Increased education costs are becoming harder and harder for students to pay off.
The high costs of higher education have become a burden for students, and it has been worsened further by increased tuition and unreliable financial aid.
According to the Digest of Education Statistics, Since the 1980s, the total price of attending college has increased for all types of institutions. In the 1980-81 school year, for public institutions, like KSU, the average total price of tuition, fees, room, and board per year was $7,747 (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, the cost of attendance for the 2022-2023 school year was $27,100.
These numbers indicate an increase of around 350% in four decades. Thus, it is no wonder that in 2023, less than half of Americans had confidence in higher education, and 70% of parents worried about being able to pay for college.
The cause for this increase, though, does not boil down to a single reason.
For example, economist and former Vassar College President Catharine Hill saidthat the increase in higher education costs can be attributed to the increase in price in skilled workers, who are necessary to fill faculty and administrative roles.
However, other reports find that colleges have also begun to include other services for students apart from education. Colleges now include more services to help students succeed, including mental health, academic and career counseling, which increases the cost per student annually.
Additionally, a 2021 report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni stated that college’s “rampant spending can drive up tuition while having little impact on graduation rates.”
Notably, researchers found that money spent by non-profit institutions on administration not directly related to student education has grown faster than spending on instruction from 2010-2018.
More recently, in 2025, a slew of elite private non-profit colleges announced that they will raise their tuition for the 2025-2026 academic year. Colleges like Emory, Cornell, Brown and Duke are expected to increase their prices by 4% or more, with some citing recent cuts to federal funding as a reason.
The price of these colleges already seems like an impossible goal to most students, and these increases are just another way to put an unreasonable price tag on opportunities.
Due to high prices, many students are forced to rely on financial aid and loans to get through college. According to data from National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, in the 2019-2020 academic year, 72% of undergraduates received financial aid with the average amount received being $14,100.
However, even with financial aid, paying for college can be a struggle.
“When I started going to college, I relied on a bunch of first year scholarships— only scholarships— I accrued while in high school to pay for housing,” 2024 KSU Alumni Billy Fenn said.
“But that only lasted for one semester, and then by the second semester, I had to start working at the school so I could break even on the meal plan and the housing prices.”
Working while completing a degree, like Fenn did, is not unusual for students, with about 40% of full-time students being employed in 2020. However, work commitments can also increase the likelihood that a student will drop out of college at some point, with financial struggles being one of the most common reasons for students to stop their education.
Having to work while being a full-time student might offset some of the college costs, but even that is not enough for most. In the second quarter of 2024, student debt reached over $1.74 trillion in the U.S., with the average student in Georgia owing $40,804.
Paying for college is becoming a life-time commitment. Loans and debt shackle people down to a system of continual transactions when most students look forward to college as a way to better themselves and their lives.
Moreover, there have been multiple issues with financial aid in recent years.
In 2024, many students had to wait to receive their financial aid due to a series of delays and glitches of the FAFSA application, leading some to have to make hard decisions about whether to continue their education.
In 2025, similarly, mass firings in the U.S. Department of Education sparked fears that financial aid will be affected.
“I expect we will see issues wherein these complex, intertwined technology systems cannot be adequately managed because so many of the people experienced in identifying and resolving incidents will have left,” Former Executive Director of the Office of Loan Portfolio Management Colleen Campell said about the cuts.
Students’ financial burdens have grown heavier through the years, and colleges are doing little to alleviate them, essentially, leaving students behind even when the world needs people with a college education to fill out necessary roles.
