College tuition is getting insane

It’s not a secret that college tuition is expensive. Tuition increased by 1416.68% nationally from 1977 to 2021 and is rising at twice the inflation rate. USC is no exception to this national rise in tuition prices, with its current tuition sitting at around $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, the median household income, $68,703, is less than $10,000 more than USC tuition. Needless to say, people are struggling to pay. University students from across the nation, including those at USC, have complained about these rising costs. 

With the recent transition to online classes, students are questioning their tuition more than ever. There are a few factors to this increased frustration including the fact that education quality has never been worse, a college degree is seen as an essential in the workforce and that colleges fail to transparently report how they spend this money. 

Due to the coronavirus, students have been taking online Zoom classes since March 2020. They get no access to classrooms, in-person events or campus. Education at USC is arguably exactly the same as education at a California community college, which charges approximately  $1,500 per year. Students should not have to pay 20 times more for an identical experience. 

Many students struggle to afford higher education, especially with the recent recession. Some take on extreme loans which would stress them out for years. The average student loan debt up in the United States is $32,000, which is a 20% increase from five years ago, and it does not show signs of stopping. 

A recent change to the workforce is that college degrees are now seen as the norm. Before, a high school diploma would be sufficient in landing an entry-level job that could develop into a career. Now, people with high school diplomas are very often not able to find a steady income. Therefore, going to college is not seen as a choice, but rather a necessity. This attitude is especially discouraging, since it implies that paying the insane tuition price is not an option; students need to go to college to have a career.

Many universities are also not transparent on how this money is being spent. Students do not know if their money is actually getting spent on education or other things. They feel unheard and unappreciated for taking out loans for college and not knowing how the finances are being used.   

Although these tuition problems are prevalent at every college, USC is one of the worst schools on this issue. In May 2020, after the coronavirus first became widespread in the U.S., USC planned a 3.5% increase in tuition, whether classrooms reopened or not. This pattern is not ending, with USC raising tuition for the next school year.

USC students were already extremely frustrated with tuition before the pandemic. Not only was tuition much higher than the national average for private schools by approximately $24,000, USC also charges a lot of money for additional things. For example, USC counts audited units as regular tuition, meaning students have to pay $2,000 per audited unit. USC also charges an additional $2,000 for every unit if a student goes over 18 units in a semester. USC’s tuition and add-on costs make it the eighth most expensive college nationally. 

When combined with current issues such as Zoom classes and lack of transparency, it’s easy to see why students are so disheartened by tuition. Not only is the university not extending help financially, but students often get no communication on how their money is spent. Especially in current times, it feels as if students are just throwing money at a university that does not respond to their requests.