Student Debt: The Cost Of College Tuition

Higher education is extremely important in American society today in order to get a well-paying job and earn enough money to pay off bills. Unfortunately, in order to pay for higher education students are becoming more reliable on financial aid in order to help pay for just one semester of college, which can cost up to $20,000. Many people may say that it is crucial to pay all of this money in order to attend college, but most students are being put into debt, they are being required to take out loans, and most of the money that students pay towards their college tuition does not benefit them directly. The cost of higher education is a main reason that young people are in debt because by the time they graduate, they owe thousands of dollars
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “Student loans play a huge role in financing higher education, which is crucial to improving the skill of American workers. However, the burden of student debt is close to $1 trillion, and some have different requirements when being paid back.” With the increasing rates of college tuition, students are being required to take out more and more loans because they do not have the massive amounts of money to pay for it themselves. Though many students tend to have jobs in their high school career, most of them do not save anything that they earn. Even if they saved money between the time they can get a job, in which most places require the minimum age to be sixteen, and go to college, it would not be possible for there to be enough money to pay for college tuition out of pocket. Sometimes students cannot get a job due to the dedication to school and lack of time after extracurricular
(insert intro to quote here) “50% of the money public universities make goes towards instruction, research, and hospital services. Only 7% goes towards academic support and 4% goes towards student services, operations and maintenance” (Jasty, “Where Does All That Money Go?”). According to the graphs Jasty put together, only 24% of the money that is put towards higher education goes towards the students’ benefit such as student services and auxiliary enterprises, which only makes up only 13% of that 24%. Student services and auxiliary enterprises include student activities and organizations, admissions, residence halls, dining services, student health services, athletics, and student counseling. At least 18% of the money that students pay goes towards independent operations and depreciation, in which some students do not have any affiliation with. Students cannot help that colleges lose some assets every year- that is going to happen to any place over time, so why should students have to pay for the depreciation of the college that they choose to attend? Independent operations include “expenses unrelated to the primary missions of the institution (i.e. instruction, research, public service) although they may contribute indirectly to the enhancement of these