Will The Next Generation Be Able to Afford College?

[DracoMalfoy]

Right now, the tuition at my college is an obscene $45,000. And like other colleges in America, the cost of tuition and board is steadily increasing by the year. Every year we experience inflation in price levels; things get more and more expensive. But college is rapidly becoming more and more exclusive for the rich. Scholarships while more abudant than ever are now becoming more and more useless due to lower nominal benefits. A $200 dollar scholarship isn't going to put a dent in my tuition. As more and more people become eligible for college, the good scholarships become more and more rare. Costs of college tuition by 2020 is expected to be near $60,000. And our income levels aren't rising quickly enough to compensate for such a change in price levels.

Will we experience a drop in quality of education? Will the number of people going to college suddenly begin to decline do to higher costs?

[Crash-Man]

Only if people are making the same money then as they are now.

[Samurai]

There are many cheaper universities and colleges, though they are all going up too.

[Aelo]

Right now, the tuition at my college is an obscene $45,000. And like other colleges in America, the cost of tuition and board is steadily increasing by the year. Every year we experience inflation in price levels; things get more and more expensive. But college is rapidly becoming more and more exclusive for the rich. Scholarships while more abudant than ever are now becoming more and more useless due to lower nominal benefits. A $200 dollar scholarship isn't going to put a dent in my tuition. As more and more people become eligible for college, the good scholarships become more and more rare. Costs of college tuition by 2020 is expected to be near $60,000. And our income levels aren't rising quickly enough to compensate for such a change in price levels.

Will we experience a drop in quality of education? Will the number of people going to college suddenly begin to decline do to higher costs?

$45,000 a year!? Where in the world is this at? I can't even afford $20,000 a year for college. If it wasn't for this scholarship money, I don't know where I'd be, or what I'd be doing...

I don't see any hope for the next generation. Unless they're filthy rich...

[Xero Kaiser]

$45,000 a year!? Where in the world is this at? I can't even afford $20,000 a year for college. If it wasn't for this scholarship money, I don't know where I'd be, or what I'd be doing...

I don't see any hope for the next generation. Unless they're filthy rich...

My mom wants me to go to a college but that shit was $60,000. Fuck it, I'll settle for a community college and not be in debt for the rest of my life

[The Humanist Hero]

Post-college education isn't cheap either.

It's costing me over $30,000 a year in tuition to attend law school this fall.

[Charles RB]

Considering the Prime Minister's big plan to get everyone to go to University is to introduce top-up fees & increase tuition costs, the only way the next generation will be able to afford it will be if the next government reverses half of Blair's crap.

[BlairH]

Considering the Prime Minister's big plan to get everyone to go to University is to introduce top-up fees & increase tuition costs, the only way the next generation will be able to afford it will be if the next government reverses half of Blair's crap.

Tuition is free here in Scotland. I go to the best Scottish Law School and I don't pay a penny...

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And it sickens me!

[Shellhead]

Tuition is already insanely expensive, inflating faster than almost any other sector of the economy for more than a decade. If this keeps up, I expect that more students will opt for online learning. There will be a dicy transition period where some struggle at the start of their careers because the online degrees are not widely accepted as equivalent, but gradually they will gain credibility as their graduates advance in their careers.

[Charles RB]

Tuition is free here in Scotland.

Yeah, coz the rest of us have to pay for it via taxes!

Which I wouldn't mind if the rest of us got the same deal. Tony Blair, you smeghead!

[JTLauder]

He must be including room & board & other fees.
The average tuition (just for the unit courses) for a 4-year private university in the US is around $30,000. And the average rate of increasing ranges from about 6-8% a year.

To estimate future costs of college, chech this out:
http://www.towersdata.com/collegeplanner/cp_10_ef.asp?state=AK&Website=EF

[BlairH]

He must be including room & board & other fees.

Pfff...board!

Save money, stay at home and travel to University every day! It's only an hour and a half there, an hour and a half back!

[BlairH]

Yeah, coz the rest of us have to pay for it via taxes!

Which I wouldn't mind if the rest of us got the same deal. Tony Blair, you smeghead!

I think free tuition is insane. For starters, a University education is very optional, you don't need a degree to get a decent job, so I don't see why everybody in the nation should have to fund this.

[acagle7]

I think free tuition is insane. For starters, a University education is very optional, you don't need a degree to get a decent job, so I don't see why everybody in the nation should have to fund this.


Well, that may be true in your country. But it's not here. You really do need a degree if you want to get anywhere in America. Something needs to be done because if it isn't then the rich will be the only ones who can afford to send their children to college.

[BlairH]

Well, that may be true in your country. But it's not here. You really do need a degree if you want to get anywhere in America.
There's increasing evidence that we are moving through this stage. As more and more people are doing degrees, the net value of the degree as a qualification drops (just like printing more money causes the value of individual bills to drop). As a result, we're going to have a lot of people looking for postgrads, because an undergraduate degree just will not get them where they want to be.

That said, I stand by my initial statement: A University education is strictly optional.

[Charles RB]

a University education is very optional, you don't need a degree to get a decent job

Do you really want to bet on that? I dare you to drop out of University right now and try to get a job in law without having a Law degree.

[BlairH]

Do you really want to bet on that? I dare you to drop out of University right now and try to get a job in law without having a Law degree.

A job in the law is optional as well. I don't need to be a lawyer.

[acagle7]

That said, I stand by my initial statement: A University education is strictly optional.


Well unless you want to live with your parents for the rest of your life and work at McDonald's, then yeah it is.

[BlairH]

Well if you want to live with your parents for the rest of your life and work at McDonald's, then yeah it is.

Well, no it's not.

You could start a small import/export business with your eccentric Uncle and your wacky next door neighbour. No need for a degree, all you need is smarts.

Heck if you WANT a degree you can even use the money you made from the business to pay the tuition.

[PatrickG]

Tuition is already insanely expensive, inflating faster than almost any other sector of the economy for more than a decade. If this keeps up, I expect that more students will opt for online learning. There will be a dicy transition period where some struggle at the start of their careers because the online degrees are not widely accepted as equivalent, but gradually they will gain credibility as their graduates advance in their careers.

Qualified online learning is generally no cheaper save for gas/housing expenses and you miss out on one-on-one interaction with profs, just as you do at most cheaper 4 year schools where they cram a hundred people into an auditorium.

One thing I DO hope corrects itself is the misplaced idea that all people should graduate college. I'm not even sure that ALL people should graduate high school nor do I think it should ruin their life if they don't.

Everyone in this country needs better education. But I also think there are people who, emotionally or intellectually, aren't even suited to a high school education and that, as long as they understand the limitations that places on them -- and those limitations are reasonable (you don't really NEED a high school education to work McDonald's as a fry cook) -- then I think it should be a choice.

"No Child Left Behind", aside from being a disaster, is an exercise in bad rhetoric. In order for school to be competitive, it needs to cater to people on the high side of average. Even then, very "above average" students may chafe against the system just as "below average" students might.

But a diploma should not be a consolation prize.

Schools should have high standards. Allocations should be made on legitimate, medical grounds but if an average kid flunks, they flunk. Take the edge off that or try to give them a degree anyway and you devalue the process.

Some children should be left behind. And before anyone thinks that sounds too harsh, I think some children will live a richer, more fulfilling life if they take the extra time needed to graduate the RIGHT way (rather than having the system adapt to soothe their parents) or, in some cases, not graduate at all and apprentice a trade -- which is IMO the only path to success for some people and it's being DENIED to them by the modern "must have high school diploma/must have college diploma" mindset.

[Charles RB]

A job in the law is optional as well. I don't need to be a lawyer.

And how many decent jobs can you get without a degree, especially when you'd be competing with people who do have degrees? What are you determining as "decent" anyway?

And it's a bit odd that you're completely against Universities being funded by the taxpayer but go to University in the only part of the UK where your higher education is funded by the taxpayer.

[PatrickG]

Well unless you want to live with your parents for the rest of your life and work at McDonald's, then yeah it is.

See, I think this idea of people being entitled to being highly professional is counterproductive... and many rural communities still have few "professional" jobs outside of law, medicine, education and computers.

There is nothing wrong with shade tree mechanics or plant workers or McDonald's managers and I think we, as a society, lie to people when we say that everyone is capable of more, deserves more or that a higher paying white collar job is even necessarily "more".

This is a hard conversation to have online because people online (and here) will skew towards that white collar model by virtue of our interests and the fact that we're having this discussion. There ARE people who are only suited to blue collar life and, unfortunately, those people probably won't contribute much to OUR dialogue HERE because they're looking at porn, playing Bejeweled or don't have internet access.

I think a guy who works 3rd shift at Wal-Mart, has a GED, lives with his parents along with his wife and two kids, etc. may not be living a GLAMOROUS life but it's no less noble and I think it's condescending and misleading to him if you say his life is wrong and that he should go to college when, maybe, you would be setting him up for a fall.

If everyone went to college, either college education would be devalued or, by virtue, more people should fail on average, resulting in about the same number of people getting advanced degrees that do now.

You might flood the market with Bachelor's degrees but, honestly, the quality of education would go down to support the number of advanced degrees issued going up.

[Charles RB]

There is nothing wrong with shade tree mechanics or plant workers or McDonald's managers

"Managers" is one thing, but he wasn't talking managers, he was talking working in the kitchen and on the till. How many people actually want to do that for their whole lives? It's a crap job.

This is a hard conversation to have online because people online (and here) will skew towards that white collar model by virtue of our interests and the fact that we're having this discussion. There ARE people who are only suited to blue collar life and, unfortunately, those people probably won't contribute much to OUR dialogue HERE because they're looking at porn, playing Bejeweled or don't have internet access.

That's a rather large assumption on what blue-collar workers would do on the Internet, surely? For a start, white collars look at porn too; for a second, not everyone on CBR is white collar and indeed not everyone who goes onto a comic book MB to talk about comics will be white collar (a lot of comic creators aren't white collar). Saying "oh, blue-collars aren't going to contribute much to our discussion here because they're only interested in looking up porn when they get online" sounds rather condescending, even though I'm pretty sure you were arguing against being patronising on some level.

[Grazzt]

Also, everyone here is forgetting things like skilled trades. You don't need a college education to become, say, a plumber, but you can still make enough to support a family quite easily. And you get to save Princesses from giant turtles. Okay, maybe not, but that doesn't invalidate the rest of my point.

[JTLauder]

I think free tuition is insane. For starters, a University education is very optional, you don't need a degree to get a decent job, so I don't see why everybody in the nation should have to fund this.
I agree higher education is optional for life and for that reason shouldn't be fully funded by the government, only because there are so many other actually necessary services that should be funded first.

College isn't absolutely necessary if all you are concerned with is just making a lot of money. But it is necessary if you want a career as a professional. It all depends on what you want to do in life.

[Shellhead]

That's a rather large assumption on what blue-collar workers would do on the Internet, surely? For a start, white collars look at porn too; for a second, not everyone on CBR is white collar and indeed not everyone who goes onto a comic book MB to talk about comics will be white collar (a lot of comic creators aren't white collar). Saying "oh, blue-collars aren't going to contribute much to our discussion here because they're only interested in looking up porn when they get online" sounds rather condescending, even though I'm pretty sure you were arguing against being patronising on some level.

Fwiw, it is surprisingly difficult to find decent information about fixing cars on the internet.

[The Humanist Hero]

College isn't absolutely necessary if all you are concerned with is just making a lot of money.
I'd rather take my chances on making a ton of money with a college degree than with a GED or a high school diploma.

Of course a degree in English, or history, or philosophy (or basically any of the humanities/arts) doesn't lead to riches, but degrees in the sciences, engineering, medicine and law do pay extremely well.

As for there being nothing wrong with not going to college and working at an unskilled job: of course there's nothing "wrong" with it. But it's not the life most people would choose either. Life is hard enough without money troubles, not to mention making only enough money for the necessities while the people around you with the college degrees and the professional jobs have nice houses, cars, vacations and other luxury items.

This doesn't mean everyone should be forced to go to college, or even that everyone belongs in college (and as a college instructor for two years I met many, many students who had no business graduating from high school, much less matriculating at a university [and to tie this into another popular thread, many of these were athletes who had neither the desire nor the ability for college level writing]), but I can sure understand why the vast majority of people feel that college is necessary.