What causes college tuition inflation?

No parent wants to squish their child’s dream school because they cannot afford the extremely high prices of college. Paying $60,000 a year for a child could hinder a person’s complete financial future. The whole higher education cost problem is not something that will just go away. It affects not only parents but the generations to come. I am forced to ask myself: is a college degree worth a lifetime of debt? My dream of a 4-year private university may be replaced by the economic reality of a community college and this needs to change. I believe that college tuition should be cheaper for everyone no matter what economic level your family is in, so everyone has a chance to get an education without being in debt. There are kids and adults all over the country and world that would love to go to college. Should universities turn people down because they can't afford it? Of course there are numerous scholarships, financial aid programs and loans available, but sometimes they don't help everyone out that much. The average family can’t fully support their child going to college and support their own life as well. Today it is 400 percent more expensive to go to college in the United States than it was 30 years ago, according to Business Insider. Decreasing our college rates can educate more students than before.The problems stem from the fact there is not enough financial assistance to go around. When Reagan became president he immediately demanded an annual 20 percent across-the-board cut in higher education funding and ended free tuition for state colleges and universities. Since his presidency, we have not come back to a place where tuition is an economic state where families can send their children to college. Legislators have had an enormous impact on the cost of tuition; as the government cuts back on funding, the higher the cost of tuition gets. And, as the cost of tuition increases, so does student loan debt. Student loan debt has reached an all time high of 1.2 trillion dollars. The current interest rates for new Federal Stafford Loans in 2015-2016 are 4.29 percent for undergraduate students and 5.84 percent for graduate and professional students. Students are paying off the top interest before they are even paying the real debt. In the long run, bad credit will make people unable to invest in a house or a car which would leave the economy without any money coming in. Seventy percent of this year’s bachelor degree recipients are leaving with student loans. Over 40 million Americans are drowning in student loan debt. This is a never-ending cycle. Now our economy is facing the biggest student loan debt in history, and when college graduates enter the "real world" they are finding out that the good jobs they were promised are very few and far between. In Obama’s State of the Union address he spoke up about giving more people grant money. Obama hopes that the ratings would be tied to financial aid, so that students at highly rated colleges might get larger federal grants and more affordable loans. Elected officials aren’t the only ones driving up the cost of tuition; it’s the colleges too. Because the competition for college is so high many colleges are investing in the unnecessary attractions. Colleges compete for students by working to attract top faculty, build and maintain the latest facilities and offer the next generation of students amenities that can be advertized on campus tours for prospective students. Colleges are charging high tuition to pay for the construction of useless attractions that aren’t necessary for learning; some schools have gone as far as putting in rock climbing walls and lazy rivers. Universities are treating student’s education like a business. They are focused on the prestige instead of the education. Private universities are the colleges helping families pay the cost of attendance. A few dozen colleges and universities meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need in 2014--some of them being Barnard, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Princeton and Stanford. They use a combination of loans, scholarships, grants and work-study to fill the gap according to US News. Another essential piece in the rise of tuition costs is the increase in administrators at universities. An analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University  Pomona, found that  the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.I am a victim to the corrupt system myself, I am not able to attend the colleges I dreamed of going to because my family isnt poor enough to get financial aid and isn’t rich enough to pay out of pocket. There is more to tuition inflation than that meets the eye. Colleges and elected officials are responsible for the extreme prices to attend an university. Higher education has not been a priority in this country for a very long time. Knowledge and learning doesn’t have a price. If I have a passion for nursing why do I have to spend my whole life paying back the government for that knowledge. The system is completely backwards. There is still hope though, private universities are already making strides in the right direction. If the other 1,000 or so colleges can follow in their footsteps then we are on our way to solving one of America’s most detrimental problems.