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Madeline Finnegan
Ms. St. John
AP Lang
22 January 2016

The Future of Higher Education Tuition

Students and parents are facing tough decisions regarding the payment of higher
education. Long gone are the days of paying for college with summer waitressing funds;
tuition has skyrocketed so high that paying in full has become impossible for most
American families. Educational facilities have, recently, required this increase in tuition
to fund additional programs and amenities, but the overall quality of the education has
not seen a significant increase. In the wake of such a difficult situation, many colleges
are expected to lose enrollment to online courses and certification programs that cost
much less and have more definite job prospects. Still, the institutions themselves will
avoid cutting tuition as long as students are willing to pay.
The rise in college costs has been unmistakable in the most recent decade, as
families dont have the financial resources to get students even to state institutions (del
Rosario). Although inflation has had some part in this, it is not as influential as some
would like to claim it to be. The rise in cost cannot be paired with an overwhelming
improvement in education equality, either. For some colleges, an inflow of wealth can
promote the development of amenities such as hot tubs, athletic centers, and food courts
that create excitement for the consumer. These institutions can maintain a high cost

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because students are willing to pay for these fun implementations (Shaw). Colleges that
can continue this practice are expected to keep their prices at the high level, and may
even increase them as new amenities require maintenance and upkeep. Additionally,
since people can only judge the quality of colleges vaguely through reputation, students
and parents rely on the tangible things they can see on a basic college visit. The rooms,
food, and sports of a school become the means by which a student chooses a school, and
the consumer market of higher education veils the fact that costly education is not
always based on substance.
In addition to new services, colleges keep adding programs, majors, and
departments within their schools, even if they are not necessarily important or needed for
an education or career path (Wood). Still, if more and more colleges are getting these
programs, any school without them will not be able to compete for enrollment. Thus,
prices continue to rise because colleges do not wish to lose an edge in the higher
education market.
For many other universities, this tuition increase will endure for as long as their
reputation lasts. Top tier schools like Harvard and Yale do not need to worry about
lowering costs because there remains an extremely high demand for their education
(Berg). These schools may even reduce loans for lower earning families, but other lessendowed schools cannot minimize their prices in this fashion, leaving them with another
disadvantage (Cronin). The Ivy League will be fine unless there is a sudden realization
amongst the masses that the education at these schools is highly overvalued. Its an
endless cycle as students continue to pay application fees and tuition, the schools can

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maintain their status as an expensive, elite school, and more students will want to attend
year after year.
Although there are options within the schools management for lowering the price
of higher education, there remain internal obstacles to do so. Administrators are reluctant
to make cost cutting actions in the school that would upset faculty because they do not
want an issue that would ruin the institutions reputation. Therefore they will not cut
faculty positions nor will they reduce faculty salary, even if it would help lessen the
burden of college tuition. They are also particularly unwilling to rearrange academic
programs or change the allocation of office space, actions which would lessen the
chances of high costs, in order to avoid ill-will on the part of faculty (Shaw). If the
faculty were to be angry with administration, the college may be seen in the public as an
unstable learning institution, and students would be less likely to pay the tuition for a
poor reputation.
Like top tier schools, community colleges will continue to have high enrollment.
Being relatively inexpensive and easy to access, community college maintains student
numbers, and may expect to see more enrollments as students are pushed away from
pricey private schools and large public universities. People feel more secure in their
choice to attend these schools when there is less risk in getting a job without drowning in
debt (Wood). The biggest hindrance of a major shift to community college is what Peter
Thiel, billionaire investor, calls the psycho-social component of taking out loans.
People are willing to take on enormous debts by going to certain reputable colleges
because that is what everyone else is doing. Institutions well above the level of
community colleges can keep up higher tuition because people simply will pay in order

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to follow the path that they think they should. The worst hit schools are less selective,
rural liberal arts colleges that do not really hold a niche. Lowered enrollment may cause
these schools to shut down or merge with other schools (Berg).
Evidently, the social component of college is one of the greatest reasons for the
continuation of traditional college as it is. Students want to go to college for a number of
reasons there is a social stigma of skipping college in order to enter the work force;
they want to have an opportunity for independence away from home; and the hope for
finding an interest in what they may want to do with their lives. Students are afraid that
those around them will look down on them if they settle for the wrong college. If a
more prestigious institution is rejected in favor of a local college, the student may feel
that their peers are judging them. Parents place these pressures on their children because
they, too, worry that people will look down on their children who do not go to college.
The entire higher education system is tilted so that students will feel that it is necessary to
go on to college; they will be willing to spend greater amounts of money on an education
that may not be worth what they are spending in order to gain social standing. In this
way, the future of higher education will remain extremely expensive, to a certain degree,
because people are so afraid to break this status quo (Wood).
Still, for many people these costly education routes are not an option. Online
education is gaining speed, and is expected to obtain nearly full-scale adoption within
ten years (Sener). Students in traditional colleges will experience an online piece of their
education, but many more will earn their full degree through the Internet (del Rosario).
This way of learning costs much less, which benefits many older people, parents, and
those with full time jobs. The transformation is driven by the combination of the bubble

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in tuition rates, as well as the development of increasingly accessible and sophisticated
technology (Schroeder). Courses will be available in almost all subjects, at the associate,
bachelors, masters, and post-graduate levels. In the past ten years, online education has
annually grown at a rate of about 20% and is predicted to continue. Also, the more that
students see others using online education, the more they become accustomed to it being
a part of the collegiate experience. Familiarity breeds attempt, and people will lean
towards the Internet for their schooling because their peers have (Sener). Online
education goes further than just computers as well the mobile component of it,
through podcasts and PDFs on cellular devices, brings this learning to an even broader
audience, at less of a cost. Not only are traditional colleges adding online sections of
their classes, but separate, for-profit institutions are emerging with full online programs.
And in a competitive world, these for-profits will come out on the winning side with
their adaptive effective learning model that has lower costs.
Overall, the high costs of college education are justified by the idea that a college
degree is a good investment, but the spiral in higher education prices over the last
several decades has not been warranted by improvements in the quality of actual
education. It has been driven by excessive federal student loans, a buyer psychology and
a sense of consumerism in academics, and colleges and universities that chose to
compete with each other in expensive amenities and atmospherics rather than in
academic substance. This trend will continue until a large population of college aged
students reject the high price of education and make the bubble pop.