The Ever Rising Cost of Tuition

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

The rising cost of tuition may be an even bigger problem than people realize. Already tuition is taking up an even larger portion of the median family income. In low income families, the cost of education can be up to fifty percent of the total family income. However, one of the unforeseen consequences of this for America as a country is the state of education of the working class. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, America is one of a very few number of countries where workers age twenty five to thirty four are less educated than their older coworkers. Also, USA Today, states that the rise in the cost of education has many factors. The main factor is that colleges are losing funds from the state. State schools educate the majority of students, and those schools are quickly losing their funding which the schools in turn have to pass on to the students. While the loss of funding is one aspect the other is, in effect, advertising. Schools today have to compete to gain perspective students and they do this by spending large sums of money on brand new, state of the art dorms and athletic facilities. While this mainly happens at elite private schools , it still forces other schools with smaller budgets to try to compete as well. While the schools clearly see the need to gain the interests of more students ,it is understandable that students at Georgia Tech would be upset that a large amount of money is being spent on a brand new Undergraduate Learning Center while the cost of tuition steadily rises.