Economy

Rant

New bubble - The rising cost of education

Posted 8 months ago|3 comments|584 views
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The cost of education in U.S. is increasing out of all proportions. Tuition at universities in the U.S. averages $30,000 annually, and students often graduate in debt that will take more than 10 years to repay. It forces too many talented kids to take any job available just to be able to start their life at zero... somewhere in their late thirties!

There was a time when you could to get through University by working. There was a time when the GI Bill covered tuition and rent, at least. Today, a year on the GI Bill can't cover a quarter's tuition! It's not that the GI Bill is too low, it's the price of education that has gone through the roof and well above inflation rates! At the same time, I think that most people would agree that the quality of education diminished from Kindergarten to Graduate School.

Is America looking forward to a future where the few educated rich will rule over the wast uneducated masses? Is this intentional? Does anybody remember the line by Victor Hugo that "He who opens a school door, closes a prison?" The rest of the world does not follow this nonsense.

Harvard costs $52,000 per year while one of the world's greatest universities, University of Cambridge in England costs around $19,000 per year. You can be pretty sure that the quality of education will be the same or even better.

One of the top management schools, Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands costs $11,500 per year which is almost one third less than Michigan's Ross School of Business.

Tuition for Albert Einstein's old school, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich is only $750 (580 CHF) per semester (both graduate and undergraduate studies) and you do not have to be a Swiss to pay only that. The fee is same regardless of nationality. You only need to pass an entrance examination.

If this trend continues, U.S. will start lagging intellectually and economically behind the rest of the world. If this bubble bursts, the future looks dim...
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COMMENTS
8 months ago: Not to mention all of the tax dollars spent on "In State Tuition" for illegals that get degrees and can't work because of documentation.
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
8 months ago: When I got my degree it was just $95 a semester. It is getting so only the rich can get an education now.
8 months ago: And I just read at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/surve... that for many colleges, a top goal of admissions directors is recruiting more students who can pay more. Actually, admissions directors cited the recruitment of full-pay students as a key strategy and 10 percent of four-year colleges reported that the full-pay students they are admitting have lower grades and test scores than do other admitted applicants.

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