Are Colleges Driven by Money?

About a month ago, news of the college bribery scandals spread quickly across the nation.  This incident highlighted the extent of the money driven world we live in. Giving money to the schools had intended to secure admissions for the kids to popular universities.  The school and coaches were allowing these students to simply pay their way in the school or on the team. Those students might have not met the standards for going to the school, meaning they might not be that good of a fit.  Regardless, they are using their privilege to cheat the system and earn something they don't necessarily deserve.

Over spring break, my family and I visited my great uncle in Washington.  He’s a former professor who taught at Washington State University. We soon began talking about the scandal, and we filled him in on any key details.  Having been in the education field himself, he was mostly upset with the behavior of these schools. This incident highlighted the fact that some schools care more about how much money they’re getting, instead of maintaining honesty and integrity.  The college admissions process is already extremely stressful for most students. They have the pressure of doing their best in school and getting into their top school. Sadly, we see that these schools might not even look at an individual's accomplishments, but instead at the checks.  
This can also be seen with the large amounts of out of state and transfer students that get admitted into schools.  Those students have to pay significantly higher tuition than those in state. To get the most money, schools will take more of the outside students so they can ultimately get more funds.


Source:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/college-admissions-scandal-fallout.html

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 23, 2019 at 9:53 PM

    This is a super relevant, and I think it showcases just how reliant on money colleges are, especially in the United States. The entire culture around the application process, receiving acceptance letters, rejection letters, and being waitlisted seem to be such important events for seniors today, however the education that everybody receives really does not changes very greatly. I think it is this culture which itself allows colleges to be so reliant on the money they are taking in, and as a result affects both the image that colleges make for themselves, as well as what students and parents believe they will get out of college.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 24, 2019 at 10:49 AM

    I agree with Naya when he says that this is in fact extremely relevant because many students are relying on student loans and financial aid to help them get through college. It's kind of hard to imagine a time where student loans where not available and actually not even a thing! On one hand they allowed to everybody no matter what background to be able to attend college and pursue what they wanted to pursue. On the other, it allowed for colleges to raise their prices; it didn't matter how much money they gave to students because they would eventually be getting it all back!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 26, 2019 at 3:36 AM

    Cool post. It's been a trending topic nowadays whether or not you should go to college or not due to it being super expensive. People are finding ways and investing in their time before college to find ways to generate great amount of money without a college degree. With college continuing to be expensive and if it indeed gets more expensive, it'll be interesting to see how the next generation of students and colleges handle the situation for their better.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Cost of Inelastic Goods

Image
Many goods that are inelastic in terms of demand are ones that are essential or, in other words, necessary to one's self. There are several examples: basic foods, gasoline, or even medicine. I was interested in how producers can manipulate the prices of these goods and how the total revenue can change over time because those goods are inelastic. The first example I thought of was insulin. Considered inelastic because, without it, those who are diabetic might physically suffer, I looked at the price trends in the past couple of years. Just as I predicted, the price has been rising dramatically in the past decade or so as producers are taking advantage of the consumers' essential need for this good. There are about 7.4 million Americans that use insulin and many struggle to pay the costs of this increasingly expensive drug. So, while rising prices benefit insulin manufacturers, those same prices come at a serious cost for patients as the demand for insulin is inelastic. Other...
Read more

The Economics and Psychology of Gambling

Image
As gambling around the world continues to increase, governments are starting to see these often self-destructive habits as a way to get money from their residents. Gambling has been seen as immoral and manipulative on the part of casinos, as well as pitiful on the parts of the people that gamble all their money away. It is seen as immoral and a “lazy way” to make money that isn’t even assured to get you anything. So what keeps bringing people back to the card table or slot machine? There are many theories about why someone would continuously gamble any money that they make to the point of landing themselves in debt. In many cases, the gamiling becomes an addiction, though many professionals have reservations on calling it that, that gets increasingly hard to kick. It is irrational for someone to continuously lose money and keep going back only to lose more. Or is it? The utility that some get out of gambling may feel like spending the money is worth it. As far as recreational ...
Read more

The Hidden Monopolies of the World

 Monopolies are all around us in the world, and not all of them are  obvious on the surface level like Google and Facebook. For example, you might be searching for hotel rooms and browse multiple "competing" sites like Travelocity, Trivago, or Hotel.com. What you most likely do not know however, is that all three websites are actually all owned by the same company; Expedia group. This illusion of free choice is used to hide the fact that Expedia essentially hold a monopoly over the industry and all hotel bookings actually go through them. These fake competitors which are all owned by Expedia Group controls 75% of the US online travel agency industry, Similarly, apple fans and Microsoft fans stubbornly stick to their respective brands of computers; not knowing that the laptops all come from the same Chinese manufacturer. Throughout all types of industries such as the ones listed earlier and others such as smartphones, supermarkets, beer, and even sunglasses, hidden parent co...
Read more