Costs of Going to School
Melissa Olson
Rasmussen College

Author Note: This paper is being submitted for Professor Sherwood’s G204 Microeconomics course.

Costs of Going to School I had a good idea of what I was getting into when I signed up for classes at Rasmussen. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in accounting, and in order to do that, I would need to complete schooling and get some sort of degree. When deciding the path I wanted to take, Rasmussen was one of my options. The thing that I liked most about Rasmussen was the flexibility of their online courses. Most people who took them still worked full time jobs and some even had families of their own to take care of. I knew that since I still needed to work full time in order to make student loan payments, that Rasmussen was my best bet. I signed up for courses, and began to look at the accelerated schedules. The reason that I chose this path was because I knew that I could handle a big workload and could take on up to six courses per quarter. The graduation date was also much sooner than if I were to take the regular scheduled courses. I knew there would be late nights, busy weeks, and a hectic finals week, but I also knew that I could handle it. Some of the specific opportunity costs that I have faced since starting my school career are less ‘free’ nights. I try to spread my schoolwork out evenly, so I don’t get too overwhelmed when it comes closer to my assignment due dates. There have been nights where I have had to choose school over going out with friends or watching a TV show. Personally, I don’t think that I’ve lost out on a whole lot. I was raised with a drive to get things done and my parents always placed a lot of emphasis on getting schoolwork done before anything else, so that came as second nature to me. I think that when faced with a situation when you need to weigh the