Jacob McLaren
Professor Vanno
ENC 1101
9 May 2017
Problems with College Costs:
The cost of going to college today is growing at an extreme rate that is causing an overall negative affect on students joining, currently enrolled in, and graduating college. The cost for being in college includes: tuition, having a dorm or apartment, books, etc. Colleges recommend paying off these costs through their family or working a part-time job. However, since costs are increasing more these strategies are not working for most students. Another way students claim to pay off college debt is through financial aid, which includes grants, scholarships, loans, and work-study funds. These prove to be affective for some students, but either do not or have little effect on most students. Since these strategies to pay off college costs are not working for most students, they are going into debt and must pay it off after they graduate. Students should be able to attend college and not have the problems of going into debt. My solution is that colleges need to lower the cost of tuition, lower their minor costs, or offer more scholarships to students.
One of the most common way students get the money to pay of college costs is through having a job. “Most College Students Work Part-Time Jobs, But Few Pay Their Way Through School: Poll,” by Tyler Kingkade, states, “Nearly 4 out 5 college students are working part-time while studying for their degrees, averaging 19 hours a week, according to the survey, but just 18 percent pay their way through school.” Colleges recommend that students should get a part-time job, of ten to fifteen hours a week, to help pay off their costs, while getting the right amount of time to work on school. This evidence shows that if students follow what colleges recommend, then most of them will not be able to pay off their college costs. Since having a part-time job is not working for most students, they get a full-time job, of 35 hours or more a week, instead. Lynn O’Shaughnessy, author of “More students working (a lot) in college,” claimed that out of the nation’s 19.7 million college undergraduates that were working in 2011, one in every five of them worked at least thirty-five hours a week. More students must work full-time jobs now to afford going to college and it is negatively affecting them. Working this many hours while going to school can cause the students to have many troubles with completing school work and attending all their classes on time.
The other common strategy used by students to pay off college costs is to have their family pay for it. A TED Talk created by Sajay Samuel states, “Median household income has declined by seven percent between 2000 and 2014…” and, “Between 2000 and 2012 higher education costs increased by sixty-two percent.” With the cost of household income decreasing and college costs increasing, it is very difficult for families to help pay off college costs now. Now that college costs are so high, most families are only able to pay off a small part of the college costs. The only regular expense sixty percent of parents pay for is the students’ monthly cell phone bill (Kingkade). Since most families can only pay off a small part of the students’ college costs, students can no longer rely on their families to pay off their costs.
The most common way students pay off their costs is the use of financial aid. Financial aid is a program that helps students pay off their college costs through loans, grants, scholarships, and funds. The most affective form of financial aid is scholarships, because it has paid off some students’ entire college tuition. But since college costs drastically increased, financial aid is not working for most students. Students that are not given any or are given only a few grants, funds, and scholarships must rely on loans to get through college, which leads to even worse situations for some of the students. I interviewed my aunt, Melissa Wilson, on what she went through during college in terms of paying off costs. She stated that to pay off all her years at college that she took through college loans, even though she had got scholarships. She consolidated her payment over each year so she could pay a certain amount each month, but she still went into debt. The use of loans put her in a hard position, because although she graduated college and became an elementary school teacher, she graduated with a large college debt. Since being a teacher is a very low-paying job, especially in Florida, it took her fifteen years after she graduated to pay off her college debt. This shows that students that use loans go into debt. From 2000 to 2012, state and federal funding decreased by 11.5% per student (Samuel). Getting funds or grants from the government is now very difficult, which makes most students rely on loans to get them through college. Scholarships, funds, and grants help most students and even pays off the entire cost of college for some of them, but they do not help the students that get none or just some of them. Loans help get students through college, but leaves them with a large college debt.
It is clearly shown that, college costs are increasing at an extreme rate and it is having negative effects on students. The strategies colleges recommend to pay off college costs, such as having a job, having the family pay for it, and using financial aid, are proven to be unsuccessful at paying off costs for most students. My solutions for these problems are that colleges need to lower their tuition cost, they need to lower their minor costs, or they need to offer more scholarships. The main cost that students have trouble paying for is tuition, because it is the largest. College tuition is so high that it has inflated over the percentage of consumer prices in around three decades (Fig. 1). So, if colleges decrease their tuition cost, then paying off college costs is even easier for every student. However, the cost of college tuition is so high, because colleges were behind in technology and needed the money to get the technology they needed. Since they need to raise the tuition cost to get the technology they need, then colleges should decrease some of the minor costs they have; this includes: dorm or apartment, books, transportation, etc. The main minor cost that should decrease is books. The problem with college books are that some books cost the same as others but the actual job’s annual wage is lower. Dan Kopf, author of “Which Major Has the Most Expensive Textbooks?” showed that at University of Virginia the cost of languages and economics textbooks are the same, but economic majors have a higher annual wage. If colleges cannot decrease their tuition cost, then they should make the minor cost cheaper and fair for everyone. Another way to decrease costs for students, without decreasing tuition cost, is to offer more scholarships until they get the technology they need. Scholarships already pay off some students’ entire college costs, so if colleges offered more to students then they won’t have a large college debt and colleges can still get the money they need. Overall, decreasing tuition, minor costs, or offering more scholarships can solve the college cost problem we have.
In conclusion, the costs for going to college is becoming a problem for students and needs to be stopped. College costs are increasing and the strategies used to pay off these costs are proving to be ineffective to most students. Most students cannot pay off their costs with a part-time job and families are not able to afford paying it off now either. Financial aid is also proving to be ineffective to students that don’t receive a lot or any scholarships, grants, or funds and must use loans. To fix these problems colleges can lower their tuition costs, lower their minor costs, or offer more scholarships.
Works Cited:
Kingkade, Tyler. “Most College Students Work Part-Time Jobs, But Few Pay Their Way Through School: Poll.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Aug. 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/college-students-jobs_n_3720688.html. Accessed 27 Oct. 2017.
Kopf, Dan. “Which Major Has the Most Expensive Textbooks?” Priceonomics, Priceonomics, 24 Aug. 2015, priceonomics.com/which-major-has-the-most-expensive-textbooks/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2017.
O'Shaughnessy, Lynn. “More Students Working (a Lot) in College.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 5 Feb. 2013, www.cbsnews.com/news/more-students-working-a-lot-in-college/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
Samuel, Sajay. “How College Loans Exploit Students for Profit.” Sajay Samuel: How College Loans Exploit Students for Profit | TED Talk, TED, Feb. 2016, www.ted.com/talks/sajay_samuel_how_college_loans_exploit_students_for_profit. Accessed 31 Oct. 2017.
Wilson, Melissa. Personal interview. 8 Nov. 2017.
Zorn, Eric. “The Inflation Rate of College Education vs. Overall Consumer Prices.” More College Tuition Inflation, Chicago Tribune, 23 Mar. 2011, blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/03/more-college-tuition-inflation.html. Accessed 12 Nov. 2017.