Is a College Education Still Worth It?

By Jessica O'Donnell •

Mariel Mastrili, 21, graduated with a bachelor of arts in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz last September. Accompanied with her diploma, a mountain of debt.

“I could have bought a modest house in Texas with the amount in student loans I took out,” said Mastrili.

Born and partly raised in the Philippines, Mastrili didn’t grow up with a college savings fund.

“My parents weren’t aware of how much college truly costs in America and my sisters and I had to face the harsh reality which was either to take student loans out to pursue higher education or stay at home and go to a community college,” she said.

This is a dilemma many Americans wishing to continue their education face.

The rising cost of tuition at universities across America has been a popular topic in mainstream discourse for the past few years. Some of the largest price increases came early on during this current decade. Between the 2008 and 2009 school years, the average combined cost of tuition, fees, room, and board at private nonprofit four-year colleges rose 6 and 8.3 percent consecutively at public four-year institutions. For the 2018-2019 school year, the average cost of a private nonprofit four-year college was $48,510 and $21,730 for public four-year colleges.

In comparison, the average cost of a public four-year college in 1971 would be $8,840 in today’s dollars ($1,410 unadjusted for inflation). At some universities, however, the combined cost of tuition, fees, room, and board can run as high as $71,000 — not including the cost of books or miscellaneous expenses.

Martin Van Der Werf, the associate director of editorial and postsecondary policy at the Georgetown University Center on Education & the Workforce believes the price tag associated with receiving a degree is about to hit its limit.

“Prices are reaching their ceiling for what a lot of people can really afford to pay. The pool of people that can pay full-price for a college education is not getting bigger, it will only stay the same,” he said.

The dilemma of needing a Bachelor’s degree to get a career, yet not being able to afford said degree has many young people opting to borrow money. Sixty-nine percent of students that graduated college in 2018 took out student loans, with an average debt of $29,800.

Currently, Americans have incurred over $1.56 trillion in student loan debt between 45 million borrowers.

Jonathan Williams, a junior musical theater major at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York is one of those debtors.

“My ballpark estimate is somewhere between $18,000 and $23,000 and I pray its not the latter number,” said Williams. “Right now I am satisfied with the price I pay considering Manhattanville is a private college. I can’t say I see it increasing much in value but I don’t see it decreasing. I feel the value of my education will probably stay the same.”

Williams said that it’s a tight job market for his chosen field and he harbors some anxieties about the future. “I’m still about a year and some days away from graduating but I’m sure once 2020 comes around I will feel a good mixture of anxiety and adrenaline.”

He added, “I think the student debt crisis is really out of control and it’s hurting a lot of students once they get out of college and are trying to start their adulthood.”

Van Der Werf theorized that student debt limits choice in choosing majors. Students are more likely to opt for business or STEM disciplines rather than the liberal arts.

“Business majors went up like 10 years ago, its a reflection of these price increases. Debt puts more and more pressure on recent college grads. The idea that I need to get a job, I need to make money, and I need to advance quickly. Everything is speeding up in this economy, everyone feels a need to climb the ladder quickly,” Van der Werf said.

However, some students are not facing the same financial stress as their peers.

Adrianna Wong is a graduating senior graphic design major at California State University at Long Beach. During her four years at Long Beach State, she has taken out no loans.

“I’m thankful to not be in debt,” Wong declared. “This is going to sound very pretentious and privileged but I don’t really think about student debt until I hear stories of people in 60k or more in debt for undergrad, especially those at UCs.”

“UCs” refers to University of California schools which are still part of the public school system, but whose price tag runs higher than California State Universities.

Still, she is not free from anxieties about the job market. “I get stressed thinking of my future financial stability just because I’m an art major,” said Wong.

The stress of student debt is taking a toll across America. A study conducted by Student Loan Hero found that 70 percent of respondants reported suffering from headaches due to the stress of it. Loss of sleep, anxiety, muscle tension, as well as stomach aches were all cited as effects of student loan debt in this study.

Beyond psychological and physical effects, debtors are likely to have a smaller net worth and less likely to be satisfied with their finances. The net worth of young households (younger than 40) that did not have student debt is seven times larger than those households with the burden of student debt. Additionally, 29 percent of people who borrowed for college feel as if their college education did not pay off compared to 14 percent of non-borrowers.

Some borrowers, however, believe the investment is worth it.

Chaene Jones graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a bachelor of arts in English in 1992 and $30,000 in student loans. Now, Jones is an Equal Employment Opportunity specialist with the Department of Defense.

“I don’t regret the loans I took out. I still owe about $3,000 now, because I deferred my payments for a long time. That’s my only regret,” said Jones. “It’s simple really, you need a college degree so you take out loans. I’m happy in my career and I wouldn’t be here without my degree. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

For other borrowers, the cost of college is not the issue, but the loan companies controlling the market.

“My main issue with the education system are the predatory loan companies and how they purposefully obscure information on complex topics like compound interest and collection fees,” said Dean Wehrli, a 1998 graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles. “They’re taking advantage of young naive people to put them in debt for the rest of their lives.”

Wherli took out $36,000 in loans to pay for his Ph.D. in political science and is now a senior vice president at John Burns Real Estate Consulting.

The demographics of who attends college is also changing. Between 2000 and 2016, the enrollment rate for Hispanics aged 18 to 24 rose 17 percent, compared to just 3 percent growth for white youth. An obvious wealth gap exists in America and the average Hispanic family has about one-sixth as much wealth as the average white family. What does this mean for universities?

“The marketplace for white wealthy families is a shrinking demographic. You really have to think about, what is the future marketplace? The business model they’ve been using isn't going to work indefinitely,” said Van Der Werf.

Parminder Bakshi-Hamm, a professor of English and cultural studies at Internationale Berufsakademie in Cologne, Germany, theorized that America must change its education system or face dire consequences.

“The risk of not making higher education freely and universally available is not that people without university qualifications will face unemployment,” said Bakshi-Hamm, “but that society will be devoid of large numbers of thinking people with a sense of social and political responsibility.”

Comparing and contrasting the higher education systems in Germany and the United States, Bakshi-Hamm expressed that it is believed to be a basic, democratic right of every individual in her country.

“As higher education becomes hostage to economic forces, we enter the razzmatazz world of seductive marketing, elitism, competition, rankings, and an unaffordable price tag. The rationale underlying this scenario is the promise of a job of a lifetime,” said Bakshi-Hamm.

“Even if this promise were real, which it is definitely not, one needs to question the wisdom of hurtling young people through a higher education system with this one aspiration in mind. Is this the purpose of higher education?”

Truth be told… within a lifetime, a college degree proves to be worth’s its value. While alternative methods work for some, the majority of statistics prove that degree holders will fare better fiscally. For example, the average salary of someone with a high school diploma is $35,256 per year. With a Bachelor’s degree, that figure becomes $59,124.

However, the price ceiling for tuition, fees, room, and board is near its limit. Pricing models will have to change in order for universities to remain sustainable. Succinct loan processes, rationalized tuition costs, and increased government spending on education are steps toward reducing the crisis of student loan debt.