Final Draft Research Paper

Rachel L Meredith

1^st draft of Research paper

English 102-57

College Tuition is Too High

Everyone that I am talking to today has been to or goes to college.  Does the words college tuition, financial aid, FAFSA, minimum wages jobs make you want to grind your teeth?  I am one of those college student who wants to be in college but is struggling because of money.  I did some research on how bad this tuition costs has been effecting college students.  Nearly 80% of college students in the United States attend a public institution (U.S. Department of Education, 2005).  Many parents and students stress over not having enough money to afford college without being in a large amount of debt when finished.  In 2012 and 2013 President Barack Obama put higher education “on notice” about the escalating cost, which has become a vexing subject of public and academic debate (Nelson, 2013).  College, now a days, is extremely necessary for a successful and happy life.  Without college, the only way to get a decent amount of money is to work in a ware house or factory doing hard work that you’re not getting paid enough for.  Or you could be like my mother and get an account managing position because of seniority.  Back when my mother got her job, about 35 years ago, she wasn’t required to have any schooling besides a high school diploma. The American dream is to be successful and be able to have a life full of opportunity.  The tuition costs have gotten so high that people are dropping out, ruining our future generations, and causing debt for students that takes years for them to get out of. 

In order for most to pay for school, they have to work which sometimes this job can take over your studies and you’ll feel like you’re working more than doing school work.  However, the only reason you’re at work is to get money to make your way through college.  A new survey from Citigroup and Seventeen magazine finds that almost 80 percent of students take at least a part-time job during the school year. The survey calculated that on average, these students work 19 hours a week (Fang, Marina).   The general rule of thumb regarding college studying is, and has been for a long time, that for each class, students should spend approximately 2-3 of study time for each hour that they spend in class.  Many students carry a course load of 15 credits, or approximately 15 hours of class time each week.  Doing some simple math indicates that your student should be spending roughly 30 hours of study time and 15 hours in class (Is Your College Student Investing Enough Time Studying?)  In addition, every student has to find some time to sleep.  Each teacher has a mindset that their class is the only class that we, as students, have on our calendar.  Professors aren’t exactly the most laid back and undemanding people you would ever meet.  Assignments are meant to be perfect and exactly the way the professor expects it.  This can become extremely stressful.

At the University of Louisville, we are required to take general education classes.  This includes: 6 hours of Written Communication, 3 hours of Oral Communication, 3 hours of Mathematics, 10 hours in Natural Sciences, 6 hours in Arts and Humanities, 9 hours in Social and Behavioral Sciences, and 6 hours in Understanding Cultural Diversity.  Most of these classes won’t have anything to do with your major.  Therefore, this means that you have to spend an excessive amount of more money just to graduate.  These classes are generally taken in the first few years of college to get them out of the way.  These classes are usually not anything that people that has chosen majors would be interested in.  For instance, someone with a math degree wants nothing to do with writing.  Therefore this leads to loosing people attention in the beginning out their first few years of college.  This causes for them to want to drop out and move on to something different.

Dividing your tuition money and the money you have to have in order to live can be stressful.  It’s hard to have enough money to pay for food, gas, housing, medical expenses, etc.  It’s almost impossible to have money for these necessities.  You always have to put majority of your earnings into paying for your tuition so when it comes to things like food, gas, living expenses, medical bills, etc., it can be difficult to find enough money to pay for all of that.  They wander why college students gain so much weight.  We don’t have any money to pay for anything remotely healthy.  Everything we consume are things like Taco Bell, Papa Johns, and Mc Donald’s.

The stress that can come about from a college student is unreal.  You get so tired from staying up all night to do your work and then the hours that you put into your job can add up.  This causes for students to want to drop out.  When you don’t get enough sleep, this causes for many physical and mental disorders.  Most importantly, when you don’t sleep, you are unable to perform properly while in class or doing assignments.  Then we end up paying for all of this college and we can’t even absorb the education because we are too exhausted and over worked.

The more people that don’t go to school, the worse each generation is going to get.  The future of America lies in the hands of the students who are getting their education.  However, if more and more students are dropping out because they can’t pay for it then this means the worst for our next few generations.  Look at our leaders that we have acquired.  Our leaders that we have now have gone to school for many of years and learned more from it than you could ever just get out a book.  College is a necessity for the leaders of America.  Without college we would be uneducated and clueless on how to take care of our country.  In order to make political decisions, there is a lot of background that needs to be covered to be qualified to make an important decision.  College is a big deal for our country and future generations and it needs to be more accessible for everyone.  Our country has achieved more great things and we are getting smarter and smarter every day.  However, things will change if college tuition gets out of hand to the point that it isn’t affordable anymore. 

Students are dropping out like flies from college and then left with thousands of dollars of debt.  Seven out of ten college seniors from last year had student loan debt with an average of $29,400 per student  (Project on student debt).  In-state college tuition is at an average of $7,020 per student a semester not including the housing which is as high as $1700 a month at some schools.  The tuition rate went up 6.5% from this previous year.  Economists have considered various models to explain the phenomenon of the rising cost of tuition but only one has been invoked more than any other: “the revenue theory of cost” advanced by Howard Bowen in 1980 (Kimball, Bruce A).  The theory has been called “Bowen’s Law” and “Bowen’s Rule” since the 1990s and 2000s. It states:
1. The dominant goals of institutions are educational excellence, prestige, and influence.
2. In quest of excellence, prestige, and influence, there is virtually no limit to the amount of money an institution could spend for seemingly fruitful educational needs.
3. Each institution raises all the money it can.
4. Each institution spends all it raises.
5. The cumulative effect of the preceding four laws is toward ever increasing expenditure (Popik, Barry).

The only thing about this “law” is that it is careless with the concern of the students and how much they are the ones providing for the school, money wise. 

Students who pay for their college themselves have a 42% graduation rate.  Students who have family pay their way have a 63% graduation rate.  I am a student who has no help from my parents and it is extremely hard to survive on my own.  If parents do want to be able to help their children out in college, they have to start a savings account as soon as their child is born.  College isn’t something that you need to start saving up for when the time is getting closer for it.  It’s not like a vacation.  This requires years and years of savings.

There are many conditions of which college tuition goes towards.  Provides revenue to reduce the student-faculty ratio, Supports merit pay increases for faculty and staff, Funds requested student services initiatives, Funds college and school initiatives, Funds financial aid programs targeted at maintaining economic accessibility of the university, Offsets rising utilities’ costs, Funds critical academic capital projects, Funds general libraries, Funds IT infrastructure (How Tuition Is Used).  Decisions about public institution tuition and state financial aid are made at the state level by state policy makers (Doyle, William R.). The problem is that tuition is getting more expensive every year and eventually, at this rate, people are not going to be able to go to school at all.  Then colleges really won’t be able to make any money.

With the tuition being so high, it is causing students to drop out, making our country go into a scary future, and causing for students to go into so much debt that it almost isn't worth it.  We, as college students are working extremely hard to better not only ourselves but everyone around us as well.  We want to do well and want to succeed.  College tuition is holding us back from our dreams and expectations for ourselves.  It is understandable that in  a college, there is many of things that have to be paid for, however, the cost of those necessities are getting more and more expensive to the point that it is unaffordable.  If college becomes unaffordable then our future generations are going to be uneducated and we will not continue to move forward in our country.  This could cause for tragic problems.  We shouldn't have to pay so much money to eventually only do something good for our country in the future.

Works Cited

Academic

U.S. Department of Education. (2005). Digest of education statistics, 2005. Technical report, National

                Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC.

Nelson, L. A. (2013, Feb. 13). On notice, again. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/13/obama-calls-more-attention-pricevalue-accreditation-state-union.

Kimball, Bruce A. "The Rising Cost Of Higher Education: Charles Eliot's "Free Money" Strategy And The

Beginning Of Howard Bowen's "Revenue Theory Of Cost," 1869-1979." Journal Of Higher Education 85.6 (2014): 886-912. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.

Doyle, William R. "The Politics Of Public College Tuition And State Financial Aid." Journal Of Higher

 Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Non-academic

Fang, Marina. "Nearly 80 Percent Of Students Work While In School."ThinkProgress RSS. N.p., 07 Aug.

2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

"Is Your College Student Investing Enough Time Studying?" Is Your College Student Investing Enough

                Time Studying? N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

“State by state data.”  Project on student debt:. N.P., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2014.

“Student dropout rates linked to high stress over finances.” Salary.com.  N.P., n.d. Web. Oct. 2014.

"How Tuition Is Used." : Tuition Dollars & Sense. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Popik, Barry. "The Big Apple: Bowen’s Rule (Bowen’s Law; Bowen’s Revenue Theory of Cost)." The Big

                Apple: Bowen’s Rule (Bowen’s Law; Bowen’s Revenue Theory of Cost). N.p., 5 Dec. 2012. Web. 10

                Mar. 2015.