Is it worth it?

With increasing tuition in schools, students

now have to ask themselves this question.
Some people view a college degree as
just an extremely expensive piece of
paper that you are working towards
hoping that it will give you the upper hand
when applying for jobs.

The graph shows the increase of tuition from the year 1980 to 2010. The
green is the Public four-year college and the blue is the Private Nonprofit
four-year.

The medium college graduate makes almost $2.3 millions over their lifetime, compared with someone
that only has a high school diploma that will make around $1.3 million according to a study done at
Georgetown University (Haltom). People used to be able to make successful lives with just a high
school diploma but with the few jobs that we have available most of the companies are asking for at
least a Bachelors Degree.

$$$$$$

DEBT $$$$$$

More than 5.4 million or one in every three

students are forced to get a student loan to
help pay for their education. Depending on
the type of degree that a student is going for
will determine the amount of years it will
take to pay the loan back. Some students go
to school part time and work full time but
this takes them longer to get even the
simplest degrees.

The graph on the left shows the reasons

students will drop out of college. You can see
that the main reason is the financial pressure.
Imagine what this is doing to these peoples
confidence level? They are most likely giving
everything they can to go to college and
provide for themselves or a family and are
forced basically quit because they cant afford
it. In result all the person can say is how much
money they wasted on college.

Colleges have started accepting more non-resident students to keep up the revenue. What happens
to the resident students that apply to the same school? They are getting rejected and forced to go to
other schools that are most likely out of state, which lands them into the non-resident pool. A nonresident will pay 2 or 3 times more than a resident student for college so of course the college wants
more of these types of students. Schools want to be the best school to go to so they get all these
amenities to make their college more appealing to outsiders such as putting in a gym or a swimming
pool.

Along with the tuition increase, the cost of books for classes is increasing as well. If
you are going full time, you most likely spent around $500. A lot of the time you cannot
get your money back on books because the author will come out with a new edition
because they added a couple of words.

College is an important asset to individuals and society but it needs to be achievable. I know that
people say that the reason the tuition is so high because it weeds the bad students out. It will also
boost peoples confidence levels because they have succeeded in such a huge obstacle in life. A
more educated society can benefit with a better job market and higher wages. With more students
racking up enormous student loan debt, it hinders students with their financial goals such as buying a
house or a car.

CITATIONS

Bell, Julie Davis, and Demaree K. Michelau. "Making College

Affordable." State Legislatures Vol. 27 No. 9. Oct./Nov. 2001: 1923. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

Haltom, Renee. "Has College Become a Riskier

Investment?." Econ Focus. Third Quarter 2013: 14. SIRS Issues
Researcher. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

Vise, De Daniel. State Colleges Accepting More Nonresidents

To Keep Up Revenue. The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009111301940.html. 14 Nov.
2009.

PICTURE CITATION

COLLEGE.MONSTER.COM (THROUGH GOOGLE IMAGES)

SHEKNOWS.COM (THROUGH GOOGLE IMAGES)

DREAMSTIME. (THROUGH GOOGLE IMAGES)
STANFORD.EDU (THROUGH GOOGLE IMAGES)
NYTIMES.COM (THROUGH GOOGLE IMAGES)
TOOK SOME PICTURES ON MY OWN