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The
Rising Cost of
Quality Education
- Trying
to secure good quality education is a very expensive business.
- Despite
the high costs of education demand for places in good
colleges remains high
- Are we
drifting into a situation, which will, in time, make good
education mostly the prerogative of wealthy people?
- More and
more voices are now supporting the voucher system which
essentially will allow students and parents to “cash”
their voucher with the institution of their choice
 It
appears that the ever-rising costs of education and medical
care are open sores on the finances of every citizen in many
a Western country. Those of us who have children to educate
know full well what education costs are all about.
Trying
to secure good quality education is a very expensive business.
Worst, still, the cost of education in many countries is expected
to continue rising faster than the average inflation figures.
Some of the elite private colleges in the USA reckon that
it costs them over $60.000 per year to educate a single student.
Parents cover a good portion of this cost, whilst gifts, endowments,
the taxpayer, etc cover the rest. The earnings which students
have to forego whilst studying full time is another major,
and often neglected, cost factor. Especially for students
attending graduate programmes.
Good
colleges work with sizeable budgets, covering primarily operating
costs, such high salaries and annual maintenance, and capital
investment in new buildings, sporting facilities and the like.
Yet, despite the high costs of education demand for places
in good colleges remains high and places are always in short
supply. Strangely, even poorer students somehow find the money
to pay what appear to be exorbitant fees. Naturally, the budgets
of parents are strained often to breaking point, and many
students are forced to go into massive debt on the “study
now pay later” system.
Those
who plunge into debt or are forced to maul their life’s
savings are often tormented by concerns over the rate of return
on their investment. Admittedly, many graduates from elite
colleges end up securing well-paying jobs compensating in
this way for the investment and pain student and parents had
to endure. But, not all students are lucky, and many do not
land the expected lucrative jobs--particularly in times of
recession and general down turns in the economy. The costs
of education in first-class, but not elite, institutions are
as bad even if graduates earn much less than the graduates
from elite colleges. This situation brings into an even sharper
focus concerns over the rate of return on money invested in
education.
More
seriously, the high cost of attending elite schools brings
to the forefront concerns about elitism in education. In other
words, is good and expensive education geared to students
with rich parents? Can the vast majority of lower and middle
income students afford this kind of education or are we drifting
into a situation which will, in time, make good education
mostly the prerogative of wealthy people?
State
education does not seem to offer a credible answer to the
above concerns. More and more decision makers are now taking
the view that State run educational institutions are wasteful,
bureaucratic and with little if any accountability. Proponents
of market driven education believe that unless more “privatisation”
is introduced these institutions will gradually deteriorate
and will be unable to provide the quality education elite
schools now offer and creating in this way a vicious circle.
The
cost of good education is and has always been of concern to
parents in Cyprus. Happily, now most students have the choice
of studying at the local university (all funded by the taxpayer),
studying in Greece (courtesy of the Greek taxpayer) or attending
one of the private colleges in Cyprus. Still, others opt to
study in the United Kingdom and the United States at considerable
cost. The local State University has announced plans, which
will enable it in the next decade or so to take nearly any
one who is qualified and wishes to secure State education
at tertiary level. This announcement has raised concern over
funding and the ability to the taxpayer to finance this kind
of grandiose project. Others are concerned that this kind
of approach will create huge financial problems for private
educational institutions that will need to attract fee-paying
students.
More
and more voices are now supporting the voucher system which
essentially will allow students and parents to “cash”
their voucher with the institution of their choice and paying
any difference between the value of the voucher and the fees
of the institution. This approach is expected to bring more
equality and more competition between State supported and
private education. Proponents of the voucher system have a
lot of good arguments to offer, chief of which is accountability.
They reckon that choice will make everyone more accountable
for the quality of education they offer. The final arbitrator
on who offers better education will be the student (and the
parent) who, as a mature individual seeking good quality education
which will enable him to compete for jobs later, will ultimately
select the institution which will provide what’s best
for him. This kind of logic seems reasonable and addresses
the serious concerns of cost and quality of education.
For more information, contact: The Philips College 4 Lamias
Street 2001 Nicosia Cyprus Tel. +357-2-424 614 Fax + 357-2-315
222 e-mail: philip@phillips.ac.cy
Or visit our the Philips College website http://www.phillips.ac.cy
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