Receiving a college education in the United States is looked at as a key stepping-stone to living the American Dream. Many high school students are told that in order to get a high-paying job, they must first attend college after high school. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 68 percent of high school graduates enroll in degree-granting institutions to receive a higher education.
What these high-school students are not told about is the immense amount of college debt from student loans that will follow them after attending these institutions. While more people are enrolling in major universities and institutions each year, the cost of college tuition is rapidly growing also. Today it now costs 400 percent more to attend college than it did 30 years ago. Although 75,000 Americans agree that college is overpriced and too expensive, enrollment rates are increasing and not much is being done to work on lowering college expenses. I strongly believe that while a college education can be extremely fundamental and useful, the price of college tuition and receiving an education should be lowered in order to be more affordable.
The fact that currently there are over 40 million Americans carrying student debt, amounting to more than 875 billion dollars, should be a clear sign that something is not right, in terms of the cost of college tuition and receiving an education. With the current prices of college tuition being so extreme, students who opt to pay to receive a college education, and do not have the financial stability to pay upfront, are immediately at a financial disadvantage. A study from Business Insider indicates that over two thirds of college graduates graduate with student debt, and that the average college graduate in 2010 had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day. With that said, the cost of college tuition has only increased since that study was conducted. With the majority of college graduates graduating with an immense amount of student debt, the chance that they will all be able to land a high paying job and receive the necessary funds to comfortably pay back their loans is extremely slim. In fact, since the year 2000, the average salary for young Americans has actually decreased by 10 percent. This means that while college tuition has risen and become more expensive, the jobs college graduates are able to land are decreasing in salary. This obviously would make the task of paying back student loans even more difficult. It is also important to note that even if a graduate is able to land a high paying position, allowing them to pay back debt on student loans, the excess funds that the graduate will then have will be limited to none. This would make the entire point of attending the college to receiver a higher pay pointless, as the graduate could have opted out of attending school, and landed a position offering the same amount of money, if not more.
When any student looking to go to a financial institution receives a student loan, until that loan is paid back, that loan is with that person forever. This is extremely problematic. A high school graduate attempting to define what he or she wants to do in the future, and what route of education to pursue is a difficult task to accomplish. Many young teens looking to go to college have no idea what they plan to do in the future, and are still growing and learning. While society pushes these teens to attend college, students are pressured into entering a debt agreement that many do not even understand. When a student receives a student loan, the loan in permanent. Even if students who graduate with student loans find themselves in financial troubles, and file for bankruptcy, student loans do not disappear. In fact, extending the pay period to pay back the student loans causes interest prices to increase. On top of that, in a situation where a student carrying debt from student loans is deceased, that loan may be passed on to surviving family members. This makes the problem of student debt not only affect the student, or graduate, but the surrounding family members as well.
To make matters worse, after entering into debt agreements in order to receive education, the current job market does not even provide students with the necessary jobs to make enough money to pay back loans. Over one third of college graduates land a position that does not require a college education. This means that one third of the students who graduate with debt, owe money for an education that is not being put to use, or shows no signs of financial benefit. Along with this, 10 percent of college graduates find themselves unemployed. This shows that even attempting to make the sacrifice and enter into a debt agreement to receive a better job by going to school doesn’t even guarantee a position in the future. And even for students that are able to find some sort of income, many are overqualified and did not need the education to begin with.
With all of this said, the goal of this paper is not to immediately turn one away from the idea of attending college. Rather, the point of this information is to make apparent the problems with the extremely high costs of attending college, with the hope of inspiring change. While college may be beneficial, if the negative effect it causes does not outweigh the benefits, it generally makes for a bad decision. And I believe that until the price of college does in fact decrease, from a general standpoint applying to the majority of college students, the benefits will not outweigh the negatives.
The College Crash Course 