Stupidity is Free. A Degree is Not.
A brief history Harvard College was one of the first colleges founded in the United States; upon its conception, the college’s main purpose was to train young men for the ministry. Harvard was modeled after Oxford and Cambridge universities (About Harvard College). During the early 19th century, smaller colleges were founded to help young men transition from rural farms to urban occupations. Prestigious colleges at the time became more exclusive by concentrating on the children from wealthy families, ministers and a few others. Those prestigious colleges and universities are still very exclusive today mainly due to their expensive tuition. Students who attend these colleges are generally from wealthy families, have scholarships for high academic achievements or graduate with extremely high loan debts. In the early 20th century, junior colleges or now known as community colleges were created to prepare students for the final two years of college. Later in the 20th century state colleges were created to provide higher education at a lower tuition cost. Due to the rise of community and state colleges, students now have the opportunity for higher education, and college became part of the American dream for both students and their parents. Over the past, half a century students have been working diligently to prepare for college with the hopes of graduating with a degree that will provide them with the career of their dreams and to earn large incomes. Slowly, over time the cost of tuition in community colleges, state colleges, and prestigious universities have increased. So at what point do we say that the American dream has become too expensive? In the early 1990’s new types of colleges began to emerge, many of them were called career colleges. However, today they are known as for-profit