, quality seems to take the lead every time, and no one seems to be questioning the trend because colleges ask for tuition and students pay them. Colleges know that the students will get loans to pay their way through college and the financial institutions keep on giving. (Farrington)
In the midst of these conditions, how can college tuitions be controlled? When answering this question, we could follow the example of the University of Helsinki, a very reputable college which asks for no tuitions from its students. (Seigel)
For the longest time, the source of funding for the university has been government spending, and as the government cut on the spending towards this University, it did not come around to charge higher from its students. The University made it a strategy to cut down in its faculty for, by the year 2020, the University is planning on reducing its workforce by 980 people. (Seigel)
This is the University which is really clear on what it wants for its students to achieve and this is the sole reason why it is not pressuring them into paying higher tuitions than they would be able to rid themselves of in the future. This is the intuition which has been focusing on giving skills to its students, skill which they could use to become better career people and a part of a skilled workforce tomorrow.
The point for us to take here is that if our Universities cannot take the initiates that the administration at the University of Helsinki, the Federal Government would have to intervene. The flaw in the system in its present state is that the student does not care that the burden of the student's loans is becoming unbearable, and the government does not seem to mind the fact that much of its workforce is working under the pressures of student loans.
In addition to getting the colleges to reduce their fees, there is also need for private and government funding, which could come from philanthropy and from government aid. Institutions could be encouraged to invest on the attractions which compel students to join a student body, so that at the end of the day, the whole burden is not for the student to bear. We have to join hands in order to help our children and ourselves towards a better tomorrow.
So the options that we want to become available to our students are not free college tuition because then that would completely be unfair to those who educate. They have to stay afloat somehow. Providing college scholarships is also not a choice which would really benefit us in the long run because even though the few students would be able to find sources of finance for college, it would not be an option accessible to all. We want to implement a solution here which could benefit every college going individual equally. We want an option which could reduce the burden from all the students proportionately.
We want to see a system where colleges have an annual limit to their spending, so that their investment towards college attractions could be regulated. We want the government to step in on making this implementation which could easily be accomplished through a bill or a law which could impose penalty on non-compliance.
Works Cited
Abel, Jaison R., and Richard Deitz. “Do the Benefits of College Still Outweigh the Costs?” 2014, www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci20-3.pdf.
Bennett, William J., and David Wilezol. Is College Worth It?: a Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education. Nashville, TN, Thomas Nelson, 2013.
Cohen, Richard. “College's Value Extends Far beyond Money.” Columbia Daily Tribune, 7 Oct. 2014, www.columbiatribune.com/opinion/columnists/college-s-value-extends-far-beyond-money/article_25a2152c-e0a7-5bde-a76c-d02bd3ea74dc.html.
Davidson, Adam. “Is College Tuition Really Too High?” 8 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/is-college-tuition-too-high.html.
Farrington, Robert. “The Simple Strategy To Stop Rising Tuition Costs.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 30 July 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2015/07/30/the-simple-strategy-to-stop-rising-tuition-costs/#6e26e1f6eea0.
Gigi Stone, Jennifer Pirone. High Tuition Costs Force Students to Drop Out. 07 November 2008. <http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/story?id=6411422>.
Leonhardt, David. “Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say.” 27 May 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-it-clearly-new-data-say.html?_r=1.
Renehan, Stewart. “Rising Tuition in Higher Education: Should We Be Concerned?” Aug. 2015, www.bing.com/cr?IG=447625A20B9B4174B576C56C8E0FEFDF&CID=00C5A620B725638F3134AC30B6146247&rd=1&h=YDSjkKQUKUyBc2jZuY-oyjrLf-55Qae3MzNo2wbZX20&v=1&r=http%3a%2f%2fscholar.oxy.edu%2fcgi%2fviewcontent.cgi%3farticle%3d1001%26context%3dliberalarts&p=DevEx,5066.1.
Siegel, Ethan. “Why College Is So Expensive, And How To Fix It.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Mar. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/03/01/why-college-is-so-expensive-and-how-to-fix-it/#2fe392a6265b.
