Friday, March 16, 2012

Why has tuition gone up?

Here's an interesting article on why the cost of education has gone up so sharply. One of the reasons considered is the increase in state pension expenses (and, we might add, increased costs of medical care) as baby boomers retire. Unfortunately, the money has to come from somewhere and raising tuition is becoming a favorite tool for politicians.

Anyone have any suggestions for policy changes that would reverse this trend?

3 comments:

Heather Costello said...

Hmmm, how does one stop the "machine." There are a couple ways to look at a situation like this. Monitoring the placement of funds that are already available and making a decision on where or what the MAIN goal of those funds is to me is paramount. An example could be..that our goal as a nation/state is to assist in providing the best means for universal survival.(note the word "survival") From here you would focus a primary amount of funding to the "new" citizens of your nation/state, the backbone of our future. This could mean appropriating the majority of the funds to the health care of the younger generations, the education of the younger generation the livelihood, etc. This does not mean that older generations would be without their basic needs or suffer but lets just look to some other nations for a reference in this matter. In Ireland, the older generations have health care (the country has universal care) Also monies are paid to the families of the elderly to take care of them instead of the families utilizing a nursing home. The average nursing home cost here (USA) per person is 70,000 dollars a year and most of that is paid by Medicare. Even if our government paid families 35,000 a year that would significantly help the younger economy by putting more money in consumers pockets, lessen the burden on the health care system, and then stop politicians from "pulling the plug" on my generations future because our grandparents did not believe in contraception. The older generation is cared for, the younger generation benefits, monetarily, in their home and in educational lives, and the younger souls just may even get shined up a little in the process. ;)You could take in a parent or older relative starting at the age of 70 younger for special disabilities. Though my next statement may sound like that of a socialist, we could also eliminate the waste of one grandparent living in a 5 bedroom house. Wasting heat, light, space. A younger generation should move in there instead of paying rent (misappropriation of funds, again) to someone else they don't even know. A lot of things could change the economy but I believe greed,lack of respect and just plain laziness are a huge factor in or money crisis in this country. It all started with pre- sliced bread!! Why do anything yourself when if you pay just a little more you can have someone else do it for you. Look where that line of thinking has gotten us.

Nicki Kellogg said...

This is not a simple problem, thus it does not have a simple solution. i think the entire funding system needs to be turned upside down. If we make higher education more affordable, then many more people would be educated. This is of great importance because then we could become educated on health care issues, poverty and budgeting. By spiking tuition prices, it decreases the amount of people with higher educationa and increases the amount of people that are only qualified to do low skill service jobs that they often hate or the pay is low. Due to this many people rrely on government assitance--which costs millions. However, if these people werre educated and we all worked then we would'nt need government assisance and the government could then reduce health care. This is not a fool proof plan by any means nor am I saying the people on government assitance are stupid, that is far from the truth. the point I am trying to make is that education needs to be valued as important and should be made affordable and equal opportunity to everywhere. This would help close the huge gap between the rich and the poor. As far as the article referencing collges useless spending like climbing walls etc, this may not seem necessary but some of the serrvices prrovided outside of class such as climbing trip or various clubs, help students learn more about themselves and others, which is something that can not be taught in the classroom. These extra things are just as important to achieve a well rounded education.

Kelcey Schaum said...

I believe that welfare would be one way to reduce the cost of education. If they were to cut back on who applies for welfare and make the rules and regulations more strict it would become cheaper for us. Also, if they were to reduce how much people get for welfare the government would then be able to help college students out more. I agree with Nicki when she says that education needs to be valued and make affordable and the opportunity to attend it equal.

Kelcey Schaum