One of the biggest questions that students ask is why it is so difficult to pay for a higher education.  The cost of college continues to climb much faster than the inflation rate making it hard for many students to pay for school.  Most students have to take out loans and many will find themselves in five or six figure debt upon graduation.  The cost of college is a major issue in society.  Obtaining a higher education is something that is supposed to be done to better ones self and open the door for many opportunities.  However, in the current situation, many students find themselves under a mountain of debt that can take decades to pay off.  

My personal connection to this issue is that I am a college student with debt.  I came from a small town and I am the first person in my family to attend college right after high school.  My parents cannot contribute financially towards my education so I will and have had to take out loans to pay for the majority of my higher education.  As a middle school and high school student I was always told to work hard and make good grades so that I could attend a good college and get a scholarship for my good grades.  I did this, making the best grades possible the majority of the time and always doing well above average.  However, when it was time to go to college I found out that my hard work would not result in as much scholarship value as everyone had told me.  By the time I graduate college I will most likely be almost one hundred thousand dollars in debt, all for the chance to get an education and make a better life for myself.  I do not have a problem with paying for your own education but in my own situation the cost of one year of college is as much or more than what I could make working a full time job with no degree, which seems a little ridiculous.  In the long run a college education will surely be beneficial, but it is going to take a long time to dig out of the debt obtained from attending college.  

On the blog site the Entrepreneur, an article was published with the title "College Is Worth the Price Just Not This Price".  The article argues that trying to determine if college is a wise investment is a "fool's game" because education and economics have no direct correlation.  It makes the point that getting a college degree will result in better opportunities to find a good job but does not always mean better pay.  There are too many variables involved to measure the worth of a college education.  It goes on to say that economics are usually driven by supply and demand but college costs do not because there is no other product in the world that outpaces inflation like the cost of college.  The author of the article is Ray Hennessey.  He is an editorial director for Entrepreneur.com and writes about politics, economics, and leadership frequently.  His viewpoint on the situation is credible because he is looking at the economic stance of getting a college education but it is also bias because he only looks at the financial side.

Hannah Appel and Astra Taylor had their work "Education With A Debt Sentence: For-Profit Colleges As American Dream Crushers And Factories Of Debt" published in an academic journal.  They have many published works in academic journals about student debt and the rising cost of college.  This article contains stories of student's struggles and concerns over college loans and tells how colleges are getting the best of students.  It also tells how colleges do not educate students on the potentially negative impact of attending college if you have to take out a large amount of loans.  Instead colleges promise a road to financial wellbeing and a middle class life when college can result in having almost unrepayable amounts of debt and does not always teach skills that translate to the workforce.  The article is from an academic journal so it is a trustworthy source but it is bias because it does not mention the benefit of college or contain any college success stories.

To counter the argument that college prices are too high the article "Is College Worth the Cost?" in the Huffington Post argues that college is beneficial.  The article says that college is expensive but it gives people the chance for higher income, greater job satisfaction, and less chances of being unemployed.  It also says that the choice of major for students is very important because some fields, such as engineering and science, have much greater returns of investment than others, such as art or early education.  Choosing to get an education will be short term loss and long term gain but the consequences of not getting higher education will last a lifetime. Piyush Mangukiya is the author of the article.  He founded an educational app company to help students prepare for tests and stays closely connected to education.  The article contains graphs, statistics, and charts to show how college results in a positive financial situation.  The article is not very biased and does a good job of showing the entire situation of obtaining a college education. 

The question of why college costs are so high and why students have to take out loans is not easily answered.  The issue is something that is very prevalent in the world today and has many sides to it.  Most people agree that getting an education is beneficial but many wonder if the cost of obtaining the education is worth it.  College gives the opportunity to obtain a successful life in the long run but having students put their lives on hold so that they can attempt to pay back their loans is not something that should have to be done.
