College Cost Benefit Analysis

Words: 1849
Pages: 8

The conclusion of high school marks a new beginning, facing students with crucial life decisions. One of the most daunting being where they will be attending college. There is a massive financial burden that coincides with the choice of a four year university. Yearly, the cost of instate tuition rises and is increasing at a rate faster than the inflation value. This is essentially causing students to take out more federal loans and carry their debt well into adulthood. However, some states have created incentives to make their university to be more appealing and lures both in-state and out-of-state students with merit based scholarships. Of the 50 states, Illinois has the highest in-state tuition and one of the highest rates of students fleeing …show more content…
By raising the price of tuition, the chief executives can receive larger salaries and can help fund non-essential staff. Ted Dabrowski emphasises, “University of Illinois Chicago chief executive makes $887,224 and the Illinois State University makes 694,162$”(Dabrowski 1). These absurd salaries are a result of misuse of funds. The rising tuition costs is merely satisfying greedy education corportates desires for larger paychecks. If the higher cost of tuition results in more staff and beneficial opportunities to students, then higher tuition is justifiable. However, if they simply want to satisfy the paycheck demands of the board, change must occur. Yet, it is ironic that students are leaving because of high tuition costs, while the head of universities salary is almost one million dollars. If Illinois wants to make their college education more desirable amongst current residents, they must make education much more affordable. The solution is to reform the system and cut the chief executives payroll and advantageously use for students, to motivated them to stay within Illinois …show more content…
University of Alabama is notable for awarding students substantial amount of scholarships based on standardized testing scores. In the University of Alabama, a student with a 33 on their ACT is awarded a full tuition scholarship, while they receive no merit based aid from University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, a similar type of school. Dawn Rhodes observes, “University of Illinois and other public Illinois universities devotes the majority of its institutional aid on need-based scholarships and grants.” (Rhode - Alabama’s). Although it is a positive that those in need can still attend universities, the most intelligent of students can earn better financial awards by leaving states. This is contributing to the brain drain, in which the most intelligent students are lured by financial incentives to other universities. Illinois must reform the budget to enable students in-need to be rewarded certain grants or exemptions, while providing the brightest students merit based scholarships in regards to prestigious standardized test scores and impressive high school achievement which is practiced by several competitive out of state