The majority of seniors in high school could not be more ecstatic to leave home and experience a different lifestyle, free from their parents’ control. However, many of them are not anticipating the hefty amounts of debt that will accumulate from university tuition. Over the years, college tuition has risen significantly because of the lack of funding for public universities.

   Dr. Reti, a teacher at Quartz Hill who instructs AP Government and IB History, exclaimed, “I payed for all 4 years of college with only 13,000 dollars.” Nowadays, 13,000 dollars can barely cover half of one year’s tuition. The reason why college tuition is expensive is due to fact that colleges needed to raise the price of tuition to compensate for the lack of state funding.

   However, when accounting for inflation, the public funding for education is higher today than it was in the 1960’s. Therefore, the problem does not stem primarily from the lack of funding; rather, it stems from the shift of more people wanting to go to college. Enrollment for post-secondary education has increased by 50 percent since 1995, so colleges have to adjust accordingly. This means that more faculty members such as professors would need to be hired and thus raise the tuition.

   The problem is the overwhelming amount of non-academic faculty members such as department administrators. The number of employees that serve a non- academic role within a university should be reduced, as the highest importance for colleges is the education, not the buildings. This does not mean universities should not value its buildings or administrations. Instead, it means that colleges should not charge a superficial amount for tuition.

   Another reason for the rising costs of college tuition is that many of the universities are research-based facilities, and the costs for maintaining this is not cheap. In comparison to universities in other countries, colleges in America have lower public funding, higher faculty members, and thus higher tuition.

   The best way to lower the amount of tuition in universities is to have increased government funding, lower amounts of non-academic employees, and less research-focused facilities. The purpose of post-secondary education is to create career path for young adults, not to berate them with crazy amounts of student debt.