The report also identified some important aspects that determined successful completion of higher education. It was found that among both borrowers and non-borrowers, working part-time or fulltime and/or delayed entry into college carried a significantly high risk for dropping out. The fact that almost all of the students who successfully completed higher education were enrolled in college right after high school, attended fulltime and did not work part time or full time implied that external distractions had a major negative impact on successful completion. Since borrowers are under financial burden they are more prone to take up part time jobs and therefore carry a greater risk for dropping out. Essentially, one of the main findings and recommendations of this report is to "Make college more affordable so as to reduce dependence on loan financing and student employment, especially for those with the greatest need." [Lawrence Gladiex, pg 16]
Loans cannot be a sustainable solution for the growing costs of higher education. As Mr. Callan, the NCHPP president said, 'Given the financial hardship of the country, it's simply astonishing that colleges and universities would have this kind of increases,." "It tells you that higher education is still a seller's market. The level of debt we're asking people to undertake is unsustainable." [Tamar Lewin]. The simple transfer of the burden on to the students as it is today is not contributing in a productive way. In the future the burden of such an approach will be distinctly felt much to the detriment of our society. More students on debts, more students forced to work part-time jobs is a formula for disaster, as it is known from national data that these pressures only lead to an increase in dropouts. This is not at all a good prospect for the future of our nation. This calls for a fundamentally different approach towards managing the escalating costs that educational institutions have to deal with. Mr. Callen emphasizes this need for innovation, "A lot of people think we can solve the problem with more financial aid, but I think we have to have some cost containment. For all the talk about reinventing higher education, I don't see any results " [Tamar Lewin] As is evident not much progress has been achieved in this direction.
New Policies
The time is ripe for some urgent action to be undertaken to reform our educational institutions that are struggling to fulfill their commitment to excellence and for providing opportunities to all eligible students to enroll in and complete their degrees. Both policy makers and the public are baffled by the cost burden that is being placed on the students at such a difficult time of the economy. The fear that higher education costs would grow unchecked making it less accessible to the vast majority of lower and middle-income families is a shared public concern. There is also increasing displeasure among the public that educational institutions are not looking at alternative and more productive long-term strategies including other ways of cost cutting but instead are simply passing on the burden to the students. This model of handling the fiscal deficits is not at all ideal and will only make education more inaccessible, unaffordable and ultimately affect the economic competitiveness of our national workforce. [NCPPHE]
With the Government enacting the 'Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009', now is the time to have a change in perspective and to look at the long-term solutions. The stimulus funding from the government could be usefully channelised to improve and maintain easy access to higher education and to develop and implement initiatives to achieve cost efficiency. Academic institutions should also develop a strategic focus with a view to the future demands of the higher education. For this to happen, policy makers should make accessibility to higher education the top priority. Improving enrollment and making tuition affordable to the lower and middle-income groups should be at the core of new policies. To ensure more effective utilization of resources academic institutions should be made accountable with performance auditing. [NCPPHE] In its recent report the NCPPHE recommended several possible solutions that institutions could adopt to better manage the current situation.
Colleges have the practice of accepting more out of state students with the view to generating additional revenues. This practice should be avoided so as to offer more opportunities to deserving regional students. Another important step in the right direction would be to fix tuition fees in context of the regional family income levels and the in relation to the availability of 'need based aid'. The trend of fixing tuition fees based on the current practice of peer institutions and institutes in other...
The report also shows that some changes must be made in order to make student financial assistance more affordable, by reducing loan interest rates for example. Denis Herard also stated for the Edmonton Journal reporters: "We're on track to implementing the new tuition fee policy that will be in place and working for the students in the fall of 2007." However, the new policy must be approved by the cabinet and
Higher Education Problem in the United States The tuition rate in the U.S. higher education is one of the most expensive in the world. In 2012, the average tuition ranged from $3,131 to $29,056 per annum. Some ivy league colleges charge as high as $40, 000 per annum. For example, Harvard University and Princeton University tuitions were $43,938 and $41,820 respectively in 2014/2015 academic year. Thus, students' ability to pay for
The United Kingdom (and Northern Ireland) used to provide free higher education to all native Brits, but contemporary economic realities have forced UK and Northern Ireland colleges and universities to charge up to the approximate equivalent of $6,000 annually to offset the enormous cost of education. Unlike Canada, Britain provides higher education at the same price for students from Continental European nations but charges students from other nations more
) The State of Education in Third World Countries Third World countries, by definition, include the poorest and the most underdeveloped. Most of them, therefore, are severely lacking in most development indicators including education and literacy levels. So even though, it is now universally recognized that education is the most cost-effective factor in improving the quality of life, both at the individual and at the collective level, millions of people in poor,
While it is true that tuition rates have a tendency to rise annually with the changes in the economy, the presence of general inflation and with trends of growth. It is when the tuition rates are actually indicative of the inverse trend that we begin to see the troubling consequences in our graduation rates. Quite to the point, we are at a phase in history where economic growth is stagnant,
Auto loans, credit card loans, and mortgages have all declined. Another issue plaguing higher education is how to curtail of abates the influence of these rising costs on the lives of their students. Many of these costs are indirectly correlated to tuition and are therefore uncontrollable in a market subsidized by government. However, many issues are directly related to the tuition, and are therefore controllable. These include student demographics, institution
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