Imagine buying a new book online that you've been looking forward to reading for a while and which you've been told is incredibly beneficial. After a few weeks of anticipation, you get it in the mail, tear apart the package, open the book and find most of the pages have been torn out.
That's what college is like. Only it costs several thousand dollars and people say if you don't finish it, you'll be doomed for life.
As incoming college freshmen are tearing open their mail in the upcoming weeks to find acceptance letters and welcome packets, they are going to have to face that harsh reality. According to a recent analysis by the Center of Budget Policy and Priorities, universities - specifically state universities - across the country are starting to and continuing to cut courses while simultaneously raising the cost of tuition to avoid paying higher taxes.
Approximately three out of every four students will begin seeing shortened course offerings or combined sessions. That Political Communication or Marxism course you demoed during your college tour that was the icing on the cake to apply? Cut. The professor who has been your mentor for the last couple years? Gone. You'll be fine, don't worry about it.
Besides the overused argument on the importance of having a bachelor's degree (because let's be honest: with each day and each turned-down job, that argument is getting more and more unbelievable), we have to ask what's left for us? Universities, businesses and society in general place such heavy weight on the degree that it's usually impossible to not go to school, but not only do college students keep hearing horror stories about life outside the collegiate walls standing in the streets with a useless degree, we also have to get past all the blockades.
Instill some confidence in us. Somebody. Anybody.
The ridiculousness of higher education is increasingly becoming a trend with every dropped class, increased tuition bill and expansion plan. And more so than ever, we're paying heavy costs for that ridiculousness.
In the last year alone, the cost of a four-year public degree has risen just over 4 percent on tuition alone (don't forget room and board, books and all the additional nonsense fees). Yet states are spending on average around $2,500 less per student than they did five years ago. That includes major cuts on research from both state and federal sources - a 13 percent decrease over the last two decades.
Every now and then, students get a small sliver of hope with news that the economy is improving or other markets are showing signs of recovery. Recent government funding issues - such as the fiscal cliff and sequestration - that have an effect on higher education haven't done much to keep the faith alive, especially as Congress is currently voting this week on yet another short-term funding measure. And even as other parts of the economy are getting better, there are few signs indicating states will reverse some of the college cuts.
Higher education is the only product that can get away with raising the sticker value while decreasing the quality of the product, and it shouldn't. It's so much of a problem that some schools are offering three-year degrees and more schools are coming up with four-year guaranteed degrees just so students don't have to pay more than they bargained for. These alternative and the "normal" degrees have the highest value put on them for importance and worthwhile schools that should be focused on and utilized more, such as trade schools, are usually looked at as a last resort.
UB should take interest in this. If students are going to feel like they're wasting their time or not getting their money's worth and if the state continues to show they don't care so much, then students are going to pay the extra money to go to a private school or they're not going to worry about it at all, even if they're especially gifted but lack the resources. A recent analysis from Harvard shows only 34 percent of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom income bracket attended any of the country's 238 most selective colleges and universities because they don't feel like they can afford to pay it or even pay back the loans eventually.
When you're only doing the thing you've been told to do your entire life by everyone who crosses your path - teachers, classmates, family and future employers alike - it's not exactly reassuring when your only option as a student is to sit around and hope things will get better as you sign over your checks. What do we have to do to get those hopes answered?
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
