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Writer's pictureAnisha Biswal

The Cost of Top Universities

We’ve all heard it before-college is necessary if you want a job in medicine, law, or others, university is necessary. But as the years go on, more and more kids are applying to top-tier schools, and in turn, the acceptance rate gets lower and lower. Why exactly is this incident occurring? The answer lies in the pressure in today’s society.

Many kids today are working their hardest to get into a top-tier school with the idea that it is their only place for success. The ones who get accepted are thrilled and immediately commit to a university, immediately throwing out all of the other state schools they were accepted to. Many of these students fail to realize the crippling debt they will face in the next upcoming years.


Many of the top tier schools, aka those who are not state schools, have a high tuition, many over 50,000 dollars a year. That equates to a fifth of a million dollars. Many of these students also go on to obtain a masters, or go to medical school, which doubles this debt. By the time such students have a career in the world, they not only have to pay for their house and food, they have a looming college debt staying over their heads for the next ten or twenty years. They may end up having half a million dollars of tuition to pay off, which may take almost forever for people who are not millionaires. And although financial aid attempts to fix those problems, many students are not eligible to these standards. It is a problem where you are financially stable enough to not be eligible for financial aid, but not comfortable enough to not be affected by the high tuition of attending a four year college. However, there are sufficient amounts of scholarships, so if you are interested in attending an expensive university, save some money by applying to many, many scholarships if you have the time. It may be a high cost of time, but it will save you from a high cost of money.


People still give up affordable state schools because they believe that they have “no future” if they do not go to an Ivy League school or a school on that level. They end up working their four years of high school to get into a school just for the name, the rank, and supposedly they get into the school of their so called dreams. At the end of the day, if they are not happy at the school, they may transfer schools. If they are unable to pay for the school, they will also end up transferring schools or will live their future lives with crippling debts. It is important to understand the pros and cons of every school. While rank may be somewhat important, your happiness is too. If you feel happier at a different school which does not cost as much as a higher ranked school, you should pursue the first choice. You must understand that your happiness will always come first, before rank, before high tuition, and before the name of a school.

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