Caitlin Sluhocki
Mrs.Milani
Journalism 1
March 26, 2018

College tuition and expenses are a hot topic recently with the senior class applying to colleges. Over the years the cost of attending college has increased substantially. Most students spend hundreds of thousand dollars on a college education. States have increased their education budgets since the 1960s because of the growth of the number of students enrolling into college. Forty-two states have increased funding per student by an average $449 in the last year. In today’s job market a college degree is usually necessary which is why the number of students attending goes up and up every year. For example if your dream job is to be a doctor you need a doctorate degree which is usually 8 years of schooling. The tuition of colleges and universities, damages you financially.
Everyone wants to be able to succeed in life and further their education, but the expense of college makes it difficult to actually pursue. Recent research indicates that higher education is extremely valuable. For, individuals whom attended a university and obtained at least a four-year bachelor’s degree make more money on average than people who have never obtained a university degree according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. A college education could open many more doors for opportunity than just a highschool diploma. “What’s really telling is how much of the cost of college is covered by the state versus by families.” Researchers at the Government Accountability Office found that the money public universities collect in tuition surpassed the money they receive from state funding by 2012. The state might be paying for a big portion of our education, but students are still graduating college with thousands of dollars in debt, which raises the question how much is a college education truly?
The amount of outstanding student loan debt balances as of December 31, 2016, is 1.3 trillion dollars according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It first exceeded $1 trillion in March 2012. The cost of attending college scares many students and young adults away, closing many opontuinites for them in the future, especially in the workforce.
In a competitive economy, that we have today in America, good employers can only afford to hire a small amount of new employees. As a common result, they look for the best applicant with the best skills and education. So therefore they usually don’t even look at applications that don’t have a college education. There are scholarships, grants and financial aid available to students but that does not help everyone. A lot of students don’t receive any of that help, some students don’t even try to apply to anything because they believe they won’t get it.
So many students have the hard decision if they want to go to college, they question if it’s even worth it with the amount of money they are spending, although there are some people who did not attend college find jobs that can help satisfy and support their lives, they cannot compare the earnings of college graduates who holds a degree.