The price of attending a private undergraduate university is no secret. Even here at AU, which is moderately priced in comparison to other private schools, the cost of attendance can be over $25,000 a year. Public universities are cheaper, but can still reach yearly costs of over $15,000. These high price tags, combined with federal aid programs that are failing to keep up with inflation, can make even the most financially stable family hesitate to send their children to college, even though everyone from high school counselors to developmental experts claim that college is the ideal choice for graduating seniors. But the best way to analyze the value of a college education by the testimony of experts or even its future earning potential (an argument often invoked by college recruiters), but by the volume and quality of services provided. With this standard in mind, I have come to believe that the American college experience is at best, highly inefficient. At worst, it is a fraud being perpetrated on the American student.

The first statistic worth analyzing is this: the maximum hour course load for most university students is 17 semester hours per week. This averages out to less than four hours a day of classroom instruction. And with Anderson's tuition at $19,990 a year (according to collegeboard.com), this means each hour of classroom instruction costs 588 dollars, and that's assuming you took a full 17 hours each semester (a rarity, to say the least, and many times a mathematical impossibility). Many attorneys and doctors don't charge that much. And compare this to public high schools, in which eight hours of classroom instruction a day were provided free of charge (at least as far as the student is concerned). Obviously there is a tremendous discrepancy between 17 hours a week for $19,990 and 40 hours a week for free.

American academia claims that this anemic amount of classroom instruction is made up by outside studying, in which students study 2-3 hours for each hour of actual class time. This claim is meaningless for three reasons. First of all, you would be hard-pressed to find a single student at any university in any major (with a few possible exceptions) that studies for 34-51 hours per week. Any claim to the contrary is laughable. Secondly, even if this were true, it does nothing to justify the cost per credit hour; outside studying is exactly, that, something done on your own. But we are not even allowed to do this free of charge, as annually-updated, over-priced textbooks are mandated for nearly every class, a fact that nullifies any cost-saving use of the university library or educational web sites. And thirdly, how can individual studying even compare to an organized, lecture-based classroom session that includes laboratories, quizzes, and exams? But of all of these questions are ignored by the gate-keepers of American academia, who seem to think that students learn more by going to class less.

Worse still is the all-encompassing nature of American universities that almost necessitates living on or near campus, forcing America's most cash-strapped demographic to pay higher-than-market prices for lackluster food, beverage, and residential services, particularly in the freshman and sophomore years, in which many students (including those at AU) are forced to live in residential dormitories. I am not trying to deride the quality of dorm life or college food, but I would argue that 6,000 dollars a year (the average cost of living on-campus during college) could rent you an apartment far nicer than a dorm (especially if you had a roommate) and buy you food vastly superior to that found in the industrial cafeterias of most campus dining halls. Moreover, the remote location of most colleges forces students to take long, gas-guzzling trips home to see their families, doctors, and high school friends

But what difference does any of this make? A college degree magnifies one's earning potential over their lifetime, doesn't it? And if not, it is a pre-requisite for almost any decent job nowadays, right? Wrong. My fellow scholars, I have some sobering information for you: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10 of the 20 the fastest-growing jobs over the next decade will be retail salespersons, customer service representatives, janitors, waiters and waitresses, food preparation workers, freight laborers, receptionists, landscaping workers, truck drivers, and maintenance workers, none of which require a college degree. And those fast-growing professions that do require a college degree are in teaching, business, computer science, and nursing, which leaves out the bulk of college majors.

All of this begs the following questions: are we paying something for nothing? Are we paying a tremendous of money that could be better spent elsewhere? Are we training for jobs, professions, and careers that no longer exist? I would argue, based on the preponderance of evidence that the answer is a resounding yes. Education is extremely important, whether it leads to financial success or not, but the tremendous economic burden that college entails, combined with a changing and unstable economy, force me to argue that post-secondary education, particularly its funding, operations, and purpose, needs to be critically reexamined. And if my fellow students disagree, I would invite them to call me six months after they graduate, when that first envelope from Sally Mae arrives.

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