The High Cost of Higher Education

Many people trying to gain a better life for their children always state that education is the most important factor for future success. A college degree is always set as a goal to help people rise to well-respected fields. Yet, the cost of gaining this piece of paper has grown to staggering amounts.

The cost of education has risen faster than inflation, and in some respects, it has spiked into the hundreds of percentage points. As of 2010, going to college at a typical four-year public institution cost around $15,000 dollars. Private universities are even more costly, with an average cost of $35,000 dollars a year for undergraduate students. These figures take into account room and board but do not take into account other payments, such as car or other loans non-traditional students may have.

Long gone are the days when you could save up your tuition by working during your summer vacation. The staggering rise has especially hit hard in the last decade. Certain schools have hiked tuition up to 10 percent from one year to the next. Not to mention that while paying for school has gotten more expensive, financial aid is harder to get due to budget crunches and a bad economy.

The lack of aid has created a college culture of debt, where it’s not uncommon to hear of students coming out of their studies with over $100,000 dollars of debt attached to them before they even start their professional careers. Previously, this kind of debt was only attributed to the most time-consuming and also lucrative of chosen career professions, such as medical or legal. Now, that amount can be the school debt accumulated by someone wishing to be a social worker.

The increase in tuition shouldn’t stop anyone from going to school. However, it should make you think twice about which schools to apply to.