STAFF EDITORIAL

COLLEGE I$ TOO EXPEN$IVE

Christian Roberts Natalie Isberg Avery Vang

In January 2020, University of Michigan-Flint economics professor Marc J. Perry created a graph showcasing the price changes for selected U.S. consumer goods, services and wages over the last 22 years, starting in 1998. Of the seven services that had greater price increases than the overall inflation rate of 60%, two of the three highest were college tuition and college textbooks. Both exceeded an 180% increase, more than three times the overall inflation rate. Why is that?

One of the many underlying factors of the increase in college tuition is the over-exaggeration of the value of a degree, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Many students view a college degree as a cost-benefit situation, which means that even if they have to pay a lot of money for a degree, it will eventually pay off in the longrun, so they are willing to spend more on said degree. But the likelihood of a degree being beneficial will vary depending on what one majors in; someone going into the medical field is more likely to benefit from a degree than someone who plans on working in a restaurant.

Because the price of college tuition is fairly inelastic, an increase in price won’t lead to a significant decrease in the number of students attending college. Thus, colleges are able to increase their tuition prices with virtually no consequences; families with the means to send their kid to college are still going to pay the outlandish prices, even if they have to take on a large sum of student loan debt. Many students underestimate how long it will take to pay off their student loans as well. According to a survey done by Cengage, an education and technology company, students on average believe their student loans will take less than six years to pay off. In reality,

Cengage reports that it will likely take closer to 20 years for most students to pay off their loans.

The growing number of government financial-aid programs has also directly increased tuition prices. Because nearly every student applies for financial aid, colleges will raise their tuition and fees to capture the aid for themselves. This is reflected in two statistics from the Federal Reserve, which state that for every one dollar of federal student aid, colleges will raise their tuition fees by 65 cents, and colleges eligible for federal student aid charge 78% higher tuition than that of similar colleges that aren’t eligible for aid. The people benefitting from the “student financial programs’’ are colleges, not the students. Many universities seem to be puting some of their increased profits into large salaries for administrators, with the median price for university presidents exceeding $500,000, according to Forbes.

So, with all of this in mind, it begs the question: is going to college worth it? The answer isn’t a cut and dry “yes” or “no.” While one-third of college graduates are underemployed and 13% are in a low-paying job, nationally, workers with a college degree earn $450 more per week than those without, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Workers with a college degree also faced a 2.7% unemployment rate, half that of workers with only a high school diploma.

Anyone who wants a higher education deserves the opportunity to get one without having to live in crippling debt for the rest of their lives. Instead of asking if college is worth it, we should be asking ourselves: what can we as a country do to make college more affordable? In 2021, total student loan debt surpassed $1.5 trillion, and the U.S. currently has the highest college cost per student of any developed country in the world. To start, more widespread student loan forgiveness needs to be available. Federal aid programs should be drastically reduced. This would in turn decrease enrollments nationwide, hurting the profits of universities. For-profit colleges need stronger regulations by the government to prevent unfair tuition increases in the future. Price ceilings or free college would go a long way in making life better for high school and college graduates.

Over the last few decades, the price of college has increased exponentially, which has been due to factors like government financial aid programs and the inelastic price of college tuition.