The True Value of Expensive Education - Research Paper Example

The True Value of Expensive Education Education has undoubtedly been one of the most inevitable requirements for any civilized community. Acquiring specific and expert knowledge along with disciplined practice makes an individual skillful and productive for his prospective life. Since the development of technology in every field of enterprise, a rewarding career in today’s employment market is possible only if a candidate can exhibit his proficiency in getting ahead of challenges and competitors. Traditionally, colleges and universities are the centers for students to achieve the higher education required for meeting the international levels of skill sets and employment potential. However, the increasing cost of education makes it difficult for a large majority of people to pursue their higher education in better universities and colleges. This paper will evaluate the American scenario of college education focusing the students as audience while analyzing the actual situations to prove whether the rising tuition fee actually add value to the higher education outcome in the country. Education at a higher level is surely meant for a rewarding purpose; therefore it incurs cost at a reasonable proportion. The term tuition fee refers to the amount required to be paid by the students for continuing a learning course in a college or university. The education institutions providing higher education looks for imparting training at international levels. The stakeholders of this process includes several aspects like state government funds, material and human resource requirements, employment agencies and supporting organizations etc. Majority of these factors are subject to changes with the economic conditions in the respective states. Rising cost of education has been a tremendous challenge before the universities and education departments in the country and it affects the number of qualified candidates in the employment market with considerable impacts. The uncontrollable increase in tuition fees poses a threat to the enrollment rates in colleges, which is an indicator of declining quality of human resources in the future years of the productive economic sector across the country. The total picture of the education system in the country shows the students as the players of a borrowing-repaying process alongside their education. At one side they are given extended loan facilities by several financial enterprises towards education; and at the other side, the educational institutions engage in a cost-shifting process in which the increasing cost of education is recovered through rise in the tuition fees. Gobry (2013) reports on the increasing tuition fee indicate that the government allocation for extended loan facilities for students for meeting the objective of increased enrollment in higher education is not effectively resulting in the increased intakes in non-profit institutions. The benefit of this situation goes to the private and for-profit universities which make their own policies for admission and regulations of fees. Inadequate facilities at the state-owned institutions also force the students to join private colleges with the expectation that the cost can be managed by loans and the superior quality of education offered by the private sector. Precisely, privatization of the education sector and the increased liberty to gain subsidized loans together make reason for increasing tuition fee in the country. As long as the system is meant to run with decreased state support in funding and other material factors, the challenges will continue to escalate and the country will experience a severe loss in the quality of the productive sector. There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of higher education institutions and universities over the past few decades in the United States. The government policies of liberalization of education and the changing employment environment made it possible for the private sector colleges to introduce new courses and gather students at a higher cost. With rapid changes in the macroeconomic outlook of the business world, the need for developing a technically sound and professionally qualified generation of students has become essential for the governments to guarantee their sustainable economic development. The business involving the operation of universities and colleges focuses on the demand-supply proportion in which the students as stakeholders have to accept the financial defeat in the long run. Under the government policies of higher education, universities are restricted to certain limits of enrollment of students; therefore they increase the tuition fee in order to meet the profit margins as well as their own sustainability concerns. The present scenario of higher education shows an absolute picture of consumerism in which students are increasingly becoming able to access funds for their desired field of education from a list of colleges. As the loans are easy to get and subsidies are favorable for the students, there is steady growth in the number of borrowers. Similarly, the employment sector demands college graduation as a minimum requirement for most jobs, universities can increase both the number of intake and the fee for education. All the focus of the economic world goes to the education sector as the cost of it is rapidly rising. According to a report by Belkin (2013), the average increase in the college tuition fee is three times of the rise in consumer-price index and two times of the rise in medical care expenses in the country. The reasons for the skyrocketing of expense at public sector education are the reduced government funding and the general increase in costs of operations. Another important reason for the inflation of expenses is the increasing demand for the compulsory inclusion of technical and costly electronic devices in training and practices. Besides these factors, the inclusion of certain innovative infotainment activities such as seminars, exhibitions and competitive events like athletic meets and games etc contribute their own share to the increasing cost of education. Managements of the institutions also indicate the increase in the capital worth as an important reason for the rise in tuition fees. According to Matthews (2013), the rise of the cost in both public and private institutions was significant over the past few decades; while the growth in the cost was at 101.7 percent in the public sector, it was over 137.2 percent rise in the case of private sector institutions on the basis of a comparison between the situations in both academic years 1964-65 and 2010-11. However, the constant rise in tuition fees does not seem to distract the students. The overall increase in the number of university enrollments proportionate to the total population of the country shows the fact that the rise in the cost does not discourage the students and parents from choosing a better center for their necessary stream of academics. More importantly, the increasing demand for technically skilled and distinctively qualified young generation in the modern business world creates a pressure that compels the institutions to provide world-class facilities and charge the students even disproportionately. In the wake of increasing tuition fee standing as the biggest challenge before the college students, a need arises for the logical evaluation of the ratio between investment and return with regards to the current educational system. The new generation institutions focus on the great scope of micro-level specialization in different areas of business management, hospitality, sciences and healthcare etc and make the syllabi based on them. They are also providers of resourceful input to students and the employment sector in the outside market. However, the desired levels of quality can be achieved only if the management invests suitable systems to support the present day requirements in the field of technically aided education. Although the cost of education is escalating every year, the benefit expected from achieving higher studies in reputed universities is reflected in the better earning capacities of the candidates. Considering the importance of education in the economic growth of the country, it is recommendable that the colleges provide the students the best possible education to meet the international demands. According to a suggestion, “today’s rapidly growing economies depend on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge, and this requires an educated and skilled population.” (As qtd in “The Importance of Investing in Secondary Education”). Hence it can be observed that candidates with college graduation have a better claim in the productive sector than the unskilled lot of young population. However, the deficiency in state funding hinters the prospective growth of public sector institutions whereby giving opportunities for the private sector to expand their business by setting up more colleges at higher rates of tuition fees. Considering that the cost of education is only rising along with the increase in the price index of all commodities, a particular criticism cannot be made against this scenario. The stakeholders are interested to take admission at reputed organizations with great expectations about the quality of education and the possibilities of developing their employable skills. However, the outcome of the increased payment causes great concern when it shows a degenerating tendency. Li (2013) reveals that the recent decades have shown a downward trend in the supply of skilled workforce from the colleges despite the changes in public sector education; and as result, the demand for quality labor continued to exist while on the other hand, providing opportunities for the private universities to build their position in the demand-supply system as a more profitable enterprise (20). The problem of depleting quality of skills even after the costly college education is because of the inadequate measures that the colleges still possess to amalgamate technology with classroom hours. The negative supply of quality training proportionate to the tuition fees range discourages the students from enrolling in more numbers. The reduction in enrollment means depleted revenue, which effectively results in inferior supply of quality desirable for the students. Even though there are no indicators to prove that increased tuition fees guarantee solid opportunities for the students in the employment market because of the tremendous competitions, there are some intangible benefits to the organization. Rimmington et al (2012) indicate that privatized colleges and universities a cost the education higher than the public sector, but they promote the aspects like multi-cultural linking, peaceful collaboration of global leaders, high-end prospects of research and overseas employment opportunities for successful students etc. The importance of college education is emphasized further by these abstract factors that lie within the technical development approach by the colleges in the modern trend. Despite the validity of the fact the tuition fees are of the rise over the past decades, the trend of admissions also indicates a positive growth. The total picture of the American economics of education makes a perfect platform for the educational organizations to make continuous efforts to enroll more students every year by projecting the better opportunities they can claim from completing a college education. This scenario results in a positive trend in the enrollment despite the rise in tuition fees across the country every year. A reliable data suggest that “Tuition growth is positively related with enrollment growth of the same year” (Huang and Ning, 2011). A hawk’s eye view will explain that undergoing an educations system under the universities and colleges is essential for the young people for many reasons. Even though the financial burden toward tuitions is increasing out of proportion, the socio-economic benefit lying within college education is attractive to many students. According to Odland (2012), individuals without a high school graduation not only earn less than the national average in the United States, but also contribute nearly seventy percent of the prison population; besides this, college graduation of various durations and degrees ranging from four year to PhD enables the candidates to earn from $55000 to over $65000 per year. All these mathematical figures and estimates focus the stakeholders’ attention to the fact that education has been, and will always be one of the essential needs of mankind as long as he has to exist in a society. Despite all the weight of rise in tuition fees being on its disadvantageous effects, the social benefit offered by the college education to students in attaining better rewarding jobs and reduction in the number of crimes can justify the very aspect of the much criticized increase of tuition fees. The debate on whether the ever-increasing tuition fees of college education actually rewarding the students cannot reach a conclusion in favor of a positive argument. The scenario in which college graduates continue to remain in the job search for long time after their studies and the added struggles to repay the education loans during the later part of their life make it clear that the individual benefit students achieving from the costly college education is actually a burden on them. In total, tuition fee for college education is continuously increasing in the United States by posing a challenge before the students over the past few decades. The demand for technically skilled and qualified candidates at the global employment market forces the students to continue their education in reputed colleges irrespective of the cost of learning. The government policy to reduce state funding and increase education loans encourage students to find their enrollment possible at private sector colleges. However, the reduced opportunities of confirmed jobs after the education and the debt burden that continues to exist on the students even after getting a job makes a conclusion that the rising tuition fee is not essentially of any favor to students. Works Cited Belkin, Douglas. How to Get College Tuition Under Control. The Wall Street Journal (Oct 8, 2013). http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324549004579068992834736138 Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel. The Reason Why College Is So Expensive Is Actually Dead Obvious. Forbes May 9, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2013/05/09/the-reason-why-college-is-so-expensive-is-actually-dead-obvious/ Huang, Tingho and Ning, Bin. An Analysis of the Impact of Tuition Increase on University Enrollment. Eastern Michigan University. (November 3, 2011). http://www.miair.org/web_documents/an_analysis_of_the_impact_of_tuition_increase_on_university_enrollment.pdf The Importance of Investing in Secondary Education. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079967208/547671-1120139762595/chapter2.pdf Li, Helen. The Rising Cost of Higher Education: A Supply & Demand Analysis. Thesis. Leonard N. Stern School of Business New York University. http://www.stern.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/con_042986.pdf Mathews, Dylan. Introducing ‘The Tuition is Too Damn High. The Washington Post, August 26, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/26/introducing-the-tuition-is-too-damn-high/ Odland, Steve. College Costs Out Of Control. Forbes. March 24, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/03/24/college-costs-are-soaring/ Rimmington Glyn, Alagic Mara and Blessinger Patrick. Global learning: still too expensive? The Guardian July 26, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/26/global-learning-costs-higher-education Read More