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Alex Kulak
15 October 2015
Erzinger
Synthesis Essay
Over the years, the cost of college education has been subject to a lot of debate. The
current average cost, including tuition, fees, room, and board, of an in-state public college is over
$23,000 a year, and it has been on the rise. Many argue that this fee is vastly inflated, and that
college tuition should cost much less or none at all. Others say that lowering the cost of college
is undoable, and that people should be able to pull their selves up by their bootstraps and get
scholarships and loans and not have to worry about paying for college. The latters way of
thinking is not only a poor choice, but an irrelevant one by todays standards. The way our
parents and our grandparents paid for college is inconsequential to todays methods of paying
for college. Todays college students not only need free or vastly reduced tuition, they deserve it.

It is astounding the intelligent young adults we have in high schools today. The young
men and women in high school are learning more difficult information, and are easily
comprehending it, despite an extremely flawed education system. Many of these students test
well, and are warmly welcomed to several accredited colleges. However, less than half of the
people in this country have any college education. In the past 10 years, we have gone through
one of the worst financial crises since The Great Depression, resulting in several companies, with
a mortgage crisis, an automobile crisis, a rise in the price of petroleum and food, many of the
United States largest financial institutions, such as Lehman Brothers and Citi Bank, failing or

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collapsing, and unemployment as high as one in ten members of the workforce having no job.
Many students have suffered their parents going through unemployment or foreclosure, and
college has seemed like less and less of a necessity and more of a luxury. Those who do go to
college are very rarely able to pay for their education up front or completely with grants and
scholarships (also known as a full ride). They have to subsidize their tuition with student loans,
often which involve much higher interest rates than other loans. Many people who take out these
loans will have to pay for them well into their adult lives, and some even die with debt. Many
say they started out in life with nothing. Todays college graduates would give anything to start
out with nothing, rather than owing tens of thousands of dollars.

Although the cost of college is already expensive, the real salt in the wound is the rate of
inflation. In 1980, the cost of a public university cost $3,100 a year. If that cost had followed the
rest of the countrys rate of inflation, it would be $8,900. It is almost triple that cost.
Additionally, the minimum wage, a salary that is the only choice for most college students,
should have increased by 188% since that same year, and it has only increased 133%. We live in
a country where the cost of a decent education has exponentially increased and the inflation for a
minimum wage has slowed.

Some disagree with the idea of free tuition. They say that a free tuition would only further
benefit wealthy families, and that poorer families are already aided through financial aid based
on need and merit. This is outright illogical. As I previously noted, the average cost of a 4 year
in-state institution is $23,000. The average college student only receives 13,000 dollars in

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financial aid. That is a $10,000 difference, and many people in this country have no ability to
repay this. That is more than double the cost of a used car. That is 8 months rent of an
apartment. Many people in this country have to choose to pay the debt for a degree necessary to
get any kind of decent-paying job over paying for things like a car or living on their own. They
have to rely on public transportation to get around. They have to continue to live off their
parents aid. Those that can afford to live on their own have to work 2-3 jobs just to make ends
meet. The ones with a degree that promised them the world are forced to live like beggars
because of it.

There are people that are going to slack off, barely skate by, and think theyre entitled to
more than they really are. Our generation is not the first to have those people, they have existed
since the beginning of time. However, I think that most people are good at heart and have a
desire to do their best at whatever they do. Its unknown why the cost of college has gone up as
high as it has, but one thing is certain: If we want this generation to have a chance, it needs to
diminish immediately.

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Works Cited