Rising College Tuition and the Leech It Creates

One of the major problems in the United States of America is rising tuition for college. And with college tuition rising over 1000% in the last thirty years (since 1978) (Mosbergen), the amount of student debt is rising just as fast. According to Halah Touryalai, “total outstanding student loan balance is $1.08 trillion, and a whopping 11.5% of it is 90+ days delinquent or in default. That’s the highest delinquency rate among all forms of debt and the only one that’s been on the rise consistently since 2003.” With student loan debt being over a trillion dollars, current and former students who struggle to pay the high tuition expenses are now struggling to pay off the loans that were accepted to help pay for their education. 

Proposal 

With higher educational costs and student debt at an all-time high, a financial relief is well overdue. Not only is a relief needed, but equal opportunity is needed as well. Therefore, by lowering the costs of college tuition, student loan debt will be ultimately lowered and the affordability of a higher education will rise. In her 2012 article, policy analyst, Julie Margetta Morgan, says that “75 percent of Americans say college is too expensive.”  This means that the cost of tuition was already expensive in 2012. If we view a survey from 2015 asking the same question as she did to get that answer, I am positive we would get the same answer and possibly a higher percentage.  Normally when something is too expensive, there will be people who cannot afford it.  In the article “More Students Than Ever Can't Afford To Attend Their Dream Colleges”, education reporter Peter Jacobs states “while more than three-quarters (75.5%) of students were admitted to their dream colleges, only 56.9% of those accepted ended up enrolling.” This means that these accepted students did not enroll for a reason. Jacobs gives two: high costs at the student's top choice and attractive financial aid offers elsewhere. This means that either the student’s dream college was too expensive or there was a better financial aid opportunity elsewhere. 

Justification 

There are some individuals that may reject the idea of lower college tuition. They provide arguments that college tuition is not a problem, but it should be raised and that should be abolished altogether.  I do understand how both arguments could be beneficial to Americans, I am not “sold” on these ideas.  Starting with college tuition is not a problem, but it should be raised.  Forbes contributor, Jeffery Dorfman believes that colleges are “underpriced”.  In Dorfman’s article “There’s No College Tuition ‘Bubble’: College Education Is Underpriced”, he implies that colleges should take after a business scheme.  He states “in most businesses, when you have such overwhelming demand for your product, you raise the price (and increase production). Many colleges, especially private ones, do not want to increase the size of their student bodies, but why would they not increase prices when they have so many prospective students desperate to attend?” With this said, Dorfman insinuates that the more students that are “desperate” to attend a certain college, that college should raise its price in tuition. Any student that is desperate to attend a college is obviously trying to attend their dream college, therefore, inspired by what Peter Jacobs said, if the colleges raise the prices then those “desperate” students, who cannot afford the college, will have to go elsewhere. 

The second argument that wants to abolish college tuition all together is a good idea, but it will not work out. I do agree that getting rid of tuition would save Americans plenty of money, but I do believe that when a price goes down, another price will go up. I am not sure on what price would rise, though I believe that taxes could a rising factor. Normally, events held by colleges are free, but if tuition is wiped out then those once free events will begin to charge some type of fee. Not only that, colleges will have to rely on fundraisers and donations and funds from the state. Jon Wiener claims in his article, “It's Time to End Tuition at Public Universities-and Abolish Student Debt”, that the recent college tuition abolishment would “provide a good model for the United States.” Then he implies that the US government would spend less money on education. He says “the US government already spends lots of money on student aid. Federal spending in 2014, the College Board reports, includes $47 billion in grants, $101 billion in loans and $20 billion in tax credits.” Apparently, by abolishing tuition the government will save over $101 billion.  That is a good thing, but who is paying for college? 

There are two major reasons that comes to mind why college tuition should be lowered.  First, the lowering would make college affordable. Second, the lowering would lower student loan debt. By lowering the cost of college tuition in America, many students will not have to suffer as much as those that did before them. 

First, by lowering the cost of tuition it would make college more affordable.  Author, Munir Moon came up with multiple reasons how to lower tuition and lower student debt, by “having each bachelor's degree candidate spend two out of four years away from campus; one year as an intern or apprentice with a potential employer and a second year studying abroad and in an internship in a state capital or Washington, D.C. This approach can result in doubling college capacity (from four to two years on campus classes) thus allowing them to double their enrollment. This can result in reduced tuition by at least 40 percent, if not 50 percent.” He means to have a future bachelor’s degree student study abroad and have an internship in a state capital. Not only does this method help cut tuition in half, but it also let those students gain experience and skills in travelling, communication, leadership, and many other qualities needed in the future ahead of them. 

Second, by lowering college tuition it will most defiantly lower tuition. Moon also believes that the method above can reduce tuition and make college more affordable -- the real solution to cutting and ideally eliminating onerous student debt (Moon). Moon includes students enrolling in online classes is a method to lower both tuition and debt. He believes “by converting at least 20 percent of those classes to online courses we could save more than $90 billion annually. Such an approach can also free up expensive real estate on campus, improve productivity and significantly increase the size of the student population -- and with tens of thousands of additional students, system-wide tuition costs can be lowered.” This means the cutting down on expensive classes, students can have one on one conversations with the instructors, and students can save a large amount of money doing so. 

Conclusion 

In closing, regardless arguments saying another way is more efficient, I still support the lowering of college tuition costs because it ensures the lowering of student debt and assures affordability to students. I hope that this motivates not only students but many others to become more active in college costs and fight to lower college tuition. This is in the interest of the future generations of college students in America because it will dry up the lake of high tuition costs and kill the debt leech.

  

Bibliography 

Dorfman, Jeffery. "There's No College Tuition 'Bubble': College Education Is Underpriced." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/09/12/theres-no-college-tuition-bubble-college-education-is-underpriced/>. 

Jacobs, Peter. "More Students Than Ever Can't Afford To Attend Their Dream Colleges."Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <http://www.businessinsider.com/more-students-than-ever-cant-afford-to-attend-their-dream-college-2014-3>. 

Moon, Munir. "Reducing Tuition, Not Offering More Loans, Will Make College Affordable."The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/munir-moon/reducing-tuition-not-loans_b_5182778.html>. 

Morgan, Julie. "Making College More Affordable." Center for American Progress. 12 Feb. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2012/02/02/11082/making-college-more-affordable/>. 

Mosbergen, Dominique. "Cost Of College Degree In U.S. Has Increased 1,120 Percent In 30 Years, Report Says." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/cost-of-college-degree-increase-12-fold-1120-percent-bloomberg_n_1783700.html>.  

Touryalai, Halah. "$1 Trillion Student Loan Problem Keeps Getting Worse." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 21 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2014/02/21/1-trillion-student-loan-problem-keeps-getting-worse/>. 

Wiener, Jon. "It's Time to End Tuition at Public Universities-and Abolish Student Debt." The Nation. 23 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2015. <http://www.thenation.com/article/198521/its-time-end-tuition-public-universities-and-abolish-student-debt>.