The High Cost of Buying a College Diploma:
Yes, I'm a cynic. Andy Kroll complains about the high cost of higher education in a recent Salon.com piece, and with good reason. The price of a higher education has been steadily increasing at a rate higher than even the cost of health care. We might add with little increase in value as well, if we match it against the value of the same service provided a generation or two ago. The very real increases in cost have been in services provided outside the classroom. Kroll makes no mention of where the increased revenues are going.
Nor does he examine the changing demographics of college students. Approximately 2 out of 3 high school students now choose to attend college upon graduation. Those numbers are simply unprecidented in human history. Currently only about 70 percent of high school studens graduate. While this number is appalling, it nevertheless means that something like half of students who enter high school will go on to attend college. Thus colleges are no longer elite institutions for elite people with elite careers ahead of them. College has become the new high school, but funding is another matter. While America was determined to provide a free high school education for its youth, there is no equivelant aproach to college. Instead, colleges have become revenue streams for the people who run them.
One thing is perfeclty clear: a college administrator's power is directly proportional to the size of his or her budget.
NOTE: Check out the statistic illustrating that the unemployment rate among colleges graduates is equal to about half the national rate, which would mean that unemployment among those without a college diploma is more than double the graduates' rate.
Also NOTE that Kroll's story focuses on a family who chose to have five children and is now complaining about the strain they are under to finance all of their children's education at a Big Ten school. Call me an old foggy, but when I was growing up, only a very few parents could afford to send just one of their children to such an institution.
Yes, I'm a cynic. Andy Kroll complains about the high cost of higher education in a recent Salon.com piece, and with good reason. The price of a higher education has been steadily increasing at a rate higher than even the cost of health care. We might add with little increase in value as well, if we match it against the value of the same service provided a generation or two ago. The very real increases in cost have been in services provided outside the classroom. Kroll makes no mention of where the increased revenues are going.
Nor does he examine the changing demographics of college students. Approximately 2 out of 3 high school students now choose to attend college upon graduation. Those numbers are simply unprecidented in human history. Currently only about 70 percent of high school studens graduate. While this number is appalling, it nevertheless means that something like half of students who enter high school will go on to attend college. Thus colleges are no longer elite institutions for elite people with elite careers ahead of them. College has become the new high school, but funding is another matter. While America was determined to provide a free high school education for its youth, there is no equivelant aproach to college. Instead, colleges have become revenue streams for the people who run them.
One thing is perfeclty clear: a college administrator's power is directly proportional to the size of his or her budget.
NOTE: Check out the statistic illustrating that the unemployment rate among colleges graduates is equal to about half the national rate, which would mean that unemployment among those without a college diploma is more than double the graduates' rate.
Also NOTE that Kroll's story focuses on a family who chose to have five children and is now complaining about the strain they are under to finance all of their children's education at a Big Ten school. Call me an old foggy, but when I was growing up, only a very few parents could afford to send just one of their children to such an institution.
Labels: Education
posted by Jim | 3:12 PM
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