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Opinion

Cost of school leads to desire for wealth 

Zach Lee
Opinion Columnists

For students at a commuter school like UH, where many are forced to choose between paying tuition or rent at some point in their college careers, it should come as no surprise that wealth is becoming increasingly popular among young college students. The rising cost of college around the nation should help explain the trend to students who don't have to work their way through their higher education.

But some analysts are attributing the value students place on their future economic well-being to consumerism run amok.

In an age of iPods, cell phones and laptop computers, it's easy to say that kids have too many things and are trained by overindulgent parents or designer-label-obsessed peers to be materialistic from an early age, but to say that would be to ignore the role higher education plays in the process.

University of California, Los Angeles found this year in its annual survey of college freshmen that almost three out of four students felt it was essential or very important to be "very well-off financially," compared to 62.5 percent in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966, the first year the survey was released.

The Congressional Budget Office found in 1988 that the average tuition for a full-time undergraduate student had risen from $690 in 1970 to $2,310 in 1986, an increase of 28 percent when adjusted for inflation. The National Center for Education Statistics estimated the average tuition at a four-year institution in 2004 to be $16,465.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research found in 2004 that two-thirds of undergraduates take out loans and the average senior was $17,600 in debt on graduation day. Students who took out loans were also more likely to work during the semester, for an average of 22.8 hours per week.

In the face of these college costs, freshmen who knew what they signed up for would know that in order to stay out of long-term debt, they may have to be "very well-off financially."

The CEPR acknowledges that students who graduate with a high amount of debt have a lack of flexibility in their job choices, but the center also suggests that many such students make much less materialistic choices based on their debt as well. Many postpone getting married and starting a family until they have paid off -- or at least paid down -- their loans.

With that in mind, it may be much more wholesome to explain why 80 percent of respondents to a poll by the Pew Research Center see getting rich as a top life goal. It's not fancy cars or suburban houses that drive American ambitions; it's the simple desire to settle down and start a family.

The cost of education is staggering, and until it goes down in real terms, it shouldn't surprise anyone that young Americans want to be rich. They need to make ridiculous sums of money straight out of college to have half a chance of getting out from under their debt, and even those who don't take out loans to pay for their college education can justify their interest in being wealthy. The CEPR found that more than three-quarters of these students work about 20 hours each week during the semester.

With a full course load, the hours just between working and being in the classroom come to about the same time commitment as a full-time job. And it's safe to assume that a good portion of college students today put in some time studying outside of the classroom. So, after four -- if they're lucky -- years of working full-time just to pay rent and tuition, with only a minimum amount of disposable income, they deserve a job that lets them spend a little more freely.

Or they can sign up for graduate school.

Lee, an English/Spanish senior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu