Essay Sample on Rising Cost of College Tuitions: A Exploration of the Causes

Equal and affordable access to higher education is a desire shared by people across generations, races, and socio-economic classes. College education provides access not only to more career opportunities but also is an opportunity to gain more knowledge about one's world. However, in recent years, access to higher education has been more difficult. In particular, rapid increases in college tuition are affecting many students throughout the United States on a daily basis and are restricting access to higher education. The rising costs of tuition mean that only individuals with large economic resources or those who are willing to take on large amounts of debt can afford to go to college. In this paper, we will explore the impacts of these rising costs on students and propose a few reasons for these higher costs. I will argue that the increase in college tuition negatively impacts students and is theorized to be a result of increased wages in the educational system, issues with federal and state funding, as well as a lack of administrative oversight in colleges and universities.

Over the past several decades, the cost of college tuition has increased tremendously, exceeding the rate of inflation and the consumer price index. While annual inflation typically sits around 3.5% to 4%, between 1980-2004 the average cost of tuition for a single year of higher education increased by about 7%. Since 2004, the inflating cost of college has slowed to about 2% annually (Bundick & Pollard 57). However, the net effect of two and a half decades of skyrocketing costs mean that college tuition is more expensive now than at any point in the past. Even when compared to that other inordinately expensive domain, medical services, college tuition has risen twice as fast (Belkin 2013)! Given these rising costs, access to higher education has now been restricted to wealthy economic groups. In lieu of having such financial resources, the only other option for students is to amass student loans. For these reasons, college education now requires many huge financial resources that will affect their financial well-being for decades. 

Now that the rising rates of tuition have slowed, many economists have begun questioning what forces drove up costs so much. Increases in college tuition have been attributed to increased wages in the education sector, insufficient state/federal funding, and increased loan availability. Like the healthcare and government sectors, the higher education sector relies heavily on its labor force, in this latter case faculty and staff. The higher education sector pays “over 80% of the value of its total production to workers in the form of labor compensation. Although sometimes increases in college costs are offset by state or federal funding, the last few decades have seen insufficient government funding to offset these costs (67).  What this all means is that any changes in the cost of labor could result in changes to tuition costs. This is exactly what we have seen over the past several decades, as wages for higher education employees have increased significantly and these increased costs have been passed on to students (Bundick & Pollard 61). Students have been able to pick up these increased costs, despite tuition outpacing inflation because “over the last several decades, the federal government has periodically expanded the maximum amount students can borrow to finance their post-secondary education.” (64). This increased capacity for students to pay tuition has allowed colleges to raise their prices. 

Despite a fifty-fold increase in government spending on financial aid, unrestricted allocation of funds by college administration perpetuates rising tuition costs. The federal government annually spends $35-40 billion dollars on Pell grants, yet costs have continued to rise for the individual tuition payer. Although, as previously mentioned, increases in faculty and staff salaries have contributed to rising tuition costs. However, the real cost driver is a “metastasizing army of administrators with bloated salaries” Nowadays, university presidents are often paid close to a million dollars, “as though they were CEOs running a business” (Belkin 2003). Additionally, college administrators have spent large portions of their budget on non-academic items. For example, administrators claim that in order to be competitive institutions, they must spend heavily on entertainment and amenities, and thus ​”have borrowed millions to build luxury dorms, new dining halls, and rock-climbing walls,” not to mention athletic programs (Belkin 2003). Other factors have included bloated costs in IT departments and the handling of campus issues by new and more complex departments, which in the past were traditionally handled by faculty (Belkin 2003). 

Although solutions to address increasing college tuition costs have been proposed by legislators, partisan division in Congress prevents the educational system from imposing performance measures on colleges and universities that would curb tuition increases. For instance, while it is routine in engineering and medical schools to have performance measures, most colleges and their “core subject” curriculum have no such measures. What this means is that, despite costing more than ever, the government has no way of knowing if its massive investment in college tuition is paying dividends (Reynolds 2012). It has been proposed that perhaps colleges could institute more performance measures so that employers know that students are competent in certain skills. With such measures in place, universities that are not actually helping students would begin receiving less funding, and rather step up their game or risk closing. In this way, the college landscape would become more competitive, thus making up for increased costs or the fat would be trimmed from the over-saturated university marketplace. For instance, fifty years ago, professors were few and its high costs would have made sense to access this elite personnel. Nowadays, however, with the proliferation of universities and the fact that many undergrad courses are in lecture halls of hundreds of people with one professor, the value of such courses has markedly decreased, despite rising prices. 

Even though there are alternative methods for avoiding college tuition costs, such as pursuing a trade or attending college to certify competence to employers, Americans' disdain for labor-related jobs pushes them towards white-collar professions that require college degrees. Many skilled trades, like electric work or plumping, “face a shortage of qualified workers…and pay wages that compare favorably with those earned by college grads “(Reynolds 2012). Such trades also are attractive careers because “they’re harder to outsource,” because someone overseas in China or India can’t come to your home and fix your AC. Despite these advantages, many Americans feel that labor jobs are inferior to jobs obtained through a college education. This bias, with no reality in terms of job security or salary considerations, has ensured that Americans flock more than ever to colleges. 

Despite the rising cost of tuition, we can expect the demand for colleges to continue to increase over the years along with tuition. The challenges that contribute to inflating college costs are various and any solution that tries to make college more affordable needs to approach the issue on multiple fronts. From problems at the state budget level to administrative waste to biases against labor in the American psyche, the obstacles are many. However, it is important to try to begin attacking these issues, not just because many Americans desire higher education for career proposes, but for the strict value of college. Leaving aside whether college makes one a competent employee, a college education represents a way to become a more informed citizen and critical thinker. Going through this process is not just valuable for your career, but is a way to become a more well-rounded and reflective person. Making changes to how we think about and fund college will ensure Americans have more equal and affordable access to becoming global citizens and contemplative persons.