Why is College so Expensive?
College has become so expensive for many reasons including less students attending in person classes so the revenue that was once generated at the colleges is not there any longer. In the past, colleges would charge for your child’s room, which would include a single or double dorm room, electricity and typically a shared bathroom. The next charge would be for their meal plan which typically there were at least a couple of choices of a per swipe plan or an unlimited plan both varying in cost. Your next charge will be for lab classes, these classes are in addition to your regular class that you choose. In college you will typically be charged a number of extra fees that may have not been disclosed to you including a Dorm Fee, Security Fee, Activity Fee, Parking Fee and Activity Fee, these fees could start as low as $100 and could be as high $750 per semester. In many states students have decided to learn through online classes because of flexibility and the cost of being home online is much cheaper than staying on campus so they will not be charged all the unnecessary fees.
Alexander Djerassi believes another reason why college tuition has skyrocketed is because the cost of living in many states has risen as well along with the cost of paying professors, electricity charges for keeping the lights on, heating costs and general maintenance cost of the buildings and grounds. For example, 8 years ago a new college employee would earn $9.00 an hour typically which would average $15,000 a year but now a newly hired hourly employee would start their employment rate at $14.00 which is an additional $8,000 per year.
Not only has the beginning college employee rate increased so has the advanced professors, coaches, and president’s. The largest increase over the past 3 years has been of the college president’s with an average of 60% of the college president’s now making a yearly salary of over 1 million dollars in pay along with a college home provided to the president near or on-campus. The president’s income has been a substantial reason for why college tuition has been on the rise and is overly expensive.
Many colleges have offered scholarships in the past but with the employee rate increase and less revenue coming in not as many scholarships have been available as before meaning that college is more expensive.
As a Policy Associate for Hilary Clinton’s campaign Alexander Djerassi knows all about policy and procedure for adjusting with the influx of change in many ways. Mr. Djerassi could possibly help in our education departments to figure out why the colleges have increased their charges for tuition, room and board, along with the salary increases over the past 8 years. If this doesn’t get under control I don’t feel that an increase in college attendance will accrue because of all of the increases that many Americans can not afford to pay for.