Education - Part 3

The Negatives of Education - Expensive and Economically Divisive

College tuition is exorbitant and overpriced. The cost of tuition is also increasing at a price that far exceeds inflation.  My generous parents paid $3500 a semester for full-time tuition for me my freshman year (a little less, thanks to scholarships - but that was the raw price). A single course now is $2500. Full-time tuition is $10,000.  That is for in-state.  I'm not even sure what it is for out-of-state or for a private university. 

This is really unfortunate, because colleges pay a central role in the distribution of capital in our society.  Many employers will hire someone with a college degree over someone without one, and will pay them more. 

Furthermore, a college degree is sometimes the only way to get one's foot in the door in an industry.  If you need a job to get experience, and you only get the job if you have experience, then a college education sometimes provides that experience.  However you need to have money to attend college (a lot of it!) and you need a job to get money, but if you have a job, then you often don't have time for college.  Most college courses at the local university are in the middle of the day.  Very few classes are offered during evenings, and none on weekends. 

Thus the ones that are most likely to get a college education are those with wealthy and generous parents.  There are plenty of poor and rich kids that break the mold, but the likelihood is that if you have rich parents, you'll stay rich, and if you have poor parents, you'll stay poor.  Seems pretty classist to me.