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Advanced Writing

30 May 2020

Public higher education: a joint cost

Most of people would like to go to a higher education institution such as university,

college or other; however, the first issue is the high cost of doing a carrier. Then, the public

institutions supply partially or totally those costs, this makes education more affordable.

Nevertheless, these costs that are not only monetary but also are effort costs have been

divided into several society actors becoming that in a joint cost.

First of all, the students carry a high cost. Starting with annual tuition costs, this

charge increases year to year “from $9.980 during the 2017-2018 school year to $10.230

during the 2018-2019 school year” in some U.S. colleges, this without extra costs like room

and feeding (APLU). For this reason, a lot of students decide to finance their studies with

credits. Actually, at least 25% of U.S. students who graduated from public universities

finished their studies with a debt greater than $20.000; this implies students' first job should

be enough to pay this debt in a couple of years (APLU). On the other hand, to avoid having

debts some students get a half-time job. In this way, they can study and sustain during their

studies. Therefore, going to a public university may be an expensive decision.

Another aspect is the physical and psychological effort during the carrier. The typical

duration of a college program is 3 years, a U.S. university carrier is 4 years, and in some

countries like Colombia, it is five years. This, without counting that the average in some

programs is higher due to specific things about the program or the student. In addition, some

subjects require a certain amount of dedicated hours. An example of this is an average student

of some public university in Colombia; the student inscribes an average of twenty credits, and

each credit means 3 hours of dedication (UNAL). So, the student must dedicate 60 hours

weekly, it is high if it is compared with the 48 hours stipulated for working in the same
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country. Moreover, this can lead to health problems such as insomnia, psychological

problems, and depression.

Furthermore, if it is considered the government effort into those institutions, it will see

that it is huge too. For example, in United Stated is invested the 1.3% of its GDP, in Finland

is invested the 2.3%, and Chile is invested 1.4% (McMaken). This effort can be appreciated if

it is considered the spending per student. It reaches high levels per year, becoming $48.907 in

Luxemburg, $30.000 in the U.S., $17.036 in Germany, and even, $5000 in Colombia

(McMaken). Those values are comparable to the minimum salary in some of these countries.

This shows that public education requires significant budget lines in each year in each

country.

Finally, a hidden important financier are private organizations; they assume part of the

costs either with taxes or investing straightforward on universities’ projects. Some countries

like Colombia have a differentiated tax for financing higher education institutions. In this

case, there are parafiscal contributions, a component of them are contributions for the

National Learning Service (S.E.N.A), and this corresponds to the 4% of the salary of each

employee of a company. On the other hand, countries have proposed to get the missing

budget from private entities according to Marta Yoldi and professor Vera Sancristán “seeking

financing on your own is “the only economic autonomy” of public university” referring to this

budget lack. This situation is common in several countries looking for solving financing

problems using different fonts.

Summarizing, there are several edges about the cost of going to a university, college,

or another higher education institution. This encompasses more than the student who is

studying and the government that is financing those studies.