Is the Cost Of College Costing Us the American Dream?

Daniel Judkins

10/21/14

Muckraking Essay

Is The High Cost of College Costing Us the American Dream?

The American Dream can be defined as “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” The American Dream is being taken away from the middle class and the equal opportunity for success is being diminished. Studies have shown that one of the benefits of a college education is earning a better living later on in life. The high cost of college is creating an unequal opportunity for middle-class students, puts them in loan bondage, and leads to the decrease of these students’ participation in college, distancing them from the American Dream.

According to the US Department of Education, a college graduate earns at least sixty six percent more than a high school graduate. These numbers alone are enough to make someone want to attend college, as those who graduate from a post-secondary education are apt get much better job opportunities. College students are exposed to more job opportunities through connections gained from networking with other students, and internships offered through the college. President Barack Obama says, “In today’s economy, there is no greater predictor of individual success, than a good education”.  Therefore getting at least a four year college degree is a no brainer, right? Not necessarily. The biggest problem here is being able to afford it.

 College loan debt has grown to become the largest source of personal debt. Over the last several years tuition has been rising two and a half times faster than the inflation rate. State governments are cutting funding, which forces students to take out ridiculously high student loans. Gordon H. Wadsworth, a journalist, says “currently over forty billion dollars in student loan debt has forced many students into financial bondage or even bankruptcy.” As the loan programs have increased, there is little incentive for colleges to lower their tuition costs because students can just borrow the money and no matter what they will get it. The colleges are not concerned with the huge amounts of debt that students have after college. Federal student loan programs, according to the economist Richard Vedder, “have had a perverse impact on college costs”. The original intentions for these loans were to help the students pay for college and achieve their goals, when in reality they only come out with more debt. Where does this leave the middle-class?

The median household middle-class income as of 2014 is $25,500 to $76,500, with $51,000 being the exact median. If college tuition ranges anywhere between 

$25,000 and $64,000 a year, it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that these numbers just don’t work. The cost of a college education is becoming almost impossible for a middle-class family to afford. These high costs are causing some families to forego a college education altogether. Others are staying and completing their four to six years of college leaving with massive debts that they will spend their lifetime struggling to pay back. Colleges need to become more accountable for the exorbitant tuition costs. In this the solution may lie.

 A solution to all of this would be the public working together to take a stand against the tuition costs and to demand fiscal accountability from the colleges. Colleges should start to take a look at where they are spending all of their money. Could students still receive a quality education without things such as state of the art recreation facilities, “award-winning” food in dining halls, and the push to study abroad? If these trends continue, the high cost of college will create an unequal opportunity for middle-class students, create large amounts of debt for them, lead to the decrease of these students’ participation in college, and will distance them from the American Dream.

Works Cited

Kolb, Charles. "College Costs and the American Dream." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 06 Dec. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-kolb/college-costs-and-the-ame_b_4398344.html>.

Lemann, Nicholas. "The Cost of College." The New Yorker. N.p., 28 May 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/28/the-cost-of-college>.

McGuire, Jeff. "Importance of College Education." Articles Advice. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. <http://www.collegeview.com/articles/article/importance-of-college-education>.

Wadsworth, Gordon H. "Sky Rocketing College Costs." InflationData: Education Inflation. N.p., 14 June 2012. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. <http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp>.

Watson, Bruce. "The High Cost of Higher Education Explained in One Simple Graphic - DailyFinance." DailyFinance.com. N.p., 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. <http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/college-costs-tuition-rising-student-debt-infographic/>.