But is it Worth the Price of Admission?

With the buzz of graduation season waning, the talk in many households now turns to college.

Who is going where, what course of study  will they pursue, what will their roommate be like… all exciting things to hear and discuss. But as often as I hear proud graduates excitedly chattering about all the things to think about once autumn rolls around, I also hear parents subtly groaning and sometimes even gnashing their teeth. 

The fact is, they’ve got a big concern that soon replaces the pride and joy they felt when Johnny or Suzy was accepted at "Big-Buck U."  The concern? Exorbitant, incredible, scary-money-tuition costs. 

I knew colleges were getting expensive but I had no idea just how crazy it's become until this year. My niece just graduated from high school and is headed off to a private college in Connecticut which is ranked #47 of all private Liberal Arts colleges. Pretty good, but not Ivy League, right? So I wonder where it ranks in terms of expense because the annual tuition is a whopping $50,000. Yeah, I know. Crazy. My nephew, headed in a different direction to a prestigious technical school, (but not the most prestigious compared to certain others), has signed on for $54,000 per year. Wow. So I have one thing to ask: Are you kidding?

 The fact is, these are not perhaps average prices but they aren’t rare either.  Any way you slice it, college is expensive, especially private college.  Tuition fees have surged 130% over the last 20 years according to CNN.  Text book costs are up by 40% and average $1000.00 per year.  Many colleges require health plans if the student isn’t covered by his or her parent’s policy so that’s more money still.  Lab fee, athletic fees, food, transportation, clothing…there’s plenty to pay for.  And unlike when I was in college, kids now have to have their own computer, not to mention cell phones and the monthly expenses that come with it.  I used to call home collect from a pay phone and if I needed computer, we used the shared one in the library.  Meaning, we didn't really use computers...  But life isn’t like that anymore and I can’t imagine a kid headed off to college without at the very least, a pre-paid phone in his pocket and a netbook or notebook or laptop...

Two year colleges, state universities and even some technical schools are becoming more and more popular as parents realize this private college dream is actually a financial nightmare.  About ½ of the students who take out loans won’t pay them back for another 20 years.  That means that by the time those kids graduate at an average age of about 21, they will still be paying for that education after age 40 and that’s assuming the student doesn’t want any kind of advanced degree.  Ouch.  And it can be worse:  I recall reading an article about a young woman who took out loans for undergraduate and medical school.  When all was said and done, her total student loan debt exceeded $250,000.00.  Doctor or not, that’s one heck of a way to start adulthood.

Since the college fees have increased at a far greater rate than inflation, I really want to know what costs so much more than it did when I was in school.  Is the education better?  Are the schools nicer?  Or is it just that high school graduates are told far more these days then when I was young that they really need a college degree  and so, the demand is up and the colleges can thusly charge more?  I don’t know.  What I do know is there will be an endless stream of children marching off for a degree and in all honesty, won’t ever use whatever  they were taught.  That's the reality.

Sure, some kids will become engineers or lawyers or doctors or teachers and they certainly will use what they were taught.  But lots of them will go the Liberal Arts route like I did because most have no idea what they want to do later in life.   Now in reality, I’m proud of my degree.   I learned a lot.  I read the classics and the obscure.  I concentrated in psychology and minored in English so I became pretty good at dissecting the mental pathologies of Shakespeare’s characters when all was said and done. But all kidding about my talents aside, I really am glad I have that degree.  I earned it and worked hard and it's all good. 

 But when I graduated the economy was lousy and jobs were few and far between.  I thought of continuing on to an advanced degree but I never did.  And so, I took an office job that had nothing to do with my degrees.  That job served me well and I was lucky to get it but truthfully, everything I needed to know to do that job was taught to me…at that job.  So as proud of my degree as I may be, I have to admit, I’ve never used it.  Not once.  Sure, being educated has always been a plus but I really do think there is an element of truth about learning all you need to know in Kindergarten.   The rest is just practicing what you already learned way, way, way back.

I have to admit that I was very lucky.  My parents were able to afford a private high school as well as a private college for me.  If I recall, the tuition at the private high school I attended was somewhere in the $3000.00 to $8000.00 range per year in the late 70’s.  Seemed like alot then.  But now, in 2011, the tuition at my old high school is…brace yourself….almost $34000.00!  Remember, that is HIGH SCHOOL.  I don’t even remember what college cost when I was there but you can bet it wasn’t even half what it is now.  It's insane.

I’m a firm believer in education and I would never consider being educated anything but a positive.  But I’m also concerned.  If a student is so saddled with debt that they can’t get out from under it, when do they get to do adult things like buy a house, have a family, drive a new car and so forth.  Those are things that 18 year olds graduating from high school probably don’t think about but they should because someday, they will want to.   And if their parents take on the debt for them, do they get to retire?  Do they get saddled with the college debt for the rest of their lives?

I know a few people who have steered their kids away from the private colleges and towards the local universities and I don’t blame them.  The truth about education is, and in my  opinion with few exceptions, you get what you put in.  I know people don't like to hear this but if you attend the best college in the world, you're not going to learn a thing if you don’t study hard and listen and learn.  By the same token if you work hard and soak up the knowledge at a tiny unknown school in the middle of nowhere, you’ll get educated and it will be no less valuable than the education of someone who studied the same thing, somewhere else.  The truth is, the education is mostly up to the individual.  If you want it, you can get it.  So don’t get hung up on the brand name.  Look at the big and future picture.  You don’t always get what you pay for.