I read an article by a Republican Senator about how colleges are affordable. Well in my humble opinion, this is partially true for the very wealthy and the very poor. We have become a nation where the rich get richer as always, but now the poor get everything handed to them and they owe nothing in return. It is those that are just out reach of getting help all they way up through what is middle class that people get shafted. Not sure why this is the case, but for some reason, the government thinks that it is the parents job to put their kids through college. My parents helped me a little, but I had to take out student loans and so did my wife. We are still paying them back 17 years later and have another 15+ to finish paying them off.
When you look at inflation, the cost of housing, the cost of food, the cost of cars, the cost of almost everything except school, it has been pretty constant. Higher education on the other hand as well as the materials associated with higher education have almost grown exponentially. Why?
A recent study has shown that basically colleges are more greedy than banks or other types of business. Now to be fare, they did not really compare it to anything else, that is my own opinion based on what I read. Colleges and Universities have increased the cost of higher education at the rate of 0.55 to 0.65 cents for every dollar that is given to students by the government to go to college. That is assuming I read the report correctly. That is astronomical, but why when if you look at what a typical private and public college should cost (10,500 and 2,500 per year respectively)?
The simple answer is greed. Now most Colleges and Universities are supposed to be non-profit and according to the report/article, there has been no increase in the number of teachers at these higher education institute. So where is all this money going? According to the article, there has been an increase in administration salaries and number of people in those positions.
According to another report that was done almost 30 to 40 years ago, someone predicted this would happen. Now this individual was basically laughed at and mocked by his peers, but the reality is a new study shows that when the government got involved to help people obtain a college degree, that is when colleges got greedy and started raising tuition. Now they are feeling the pain of their greediness.
There are a number of institutions across the country that are feeling the affect of their actions. My sister works at a respectable/well known university and their enrollment is way down. She has contacted other Colleges and Universities across the country and all of those that are super expensive are experiencing the same concern. Enrollment at all of these high cost institutions are way down and we are not talking about small numbers like 1 or 2%, we are talking 10, 15, 20, and even 30% reduction of enrollment in some cases. Why?
Parents cannot afford to send their children to a college that costs $80,000+ per year and the students do not see that as value added. In other words, parents and their children think that cost to attend college is just way to expensive. Now I am not sure what this Senator was thinking, but to come out of college with $100,000+ debt is nuts. It should never cost this much to get a good higher education degree.
While I do have my PhD and my wife has her BS, I did not care if my kids went to college. To be honest it will take them a good 30 to 40 years or more to catch up to a person that went to work right out of high school. You may disagree and that is okay, but the amount of debt an individual acquires by going to college makes it almost not worth the effort and this is the sole reason. Now if a person coming out of college had no or very little debt, then it would definitely be worth the effort.
1 Timothy 6:10 New International Version (NIV)
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
So if you find yourself loving money, I urge you to take a step back and re-evaluate your life. Do not get me wrong, we all need money to survive, but like anything else, money is just a tool.