If getting a good education is so important, then why does it cost so much to goto college?

Question

Seems to me you already have to be rich to go to college. Allot of people can't afford it and allot of students have two jobs just to scrape by and still have to go to class. Wouldn't it be more effective and smarter to have free colleges so everyone could get a higher education without having to rely on student loans that you have to pay back, or failing to meet the requirements to be awarded a scholarship? Wouldn't the world be a better place if we could all afford to go to school or go back to school?

Answer 1

There are grants and tuitions for those who need financial help. Plus most universities and colleges have active professors researching in their respective fields, and to do that they need money. They usually get money from the government and state, but may not suffice to run the whole campus. Plus the professors need to get paid for dealing with annoying and question ridden students!

Answer 2

Yes, I suppose the world would be a better place if everyone could get all the education they wanted. The question of how to pay for it comes immediately to mind, however.

Your banner question, why is it so expensive when it is so important, says you have not been given a good grounding in market forces. It is expensive BECAUSE it is so important: they call that supply and demand. There are only so many colleges and universities, and only so many spots in their freshman classes. So the supply is relatively fixed. Yes, more schools can be built, and the existing ones can expand, but that takes capital, lots of capital. In the meantime, the number of people who want to go to college continues to increase, both because the population is increasing and because a larger percentage of the population wants to go to college. And that part will just become worse over time, as we go more into high-tech and less involved with the sorts of things that do not require a college education.

When I was young, we had teachers who had not been to college. They were granted a teaching credential by a prior generation (most of my grade school teachers were old enough to retire, but didn't because so many teachers were needed for the baby boom) which considered a high school diploma at least as valuable as a bachelor's degree is today. In an era (early in the 20th century) when so few people finished high school, this was realistic.

Nowadays a person can get through high school and get a diploma and still be only marginally literate and almost completely uninformed. Uneducated, to be blunt. They get the diplomas for what is called "seat time." If you attend school, eventually they graduate you. That means a bachelor's degree is necessary just to demonstrate a minimum level of competence, and most secretaries and retail managers and other really very mundane positions have at least a bachelor's degree.

There's a limited supply, a huge demand, and so competition is keen. That pushes up the prices, because market forces work like that, even on schools which are publicly subsidized. The actual costs go up, and the tuition goes up. If you increase the number of spaces in the schools, you have to have more professors, desks, buildings, books, etc. If a major portion of the tuition is paid by the taxpayers, then taxes go up. The money has to come from somewhere.

You don't really have to be rich to go to college, however. What you have to do is be creative and persevering in both your college applications and your financial aid applications. Do apply to the schools you'd most like to attend, on the assumption that if they want you, they will find scholarship, grant or loan money for you.

But also apply to the less desirable schools, on the theory that if you get into a second rate school and get good grades, you can probably transfer to a better school after two years. You can even go to a community college and take only those courses which are known to be transferable credits. The guidance counselors know how to prepare someone for transfer so that you don't lose any credits.

Answer 3

If life-saving medical care is so important, why do you have to pay for it? Well, because it costs money to provide life-saving medical care. And because you will pay money because it is so important.

The same is true for education. Governments are willing to pay for people to attain a basic level of education because they realize that the country needs a workforce with a minimum of education. A college education may make the difference between the kind of life you want and just scraping by, but many taxpayers do not see it as their job to provide that kind of opportunity for you. Especially if you don't have the self-discipline to get good grades and earn a scholarship from high school, for instance.

Students tend to take "free education" for granted. Even at the less expensive colleges, students don't turn in assignments, never ask for help, then tell the instructor, "Oh, I'm not going to finish your class."

Then the instructor says, "It's not a matter of not finishing at this point. It's a matter of failing the course."

Deep down, people really believe, "You get what you pay for." At the private colleges, where students, parents, loans, scholarships pay upwards of $40,000 a year, you see students busting their collective butts to get their money's worth out of the experience.

You might want to make an economics course one of your first choices when you do get to go back to school. I do believe you'll get there, and that it will mean more to you when you've earned the opportunity instead of having it handed to you as someone else's idea of what you should be doing with your life.

Answer 4

Government subsidized student loans are a huge business in this country. You cannot bankrupt student loans, and while they can be of a lower interest rate and also consolidated, once you take one out, they want their money back.
Higher education is also a big money maker here in the US. Universities run their curriculum like a corporation. I have seen it myself where the university lowers their academic standards just to get more students through the door to, of course, get more tuition money. This paticular university could care less about the quality of education you receive. Higher education is free in Canada. I don't have any statistics if it is a higher or lower standard of education there. I'm guessing it is probably the same as here.
I agree with you, higher education should be free, such as elementary and high school education, but I don't think people would be willing to pay higher taxes for it.

Answer 5

Free or an actual cost tuition would be great in an ideal world. The consequences of our free enterprise system have made it quite necessary for higher educational institutions to at a minimum recoup all of said institutions expenses. Most are impressed with presence of big name professors and researchers and they demand certain salaries. You get what you pay for.

Answer 6

properly the rationalization for many folk is that on the final those with a school degree make greater funds than their non-college knowledgeable opposite numbers. do no longer positioned that in the process a school admission essay even with the incontrovertible fact that. they're finding which you would be able to place it on thick. individually i could say some thing approximately own progression and improving myself. In our techniques based society, wisdom is ability: the flexibility to alter the worldwide. Say you prefer to strengthen your thoughts so so which you are able to use it to strengthen society. lack of information has been the rationalization for limitless evils interior the previous. purely by way of unfettered studying do we preclude the themes of the previous from ordinary and resolve the themes of the destiny. etc., etc., etc. All that stuff is authentic to an volume, yet I doubt that's on the thoughts of many college newcomers. All their essays might have that style of stuff even with the incontrovertible fact that. purely enable them to appreciate that funds isn't your purely objective (you are able to say financial secure practices is a objective, do exactly no longer place too plenty emphasis on it). faculties at present have regularly became into white collar commerce faculties. they're going to provide you a token philosophy and psych classification to make you a "properly-rounded person" and then inform you to pass study some thing functional like accounting or engineering. Out of a definite subconscious guilt, admissions boards prefer to pay attention human beings sing songs of their noble previous as though it have been nonetheless around at present. pass get 'em tiger!

Answer 7

It is your investment.Its just like investing in a business,you can never earn money if your dont invest..right?you wont get a job by not going to school..

Answer 8

i personally think college robs us make u take b.s classes wasting time its expensive bcuz it just is

Answer 9

So people can work at wall-mart.