It is evident that getting a Bachelor’s degree or any other higher degree is how many succeed in life, but at what cost? According to FinAid—a website created to help students with financial aid—, on average, tuition has a tendency to increase by about eight percent every year. This basically means that every nine years, tuition doubles. For example in 2009-2010, the University of Southern California (USC) tuition was about $39,183, while for the 2019-2020 year it is approximately $56,225. Over 10 years the tuition raised around $17,000, which is more than the tuition for the University of California, Berkeley, which is about $14,184 for in-state students.

  Currently, the United States has a federal student loan debt of about one and a half trillion dollars; this does not include the private sources that give loans. Private sources carry about 119 billion dollars worth of student loan debt.

  Students have to hold student debt accountable when thinking about what college they want to go to. Some cannot go into their dream schools because of the freight of having bad student debt. Although there are ways to avoid a mass amount of debt, it is inevitable that students will have some sort of debt.

  Many choose the path of going to a junior college first and later transferring into the school they wanted to go to. This way the general education classes, that are the same through universities and junior colleges, will be completed at a much lower price. In addition, as a transfer student, the acceptance rate into the universities is higher compared to a first year student.

  Others choose to be a part-time student in which they work at the same time, as well. This way they are able to pay some of the expenses on the spot so no interest gets placed on the overall pricing. The difficulty with this path is that a job tends to distract students from their schoolwork, unless it has a flexible schedule. 

  Tuition is one of the major factors for students when choosing where they want to complete their post-secondary education at. Many get prohibited from their dream school, while others try to make it work by balancing school and work. Either way, students want to go to college to create a good future for themselves, but many fall short on the aspect of tuition. The amount of pressure of getting financial aid is building up, but only a few receive it.

  Give students a chance to show their full educational capability; don’t prohibit them from the beginning simply because of whether or not they can pay for the ridiculously high tuitions placed on them. These students are the future of the world, so why make it harder for them to get an education? This is the big question the future leaders of America need to think about. 

“Saving for College: Tuition Inflation.” FinAid, http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml.