College prices are raising every single year. When adjusted for inflation my dad's parents paid less over 4 years at a private college then what we at Furman pay for in a semester. Also college is much more compulsory today then it was back then. So why are tuition prices so high? In my opinion there is the simple explanation and the complicated one. The simple answer is colleges now provide more for students then ever before. Colleges are marketing themselves to get as many applicants as possible so they must spend millions of dollars on non essential things. Today any good university has state of the art athletic facilities, dinning services, and private police forces, etc. The classrooms have there own computers, smart boards, etc. So you could say that this is why college prices are so high but if you do the math it still doesn't add up.
I believe that the reason that college tuitions are so high is due to the government. Starting really in the 90s the government has been issuing billions of dollars in students loans. Giving large loans to any student not matter how likely he or she was actually likely to finish college. Nor did they take into account the amount students will make in there chosen fields. Also student loans are guaranteed money for university. So why shouldn't a university charge 60 thousand instead of 30 when the government will pay for it either way. So college degrees have become more attainable over the years but at what cost. Today's college loan debt is more crippling to our economy then credit card debt. With the average college student including all types of schools: Public, Private, Two year. taking on over 25 thousand dollars in debt in 4 years. We need to fix this problem but how?
I believe the way to reduce college tuition and in turn student loan debt is to almost eliminate all types of student loans. This sounds drastic because there are many students who rely on them to get through college. But if you look at countries where there are almost no student loans you see tuition prices being much lower such as in Britain. Since universities realistically have to expect there students (or there families) to pay a large part of there tuitions they must keep prices down. So if the government was to get out of higher education it would help out ultimately lower college tuition.
25 thousand is of course right near the figure for the maximum amount of federally subsidized debt that can be borrowed by an undergraduate. Of course, while eliminating loans will certainly reduce college prices, the real question is would it become more affordable? Certainly some of the extra loan money goes to build stadiums, etc., but certainly some of it does not as well. That would mean that students would end up paying the difference.
ReplyDeleteThe UK example is tricky because, while schools are cheaper there, they are also almost universally public sector institutions, receiving more state subsidy. So without creating more support for higher ed through grants, etc., it's not clear simply cutting loans would bring about UK prices.