Since 1980 the cost of going to college has risen twice as fast as the cost of living, “climbing 57 per cent between 198l and 1986. The Consumer Price Index went up 26 per cent during the same period” (Hood 1). “The average cost of a public college of an in-state student is $4,081 and for a private college is $18,273 in 2003” (“College Costs”1). The explosion of college costs has outpaced almost all parts of the economy, including medical care costs, cost of commodities and cost of services. I believe the cause of growing college expenses lies not in the general economy, but in higher education itself. With the raising

Secondly, the cost of financial aid is one of the most commonly used excuses for rising tuition. “The fastest-growing expense at Penn and nearly every other university is financial aid. Like many other universities, Penn has nearly half of its students receiving some form of financial aid” (White 2). If large amounts of the student body are receiving financial aid, the college feels it can burn the candle at both ends and charge students more. The run-around on this is if the colleges lower their tuition, the student would require less financial aid. I don’t feel the colleges would do this. These unfair reasons why college costs are so expensive seem hard to pass on the average student.

Thirdly is the phenomenon of the artificial rise in tuition for the name or status of the college. Examples of these are the Ivy League schools whose costs can reach into the mid $30,000 for one year and universities that are hard to get into. They have high tuition costs for students who are accepted. “At a Washington higher education seminar an administrator at one Michigan college joked the he was considering writing an “honest” tuition-increase letter to parents, saying that the school is maintaining high tuition for prestige rather than, as asserted in previous years, to offset rising operational costs”(Hood 5). This good reputation allows schools to set their tuitions high and raise them if they want to. There is some truth in the saying” you pay for the name” as far as colleges goes. I don’t feel thi

Some topics in this essay:
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