Pros and Cons of Today's College Education
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The current state of higher education in United States
In the recent past, the state of higher education in the United States has been under the spotlight of deteriorating quality, high costs and turnover rates. The top and bottom divisions of United States institutions of higher learning have become so dissimilar from each other that they have stopped being the single coherent social institution. Institutions belonging to the top strata have values, missions, funding and personnel that are different from those at the bottom. Universities and colleges that are in the middle class are torn between these extremes. Universities in the top strata have become a preserve for the minority few who are affluent. Attending universities like Harvard has been left to the few who can afford to pay the exorbitant fees. The divisions arising in institutions of higher learning have come to be viewed as a show of might and class, as well as a means by which the American plutarchy duplicates itself. Donoghue (nd) notes that top strata universities’ one year tuition fee is more than the average income of American citizens.
Universities in the middle and bottom classes are continually grappling with budget cuts as the government strives to sustain the budget in times of economic downturns. Budget cuttings have severe implications for public colleges and universities as universities have to raise their tuition fees, reduce spending or both, in a bid to cover the gap. Cuts on higher education funding by the government have resulted in increased tuition across public institutions of higher learning. The acute increases in tuition fees have hastened the continuous trends of reducing college affordability and transferring the costs to students. Leachman et al (2013) note that enrolling for a