College Tuition: What is the Price of Education?
Rent, utilities, car insurance, health insurance, food, cell phone, books, school supplies, gas, entertainment and tuition. What do all of these have in common? These are all things that are constantly on the mind of college students. Not to mention essays, quizzes, finals, girlfriends and sports. What else do these things have in common? They are all too expensive, especially on a college budget.
The average cost of rent for a 600 square feet, single room apartment in Salt Lake City, is between $550 and $650 a month and most often that doesn’t include any utility bill which added together could be anywhere from fifty to another hundred dollars. The average car will cost about forty to fifty dollars to fill up every other week, more if an individual is commuting to school or work. Want to go to the newest movie? Around eight dollars! And no, that doesn’t come with popcorn or a drink. Let’s add this up: just based on rent, utilities, gas and one movie a month the average college student will be spending $608. Not even including a grocery bill, insurance bills, phone bills or tuition and textbooks.
Prices are skyrocketing everywhere! These sky high prices include college tuition which has increased more than anything else in this country, even outdoing health care.
The question now is, why the increased cost of tuition? Could it be the increase in professor salaries? Could it be the decrease in student enrollment? Could it be the increased cost to keep a college or university running? What about all the scholarships, are those coming into play?
A simple answer would be: like a lot of things in the economy nowadays, prices are continually rising.
Here are some cold hard facts. Tamar Lewin wrote in the New York Times in Ocotber of 2009 about the increase of college costs. He concluded, “Hit hard by state budget cuts, four-year public colleges raised tuition and fees by an average of 6.5 percent last year. Prices at private colleges rose 4.4 percent, according to a report issued by the College Board” (Lewin, 2009). Lewin went on to say, “At private nonprofit colleges, which enroll about one in five college students nationally, the average total cost of attendance is now $35,636” (Lewin 2009).
Some would say, “What is the problem with this? Everyone knows that college is expensive.” Here is the problem; because of the recession students are getting less financial support from their parents which means student has to work to cover the bills. Working more means less time to study. Less time to study leads to a decrease in grades. Lower grades follows with a lower self-esteem, which leads to a decrease in work ethic which in turn, could lead to dropping out of college all together which means all that hard work and large tuition checks all went to waste. This example might be a little dramatic, but now it is a little easier to understand.
Though tuition is vital for a university or college to keep it running smoothly, in order to pay the professors that will benefit the students the most, and to create a good environment to the student, it is understandable why tuition needs to be paid at all. But when is it too much?
Kim Clark of the US News wrote, “The net cost of spending this academic year at an in-state public college, including tuition, dorms, meals, books and transportation is averaging $11,900, up 4.1 percent from last year.” And that was written in 2007; prices have steadily risen every year since then as well” (Clark, 2007). Worse, obtaining a college degree is taking much more time than everyone thinks. “It now takes the average public university student six years to complete a degree” (Clark, 2007). Using math skills from a college algebra class, that’s a little over $71,000 for the six year average college experience. That is what the average American household brings home in one year! And as college students we are expected to pay that in a six year span? Remember, we don’t have a degree yet to help us get a high paying job either.
The next aspect of college tuition prices are the scholarships and grants that are available to students. While there are thousands of scholarships available to students from individual college scholarships to national scholarships that are sponsored by companies such as, Coca-Cola or McDonalds, according to Clark of the US News, only half of all undergraduates across the United States are using a scholarship or grant (Clark, 2007).
Lewin of the New York Times puts a positive light on grants and tax benefits saying that, “Full-time students at public two-year colleges actually get an average $3,000 in grand aid and tax benefits – enough to pay the average $2,500 tuition and fees and still have $500 left toward living expenses” (Lewin, 2009). Though Lewin’s positive attitude is appreciated, it is still clear that $500 dollars for living expenses doesn’t cover much past a month’s rent or a few trips to the grocery store.
Lewin’s article quotes Patrick Callan, the President of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Callan says the increases are “Hugely disappointing…Given the financial hardship of the country, it’s simply astonishing that colleges and universities would have this kind of increases. It tells you that higher education is still a seller’s market. The level of debt we’re asking people to undertake is unsustainable” (Lewin, 2009).
Someone understands. America is founded on the principle of equal opportunities for everyone. Though with increasing tuition prices, we are forcing thousands of people to give up their dream college diploma and settle for a low-paying dead end job so they can pay the already skyrocketing bills that don’t luckily don’t include tuition costs. College price tags are sometimes just too much for people to handle and with these increasing prices doors are continually shutting for people who would love the exciting opportunity.
As for a solution, there are several things that can be done to solve the problem of stressed out, in-debt, financially confused college students. One solution would be for colleges and universities to stop increasing tuition rates, or better yet decrease the tuition cost. Another solution would be to increase scholarships and grants and offer them to a larger range of students with a larger check. Another solution, decreasing the amount a college needs to run by lowering expectations of beautiful cafeterias, grounds and new buildings. An alternative solution would be to decrease the other bills students pay like rent, insurances, and textbooks (if textbook prices decreased college students could save upwards of $200-300 a semester).
Katherine Long of the Seattle Times wrote about a program that sounds like a dream to those who suffer from anxiety when just thinking about the large check that goes to a college education. In an article published in February of this year, Long describes a program to help parents pay for their children’s college education. Long says,
One lawmaker calls it a ‘smoking’ hot deal’ – a state run investment program that allows savvy parents to prepay for college tuition, locking in prices years before those first college acceptance letters start arriving in the mail. Trouble is, with tuition rising rapidly at the state’s public colleges and universities, some legislators believe the popular Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) program may be too hot a deal. (Long, 2011)
It’s almost too late for the GET program, tuition prices are already at the highest that they have ever been. If only the GET program could have been put into place a few decades earlier when in some places tuition was as low as $50 a semester. Found on the Brigham Young University website, the tuition cost in 1960 was $130 a semester. In 1970 it increased by $120 to $250 a semester. The next decade it increased even more from $250 to $450 in 1980. In 1991 the tuition cost at BYU finally hit $1,000 a semester (for an LDS student). The current price tag for an LDS student at BYU this semester is $2,210. A $2,080 increase from the first year the university was founded (yfacts.byu.edu).
The bottom line is that students should be focusing on their education rather than the bills that wait for them in the mailbox after class. A college degree should be hard to obtain in the aspect of getting good grades and learning how to write an essay rather than in the way of paying for it. In today’s economy a college degree is the difference on many job applications. The path towards that degree is hard enough already, why make it any harder by adding expensive textbooks and tuition prices? The American dream consists of a cap and gown with a fancy diploma in hand on the green grass of a university lawn. That dream should not have anything to do with a huge burden of debt after the diploma is received.
Works Cited
Chokshi, Niraj. "Education Costs Rising Faster Than Health Care." Theatlantic.com. The Atlantic, 24 Aug. 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/08/education-costs-rising-faster-than-health-care/23705/>.
Clark, Kim. "College Tuition Prices Continue To Rise." USNews.com. US News, 23 Oct. 2007. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2007/10/23/college-tuition-prices-continue-to-rise>.
Lewin, Tamar. "College Costs Keep Rising, Report Says." New York Times [New York] 21 Oct. 2009. NewYorkTimes.com. New York Times, 20 Oct. 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/education/21costs.html>.
Long, Katherine. "Rising Tuition a Threat to GET Program." SeattleTimes.nwsource.com. Seattle Times, 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014102603_get02m.html>.
"Y Facts: Tuition." Yfacts.byu.edu. Brigham Young University. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://yfacts.byu.edu/viewarticle.aspx?id=85>.
