North Texas Daily

For the 2018-2019 school year, UNT’s financial aid estimates the price of in-state tuition for an off-campus student, only including tuition and fees, at around $11,514 per semester, according to its website. This does not include the living expenses of food, books and transportation. Factoring these necessary personal costs in brings the sum to a total of $25,600 per semester and these costs are only expected to continue increasing.

This is an incredible amount of money for students to pay. On average, 71% of students are taking out loans to get through college and the average amount of debt per college student after graduating in 2017 was $28,500, according to Student Debt Relief.

This year-by-year increase does not exude a welcoming feeling for future college students or people wanting to return to college.

The increasing cost of college is not helped by the fact that most employers require at least a bachelor’s degree to even apply, let alone achieve any sort of success within the business. This leads to a huge demand for college degrees, which in turn allows colleges to price-gouge students without consequence.

This continuous cost increase also allows universities to handpick the demographics that populate their college with lowered costs in the form of scholarships. These incentives and population-targeting strategies harm students who are not a college’s first choice, thus pushing those students to get loans.

UNT has followed the trend of tuition increases with the rest of the nation, but students have also approved tuition increases themselves. Last year, UNT students agreed to increase tuition by voting to increase each student’s athletic fee from $10 to $16.25 per credit hour. This proposal failed in its first vote but was passed its second time around. This student body decision, which only 2,366 students voted in, according to the North Texas Daily, increased every student’s tuition whether they attend sports events or not.

But education costs are not just a losing battle. While prices continue to rise, students and parents still have a few options to help them. Students who have already graduated and gotten a loan from the government or bank are able to declare bankruptcy if they are not able to pay their loans. This can work but is not very likely to due to a bill passed in 2005 that made declaring bankruptcy more difficult. Students can also work on their credit score prior to going to college to help them get better loans.

Students can look into jobs or trades that do not require a higher education. For example, welding, air conditioning repair, electricity and more. These jobs are extremely important and usually provide a living wage.

Universities continue to increase prices and they have no incentive to stop. Students and parents should make sure to be aware of tuition hikes and get or stay involved in university government to help vote against price increases in the future.

If we do not stop the rising cost of tuition, less and less people will be able to afford going to college.

Featured Illustration: Shannon Quillman