College tuition rates have been on a steep incline due to sharply increased administrator-to-student ratios, campus amenities, and pricing policies set to achieve higher revenue for the school, rather than a focus on higher education.
The debt alone, now topping $1.2 TRILLION in the country, is debilitating these students for years, even decades. They emerge as twenty-somethings with a paper in hand, ready to take on the world with crippling debt. This financial burden can prevent them from buying homes, cars, and many are forced to move back home or never leave in the first place. Gone are the days for most students and their parents to build college expenses into the budget and pay for it as they go.
College costs continue to rise, but one segment might not be very worried: 24 percent of millennials said they expect their loans will ultimately be forgiven, according to a study released Wednesday by Junior Achievement and PwC US.
That could be a lot of accumulated debt, considering the average amount of cumulative student debt for undergraduates in the class of 2012 was $26,885, according to a recent Pew Research report. The average debt for 2013 graduates is expected to be even higher.
Currently, the University of California system headed by former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, is facing a showdown of tuition hikes and student protests over the rise. Students are walking out of classes at U.C. Davis, Berkeley, and other campuses across the state because the U.C. Board of Regents voted to increase tuition by five percent every year for the next five years unless the state gives in to providing them more money.
Student loans are providing the necessary means to pay for the rising cost of higher education as the rates go up and competition for grants and scholarships increase. Bills such as the Responsible Student Loan Solutions Act and the Student Loan Repayment Assistance Act of 2014 attempt to address the loan crisis. The economy is bogged down to such a degree that even lower-level jobs once occupied by the college population are scarce. When students walk off the commencement stage with a degree in hand, the job search is often long and fraught with hundreds of applicants for an entry-level position. This makes the cycle of attending college, obtaining a job, starting a family, and buying a home harder to achieve, with impacts on both the graduates and society.
For decades now, kids are being told that college is the only way to succeed. Plenty of innovators—very rich ones, in fact, failed to attend or complete their undergraduate goals. Perhaps more craft must be taken in the career-ladder climb or drumming up innovations than someone with a diploma to start. However, there is something to be said for starting off with real world experience and fresh ideas. It’s a tough pill to swallow to spend four or more years achieving something only to come out at the end in a tough job market and buried under tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The bump in entry-level pay due to holding a degree isn’t always justified. The suffocating cost of the debt makes it years and perhaps decades before they can realize the fruits of their labor.
Student loan debt forgiveness and lots of votes for bureaucracy-friendly politicians do nothing to address the issue at hand and only serves to put a bandage on the bleeding-out that’s representative of the rising cost of higher education today. These programs don’t work to resolve the over-inflated value of four-year and advanced degrees, only transfer the bill to someone else. Debt forgiveness carries far-reaching consequences. Equally as scary is the relief granted to public service employees in some programs and as seen in this bill built on top of Karen Bass’ (D-CA) Student Loan Fairness Act to “reward graduates for entering into public service.” That’s only going to achieve an even larger government workforce as students do what they can to lighten the load, thus lowering the percentage of wealth-generating jobs in the economy. Another bill, the Pay it Forward College Affordability Act of 2014, would try alternative financing to achieve affordable higher education, but fails to address the foundation of the problem being the out-of-control costs.
Universities need to work to cut costs rather than increase, increase, and increase some more, expecting either the taxpayers to step in or for students to keep paying through the nose. Administrative staff, amenities, and useless curriculums must finally take a backseat to education of advanced skills, critical thinking, and career-readiness in order to get tuition costs deflated to an affordable level.
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