How Can the High Cost of Schooling be Addressed

The Rising Cost of Education
Introduction
The socio-cultural problem of the rising cost of public and higher education is one that affects a wide range of stakeholders across multiple communities throughout the country. Education is something that allows people to develop skills, hone a craft, become more knowledgeable about various subjects, and obtain jobs that can support themselves, their families and give back to the overall economy and society. Education is thus a very important plank in how societies grow, develop and maintain stable connections and networks. Without education, a society will inevitably fester, decay and decline: individuals will lack the skills to compete with others from other parts of the world for work. Their economy and communities will collapse. Because globalization is such a force to be reckoned with in the Digital Era, the need for access to education in today’s day and age is even greater than ever before: there is so much competition in the marketplace, individuals must obtain knowledge and skills to be able to make a living for themselves and their families. The problem is that education itself is becoming increasingly expensive and hanging so much debt upon adult students that they are beginning to wonder if it is even worth it—especially as it becomes harder and harder to obtain a job in the field for which they acquired a diploma in the first place. This paper will examine the facts about the problem of the rising cost of education, the consequences of this issue, the causes of the problem, and solutions that can be implemented to solve the problem.
The Facts about the Problem
As Briana Boyington reports, costs have been going up for decades. The chart below illustrates this phenomenon visually by displaying the average increasing rate of tuitions at ranked colleges over the past 20 years.
Source: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-20/see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities
Lily Rothman adds that “these days, the average cost for a year at a four-year college ranges from $9,410 for in-state public tuition to $32,410 for private. Neither of those figures includes room and board.” These prices would not be so bad if the living wages of workers was actually increasing as well—but wages have stagnated since the 1990s. Lawrence Mishel, Elise Gould and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute have pointed out that “from 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent. This means that workers have been producing far more than they receive in their paychecks and benefit packages from their employers.” Thus, no matter how one looks at, education prices have gone up while wages have virtually stayed the same. Add into that the little matter of inflation (aka the devaluation of the dollar, escalated fiercely since 2008 and the Federal Reserve’s application of unconventional monetary policy known as Quantitative Easing) and one can see that one’s bang for the buck does not go quite as far as it used to—and the soaring costs of education can be understood as just one effect of that.
Consequences
The consequences of higher education costs are not felt by students alone, however. They are felt both by employers and by families. These two spheres are essential to consider because they are twin supports of society. If either is hampered by rising costs in education, society ultimately pays the price.
Employers also feel the effect. They are the ones looking for suitable applicants to positions within their companies that require competence, hard work, and ability. The smaller the pool of available applicants, the harder it is to hire. Soaring education costs just make it all the more likely that the applicant pool is going to dwindle. With fewer people able to afford the high cost of education, companies must look elsewhere to find reliable workers. That means in many cases firms will go abroad. Already, many companies look to countries like India for skilled IT workers (Bhattacharya). The more expensive that necessary education becomes, the harder it is for American workers (who are already struggling to make ends meet) to provide a better path forward for themselves. And as firms offshore, the economy at home will continue to stagnate. That sets in motion a vicious cycle of rising costs and reduced income for families. A community that is not employed is a community that will not have the ability to invest in itself, in infrastructure, in social programs, or in the future. Education is the bedrock of so many things in society that if it is priced so high that it becomes unaffordable, it is like saying the future is no longer possible. Instability is the end result, and no society can progress when it is being destabilized from within.
Even allegedly “free public schools” are now charging parents and families for services and programs, which only adds to the problem. Public schools are supposed to be funded by taxes. Families rely on these schools more so today because most households need to have two incomes just to survive—and that puts more pressure on schools to offer programs that will keep the children busy while parents are at work. Yet if the free public schools cannot foot the bill for these services, the bill gets passed on to the families, and they are already strapped. More pressure on the families means less stability in the basic building block of society—the family (Gellman).
Those who disagree with either of these two consequences are flawed in their thinking because they are not following the logic of cause-and-effect. It is clear that there are direct links between education and job opportunities and between debts and stress (Ponnet). Ignoring these relationships or pretending they do not matter is a recipe for blindness that leads to poor leadership and a lack of accountability. At some point, this issue of rising costs must be addressed by all.
Causes of the Problem
That brings us to the causes of the problem. Three causes of the problem are 1) government subsidization, 2) inflation, and 3) the commoditization of education. Government subsidies essentially backstop the loans that are given to students in higher education, which prompts more schools to offer more loans (since the government guarantees them) and to raise prices (since the students are going to come, knowing that they will get a loan). The more demand there is, the more the price will go up—and since the government is willing to subsidize the transaction, everyone is happy (especially the school, since it is raking in profits—though the students are typically less thrilled when they realize how deep in debt they are). Inflation is another cause: since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was given the right to print the nation’s money and lend it at interest to the U.S. government, the value of the dollar has decreased exponentially. It now takes for more dollars to purchase today what it did 100 years ago. If workers were being paid proportionately to the rate of inflation, this would not be a cause—but they are not, as has already been shown. The third cause is the commoditization of education: it is no longer a service that is provided individuals to make themselves better but rather a way to “milk” individuals for four years by obliging them to pay for classes (like general studies requirements) which serve no other purpose than to broaden the individual’s perspective on various subjects. Individuals can easily do this on their own: they do not need to pay $1200 per credit hour to learn about music or psychology—especially if these classes have nothing to do with their major. Education has become a business, selling students a bill of goods.
Solutions
Solutions would be, first, to get the government out of schooling: stop all subsidies and the backstopping of all loans. This will bring down costs. Second, employers need to realize that there are far more opportunities to learn a trade or a skill today than ever before—thanks to the Internet, which allows information to be shared in a manner never before realized. The monopoly on knowledge once enjoyed by schools is threatened by the Internet. One can learn IT skills, math skills, management skills—all manner of skills—by applying himself directly to the Internet and becoming a self-starter. Instead of looking for a degree, managers should be looking for skills and interviewing applicants to assess skill level. The degree is becoming less and less meaningful, since education has been commoditized and classes are being required that do not teach any discernible skill whatsoever. Third, the Federal Reserve should be abolished. It has destroyed the value of the dollar and will continue to do so as long as it has the power to print. Governments have a natural right to coin their own currency: they should not have to “borrow” it from a central bank; that, in effect, is like handing sovereignty over to the banks and giving them all the power.
In conclusion, education is vital to the betterment and stability of society—but when education becomes just another cheap commodity that is, moreover, backstopped by the federal government so that prices can be increased exponentially and the debt hung on the necks of students for life, the value of that education needs to be re-evaluated. Today, education can come in a lot of different forms: it should not have to come from a college campus (whether physical or virtual). There are many ways to share information and many people willing to help in that dispersal. By recognizing this fact, employers and families alike can confront the issues they face with innovative solutions.
Works Cited
Bhattacharya, Ananya. “Everywhere Indian Engineers are Unwanted.” Quartz, 20 Apr
2017. https://qz.com/963530/h-1b-its-not-just-trumps-america-indian-techies-are-unwanted-from-east-to-west/
Boyington, Briana. “See 20 years of tuition growth at national universities.” U.S. News
& World Report, 20 Sept 2017. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-20/see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities
Gellman, Lindsay. “The Rising Costs of a ‘Free’ Public Education.” The Wall Street
Journal, 8 Sept 2013. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rising-costs-of-a-free-public-education-1378602260
Mishel, Lawrence; Elise Gould, Josh Bivens. “Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts.”
Economic Policy Institute, 6 Jan 2015. http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Ponnet, Koen. “Financial Stress, Parent Functioning and Adolescent Problem Behavior.”
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 43, no. 10, 2014, pp. 1752-1769.
Rothman, Lily. “Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective.” Time, 31 Aug 2016.
http://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/