Think Piece:Tuition Is TOO Damn High

Tyler Burkland

Think Piece

It is almost midnight on New Year’s eve before everyone rings in 2016. We had just left the small party at one of my friends’ house to see midnight roll around at my girlfriend, Kate’s, house. Her roommate is having what was supposed to be a much larger shindig, however as we get out of the uber, I notice the crowd outside the house is measly in comparison to the night of halloween a couple of months prior. To my surprise, the door opens to a sea of people filling the long kitchen stretching back to the living room, which is also packed full of unrecognizable faces. The stairs had been blocked off by a foosball table that now laid on the ground in front of them, with multiple legs missing. We decide it’s not worth navigating the crowd of strangers and head upstairs to Kate’s room where we usually spend most of our time with close friends at this type of party. We walk over the broken table, past the overflowing crowd on the stairs, and finally burst into the dark empty room for some relief from the racket. The next day, the house was easily the most trashed I had ever seen it.

It is pretty remarkable to see a clean and tidy living room be transformed into a crowded dance floor that feels more like a bar than a house. Lynn Staheli writes about place as being much more than a physical space in time. Staheli’s thoughts about the “process” of place raise some interesting points, “Most importantly, this conceptualization highlights the interaction between processes operating at different scales — from the macro-economy to the individual — into the processes of place. This has the advantage of situating places within the global economy and nation, as well as with regard to other places. Thus, place is not ‘discrete,’ ‘merely particular,’ or ‘merely local.’ Place is seen as intricately binding locales with broad processes and with other locales — bindings, processes, and places that are themselves constantly in flux (Massey, 1994).” One individual in one place can give insight into much bigger over arching ideas and societal themes. College houses tend to have a few key characteristics in common; usually a group of students in one home living near campus, alcohol consumption taking place regularly, some have jobs, others do not. This is how the typical college house is a place of process, that speaks about the current state of life for students.

To be a student in this day and age comes with some incredible tools to succeed. The monumental development and application of networked computing systems gives us an unlimited amount of resources for information at the press of a button. It is easy to overlook the significance of the present, but this is a time in history that will be known as what I call “The Digital Revolution”. A rule of simple economics is technological development means less costs to function. However, this is not the case that the general education industry is experiencing.

A lecture can be attended by video stream from anywhere in the world. Students can find online tutorials on just about anything they could ever need to know. With all this access to information, and conversion to digital lessons and assignments, one would logically predict that something as essential as education would be one of the first things to progress to be more accessible and affordable. However, contrary to this assumption, in the last 30 years costs of college tuition have increased at speeds up to four times faster than the rate of normal inflation of consumer goods. Not only has tuition made it inherently more difficult to put oneself through school without accruing substantial debt, but the overall value of a four year bachelor’s degree has decreased dramatically compared over those same three decades.

Students go to college usually leaving home and living without parental supervision for the first time in their lives. This can be a liberating time for people to find themselves and decide how they are going to begin their adult lives. College to most american kids means one thing until they actually get there: parties. The party culture of the american college student is perpetuated by films such as “Animal House”, “Old School”, more recently “Neighbors”, and countless others. In my personal experience talking to older adults about their time in University usually highlights the fun times they had drinking with their friends. The greek system essentially glorifies and fully facilitates this party culture as well. It is appropriate for young adults to have fun and begin drinking as they come of age, but the priority that partying takes over education is sometimes questionable. The years spent in higher education are some of the most formative and influential times in our young lives.

So with all of this information it would be easy to make a case against going to college. However, this is not the case I am trying to make. I think it is important for young adults to do what they want to when it comes to partying. It is a fun way to blow off steam and destress after working hard all week. Equally if not much more important is the value of a good education. This is why it is also crucial that we make higher education accessible for people of all financial status. We already have the technology in place; now is the time to revolutionize, streamline, and make it as efficient and cost effective as possible.