Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Caught in the college arms race, students and parents pay more and more

By Nick Perry

Posted by Alma Zhumagulova

COLLEGES ARE like the cookie monster. They seek and devour every resource in sight, with few constraints and even less restraint. At least that's how Ronald Ehrenberg describes it when explaining the big question on the minds of so many parents:
Why does college cost so much?
"Our sole goal is to find cookies and stuff our mouths," says Ehrenberg, who directs the Higher Education Research Institute at Cornell University. "Colleges and universities like to grab as many resources as they can. We want to make ourselves as good as we can. We want the best facilities, students, resident halls and labs, so there's this tremendous drive to be better, and that costs money." For a long time, he says, "there's been no check on this drive to get better, because the lines of students wanting to get into institutions keep getting longer."
Of course, the U.S. higher-education system has long been the envy of the world. A college degree has become a requirement to enter almost any profession, and can increase lifetime earnings by a million dollars or more.

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4 comments:

  1. It's true, I don't even know how my parents could afford the increasing college costs. Even during this economic downturn, when prices are supposed to fall, SU tuition rose even more than it did last year. However, the government is making it easier for foreign students in order to obtain a student visa though. I think the price of college will not fall any time soon since the demand for an american education is too high.
    Quang Nguyen

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  2. My parents are struggling and i do not think it is fair because there are a lot of students (athletes) who get everything free and most of them dont make use of it.

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  3. I think the way of letting more foreign student get visa would help the US economic.
    Shawn Gao

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