“But let’s face it,” reads the second paragraph of a recent article in The New York Times. “The cost of a college education these days ranges from expensive to obscenely expensive.”
The piece highlights the tough decisions that high school students are making between highly priced elite schools, such as Ivy League institutions, and lower-ranked-but-still-adequate public schools, such as SUNY or CUNY programs in New York.
As graduate students at Columbia University, we can certainly relate. Go to the cheap public school that nobody has heard of, and save money, or take out massive student loans to go to the high-profile school of your dreams? As the price of higher education rises and the job market and economy continue to struggle, the decision is one of the most important in a young person’s life, and making the wrong choice can seriously impact one’s future.