College Tuition Skyrocketing

 College Tuition Skyrocketing

Written by: Aiden Burkemper 

It’s no secret that college is expensive and the price of tuition is only going up but why is that? There are numerous factors relating to college tuition rising at a rapid rate, before getting to that we should first take a look at how much college tuition has actually risen. 

“In 1980, the price to attend a four-year college full-time was $10,231 annually—including tuition, fees, room and board, and adjusted for inflation—according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By 2019-20, the total price increased to $28,775. That’s a 180% increase.” (Forbes.com) That is a huge increase especially when adjusted for inflation as the cost on average to go to college now is almost triple the cost just 40 years ago that is a concerning increase. Within a few more decades that cost of tuition on average will only continue to rise at that rapid rate which will greatly affect future generations as it already has massively affected this generation with over half of students who receive their bachelor's degrees ending up in thousands of dollars of debt. 

There are a few reasons for why colleges and universities are rising so fast, one of them is because of how much more colleges offer now, they offer many more courses, extra help, mental health help, and so many more great things which makes the schools cost more to attend to make up for the extra costs on the school to get these things. 

Another reason is the rising demand for colleges and limited supply for this rising demand. “Between 1990 and 2020, the total number of college students in the U.S. increased from 13.8 million to nearly 20 million.” (affordablecollegesonline.org) With college degrees becoming vastly more important in today’s society to get better and more desirable jobs students are much more encouraged to attend universities to get these degrees which gives colleges a reason to increase prices because they know students need these degrees more and more and are willing to spend more. Colleges are essentially an oligopoly as they have very limited competition that being other universities which allows them to raise prices without driving consumers out of the market which has partly led to this massive increase in cost of tuition. 

Another reason is the cost of administration services is growing as now there are so many more employees employed in colleges to help with the administration, registration, etc. That now college professors don't even make up half of the employees, paying these salaries costs lots of money and because of that prices for students to attend these colleges gets driven up. 

There are many more reasons why the cost of college has risen so dramatically, but it is clearly becoming a problem. “College costs outpaced inflation by 28 percent at public institutions and 19 percent at private nonprofit ones in the decade preceding the pandemic, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.” With how bad inflation is getting recently this tuition problem is shockingly bad and continuing to get worse and something needs to be done with these students suffering from thousands and thousands of dollars in debt justy getting a bachelor's degree, not to mention the students furthering their degrees past that. If something isn’t done soon students will continue to suffer. 

Work Cited:

McGurran, Brianna. “College Tuition Inflation: Compare the Cost of College over Time.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Mar. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/college-tuition-inflation/#:~:text=Between%201980%20and%202020%2C%20the,there's%20more%20to%20the%20story. 

“Tuition, Fees Continues to Rise as Pandemic Inflation Woes Hit Colleges.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/tuition-fees-continues-rise-pandemic-inflation-woes-hit-colleges-rcna14292. 

“What Factors Are Driving Rising College Costs?” Affordable Colleges Online, 14 Jan. 2022, https://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-resource-center/news/what-factors-are-driving-rising-college-costs/#:~:text=Rising%20Demand%20and%20Limited%20Supply&text=The%20pressure%20to%20pursue%20higher,colleges%20to%20raise%20their%20prices.