Month: March 2021

College is not cheap… but I am sure you all know this as all my readers attend college here at Penn State. This cost does not just hurt families’ wallets; there in fact many other rippling effects of this cost. College costs tens of thousands of dollars, and if someone wants to go to school in a different state than the one in which they grew up, the price is even higher. A family could buy a nice house with the average cost of college tuition for 4 years. However, as we previously reviewed, the advantages of higher education are extremely beneficial to one’s career and their identity development. Despite these incredible advantages a college education brings someone, the cost is still very significant and has short term, and long term effects on families who send their child to a college. In this post we will be reviewing how the cost of college, costs students and families a great deal of hardships and obstacles.

For a family to send at least one child to school it involves a great deal of financial planning. The price for one child is substantial, but most families have more than one kid to send to school. Four years of school costs about 90,000 dollars, and in many cases more. So to then multiply this cost by two, three, or even more people really adds up. This cost can be up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is a reality that parents of students have to face. It influences how people spend money, where they live, how they save for retirement, and much more. One of the biggest impacts it has is limiting where a student can go to school. I was not able to go to my top option for school because it would be a financially poor decision. Luckily, and not, there is a way to help families manage this payment. Through student loans students and families can receive some help paying the cost of college upfront.

Student loans are very helpful, but can also bevery stressful and add up.  There are two different types of loans which collect interest interest in different ways. The first of which are subsidized loans, which do not collect interest while you are in school. These type of loans are based off the financial need of a student. Then there are unsubsidized loans which are not based off financial need and collect interest from the second you take one until the time you pay it off.  You can pay the interest off or choose to pay it all at the end which is called capitalizing the interest (UF). This can be very harmful due to the fact that if one waits to pay their interest on the loan, it will cost a great deal more because interest would accrue to a larger amount. Families may be unable to pay the interest for some payments and have no choice but to let it build up as interest. They are stuck paying the interest back and if they are unable to it ends up costing them. This is an example of the incredible pressure the cost of college can put on someone’s life in ways other than just the direct cost.

 

Work Cited

Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans

Picture Sources:

https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college

U.S. Average Student Loan Debt Statistics in 2019

As we all are aware, the college experience is a unique time in one’s life which comes with some undeniable advantages. However, this experience comes with a price tag, costing tens of thousands of dollars each and every year.  This price effects how people save and budget their money, where people attend school, and makes everyone really question what the value of the college experience and degree is really worth. For a four year experience to affect the way people save their money for their entire lives, there must be something special about it. Something that makes it worth it undergo financial hardship and taking out large sums of loans. Something that can set you apart, and set you up to be whatever you want to be in this world.

In this world, education is the one thing which keeps our society progressing. The more we learn, the more we can apply to our world, and the more new things we are able to create and observe from the world and universe around us. All the most important and influential people graduated from top tier institutes of higher education, and this has become the best way to stand out. By attending a well respected university one can express their intelligence and ability just by referencing their attendance there. Society has progressed to a point where we make entire judgements about someone’s personality and their worth based off of where they went to school. Ultimately higher education attendance has become a mark of intelligence and potential on this planet, and colleges are aware of this fact.

In world which has progressed so for over such a long time, there emerges a pattern to life. One of the crucial points of this pattern is college attendance because it can set you up for the next few stages in life. There is such a strong demand from almost every American citizen to attend college. This supply and demand relationship between college availability remaining constant and demand constantly growing I believe is the biggest explanation for the cost of college. It is something everyone will benefit from. Higher education gives you development, direction, connections, and prestige.  These are all things which are vital to finding success in this country. When you pay for college it is not just for the price of food and boarding and tuition, but additionally more intangible things like connection platforms and commonalities with people who are hiring for positions. It is a combination of all these things which contributes to the expensiveness of a college education, and it is up to each individual at the end of the day to analyze whether the cost is worth it to them.

 

Picture Sources:

https://vegasinc.lasvegassun.com/news/2016/aug/29/degrees-of-happiness-for-todays-college-graduates/