Today, high costs of education particularly higher education is threatened to be put out of reach of an astonishing portion of the population. The cost of education is currently one of the biggest challenges facing parents and guardians alike. This has seen to the movement of children to more affordable schools available which in most cases are less competent. This goes directly in hindering their accessibility to better education.
The Economist (2016) states that children before joining schools for education are required to have all the basic educational necessities necessary for education. In many schools, the students who are joining will be required to cater for the activities such as having money for references, co-curricular activities and purchasing of stationery. There are other families that have low income and hence cannot have the ability to allocate their meager income to meeting the hefty prices of these items. The majority of the population of the countries in the North East and Sub Saharan Africa expect very less wages and salaries that could only meet the requirements of the first basic unit as that is food. The Global Index clearly indicated that more than 20% of the residents of these nations always find it hard to get the extra revenue for catering for these services. They have children who are to enjoy this right but unavoidable circumstances deny them the opportunity. The few who reach to their maximum level of borrowing loans will manage to cater for the education needs of their children. This high cost of education has limited many bright people opportunities to study and hence leading to an increase in debts.
The low and middle income families that form the largest constituents of the population cannot afford the cost of educating their children. This has seen the middle income to resort to loans to be able to finance their children’s education. In the long run resulting to higher debts as majority of the population has resorted to loans. In the USA despite students receiving an extent of financial aid by the government, 63% of the college students still received some form of financial aid in the form of loans or grants. However due to the large number of students applying for loans and grant to be able to sustain the high costs of education. The grants and loans are a mutual agreement between and individual and the body providing these loans that after the completion of the studies they have to repay the loan as stipulated in their terms and conditions. The program has helped many people in the past especially the students in the higher institutions of learning to be able to pay their school fees. The number of students applying for these loans has been increasing annually by a margin of 10% and this is a significant number that calls for the re-embarking of this act. The allocation per students has been cut for the loans to fit to all the available applicants. This has resulted to the many students who had solely relied to these loans quitting their pursue for education. (Ridener " Fritzer, 2004).
An increase of the tuition fees by educational institutions has greatly impacted on the accessibility of education by straining those who initially afforded the cost of education putting them in a position where they no longer can afford to pay the increased tuition fees. The schools organizations heads may decide to come up with policies that result to a significant increase of fees that is heavily impacted to the students and parents as burden. There could be numerous reasons that result such activities to occur such as the need for expansion of school, projects, a general drop of the economy where factors such as inflation come into the fields. The only options for the schools to fit to this environment for efficient operations would be to alternatively raise the amount of school fees paid and this makes the education to be expensive and only the wealthy will be able to afford it.
Privatization of the educational institutions has seen to the monopolistic tendencies of institutions hiking their tuition charges thus driving out students to public schools. This has seen to a surge in numbers of students in public schools to numbers beyond the public schools limits. The governments of many European Countries allows for the privatization of the education sector though they must follow the laid down operational structures. The private schools in the USA an example here are considered to be the ones taking a major number of students to high class rated universities such as the Oxford University and Harvard University. These private schools contribute to 90% of students in these classy universities. The private schools take an advantage of their quality output to hike the school fees thus making the education to be costly that even the local students who were able to pay it now run away from it, thus limiting them to achieve their wishes as they had planned earlier. Thus this results to the inability to attend the education as their obligation. (Ridener and Fritzer, 2004).
In a bid to develop other sectors of the economy government’s expenditure on education have decreased. In every fiscal year the governments through the ministry for statistics get information on the number of population each year, students’ enrollment to schools each year and the amount of revenue it collects to run its activities. Then there is a budgetary allocation where the education sector being included in the most important sectors is given a lump sum allocation. The striking key thing here is that this education sector is large and the allocation it receives is only a substantial for them. The government at times opts for taking loans from other countries or selling of its assets to raise more money for funding this sector. The result is that there is an increased debt at the national level as well as the lowest level which is the student hence shows that the education high costs are limiting the all access to education and instead create more debts to be recovered (The Economist, 2016).
It is normative of humans to first satisfy their immediate basic needs like food, shelter and clothing first before meeting other needs like tuition fees, so high cost of education will dent to urge to satisfy the need for education thus limiting the accessibility to education. All human beings are rational in nature hence rational in their expenditures too. The human wants are ever limitless and the disposable income to cater for this is small. There will be need to construct a scale of preference to enable the wise spending of the money in the right way. However due to all this factors taken into consideration there is always a must to fulfill the basic sectors such as proper clothing, food and shelter. The excess amount from this expenditure is the one that will be considered for education. The outcome at the rest of the day is that there will be less spending on education hence making even some people unable to meet the requirements. This makes the education in their thoughts be as a dream. The high costs of education may even push them to lease some of the little assets to raise more money to meet this requirement. This has resulted to debts which are liabilities to the bearers.
Ever since the raise of cost of education, the resorting to application for student loans has seen its skyrocketing limits. Students today leaving universities with huge student loan debts. This has taken a tow for the economy leaving majority of the students with outrageous loans that must be paid as per their agreement in the loan application policies. The aim and wish of any academic graduate is that there are instant jobs to take immediately. However we do not refuse this fact as the well-developed economic countries like the US, UK and Middle East Countries like Qatar even hire more labor. The developing countries have few job opportunities that are even controlled by cartels. The students upon completion of studies have to pay the debts of the loans taken during their studies. Without job opportunities this will be a huge task to undertake. The graduated will be left wallowing in the poverty where they are rich in knowledge but poor financially. The number of debts will be increasing and this is a menace to the economic development of any country.( Vernez, Krop and Rydell,1999)
The present study above has detailed information on how the high education costs have limited access to the education services and also resulted to many debts. The education is always termed as a key to success where and its presence cannot be ignored at any cost. Temple " Reynolds ( 2007) stated that countries that have heavily invested in their education have seen fruitful advancements in their general outlook such as the USA, UK and Australia. The benefit of having a well-organized, affordable education system and structured to enable each one in the society to comfortably fit is that the knowledge in the country will be much. This enhances the good development in the economy, self-dependence and unlimited inventories. The Governments of many continental countries should find ways of improving the education sector for the benefit of the whole population. The Government can even introduce free education system or allow the limiting of fees increments to a certain standard level. The debts incurred for the purposes of education can only be recovered by getting jobs for the graduates after completion of the education. There is still a gap in education sector that requires the knowledge of everyone to fill it.
Bibliography
The Economist (2016). “$20 is the new $40.” London, UK: The Economist magazine. Retrieved May 27, 2016, from http://www.economist.com/news/finance-andeconomics/21688446-why-oil-price-has-plunged-20-new-40
Temple, J. A., " Reynolds, A. J. (2007). Benefits and costs of investments in preschool education: Evidence from the Child–Parent Centers and related programs. Economics of Education Review, 26(1), 126-144.
Ridener, B. " Fritzer, P. (2004). “Mathematics Content for Elementary and Middle School Teachers.” Boston, MA: Pearson
Rumberger, R. W. (1987). High school dropouts: A review of issues and evidence. Review of educational research, 57(2), 101-121.
Vernez, G., Krop, R.A. and Rydell, C.P., 1999. Closing the Education Gap: Benefits and Costs. RAND, 1700 Main Street, PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138.
