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Jessie Rivera
Mr. Jacobo
Political Studies, Period 4
14 October 2015
How High Can Tuition Cost Go?: Federal student Debt
About two thirds of student are graduating from Colleges and Universities with some
level of debt. The level of debt sometimes overwhelm the students and sometimes the students
have no choice but to just drop out. At one point college may not be worth it. It may only be
worth it when you have a plan. Students that are financially stable and can afford the tuition
every year. The majority of students that attend college are low income students. So they cannot
afford the tuition every year. Despite all the opportunities that college can offer you, the tuition
of attending college might be too high for the majority of the students, a lot of students end up in
debt and many students cannot afford the tuition for the four years.

Many people will argue with each other about why college is worth it? Everyone has their
own reasons why it is and why it may not be. According to the article So Is It Worth It,
College graduates aged 25 to 32 who are working full time earn about $17,500 more than their
peers who have only a high school diploma(Bennett 1). Students who decide to attend college
have the opportunity to succeed at any career they want and are able to earn more money than
someone who has a high school diploma. Students who attended Harvey Mudd College can
expect a cost of $212,900 dollars for the four years, but after they graduate and they find a job
with the major they major in. Can expect a return of investment of $1,647,000 dollars in 30

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years. Which triples the amount that he or she spend on the four years they were in school.

If you were to ask some people is college worth it they would give you a no for an
answer because students who attend college often drop out of college before the four years end.
Students either don't want to continue their education or they just can't afford paying the tuition
every year. A problem students have today is that when they get to college they either have no
idea on what major to major in. Which does not help them land a job later on in the future. Also,
even though some students have a degree in something they love.It still does not help them get a
job with the degree they have because there are no jobs in that specific major. Yet they still have
to be paying all the debt from school that they have to pay. One student decides it to get a degree
in Spanish and after she was done her debt was $35,000 and this would of been easier for her to
pay off, if her degree would of land her a job, When Latisha graduated from the University of
Georgia in 2006 she had $35,000 of student debt, This obligation would have been easy to
discharge if her Spanish degree had helped her land a well-paid job(1).
If college was worth it, why has the student federal loan reached $1.2 trillion dollars? It is
not decreasing is actually increasing without slowing down. For example, someone who decides
to attend Marywood University can expect a tuition will come up to $165,900 after the four years
and after 30 years the return on investment will be $ 161,000 which means that students pay
more than what they would earn in 30 years. In this article written by William bennett Is
College Worth It,A report by Mckinsey, a consultancy, found that 42% of recent graduates are
in jobs that need less than a four-year education. Some 41% of graduates from nations top

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colleges could not find jobs in their chosen field; and half of all graduates said they would
choose a different major or school(6).
Two thirds of students who are graduating from a college or a university are ending in
some level of debt. Despite the chances and opportunities college can offer you in life it is not
easy to afford paying the tuition every year, so students who attend college usually end up in a
lot of debt. Even though college can offer people a good life not just for them but for their future
family. It is not easy to afford higher education without knowing a way or without having a plan
to pay for it. If anyone decides to pursuit higher education they should have a plan on what
career will give a good return on investment and how they are planning to afford the tuition for
the four years or whatever time it takes them.

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Work Cited
Bennett, William J., and David Wilezol. Is College worth It?: A Former United States Secretary
of
Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
"Is College worth It?" The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 05 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Oct.
2015.

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