Education Too High?

As college tuition costs soar, a lot of us wonder why. What is wrong with these people that they keep raising prices that are already unaffordable? A lot of students grew up in a house that promotes going to college but when that time comes around, they are scrambling to find financial help. The government does help but even then some students still can not afford to stay in school every semester. The recession has not helped any either, just made things worse. So it is safe to say that with the economic crisis going on, colleges are charging too much.

Tuition charges at both public and private colleges have more than doubled in real dollars compared with a generation ago. For most Americans, educating their offspring will be the largest financial outlay, after their home mortgage, they will ever make. If parents can not pay, young people often find themselves burdened with staggering loans. Graduating with six figures' worth of debt is becoming increasingly common. So are colleges giving good value for those investments? What are families buying? What are individuals and our society as a whole, gaining from higher education? Colleges are taking on too many roles and doing none of them well. They are staffed by casts of thousands and dedicated to everything from esoteric research to vocational training and have lost track of their basic mission to challenge the minds of young people.

The recession is definitely making it harder to pay for a higher education. About two-thirds of incoming students said they had "some" or "major" concern about their ability to pay for their education. "We expected that given what we were seeing last year in the economy, we would see some significant changes in how finances were impacting people's ability to pay," said John H. Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, which conducts the survey. "What was more surprising," he said, "was that it goes beyond just that into other areas. Everywhere we turned; whether it was how you chose your college or what do you think you are going to do in college, everywhere the finances piece popped out."

"There is more pressure for the college graduate." College students definitely see colleges are charging too much, as well no jobs out here to help them pay for their educations. It will be easy to say forget it but thankfully a lot of students still furthering their education with whatever little straps of financial aid they can get their hands on. The colleges need to take a look at prices and the economy and help students more to achieve a better future for America.