Why is College so Expensive in the US?

Bloated Administration

Campus administrations can often be seen paid in the millions while those who do actual labor (like teaching, research, IT) are often underpaid compared to market rates of the private sector.

Luxury Amenities

Rock-climbing gyms, landscapers, food-delivery robots, and fancy buildings can all be found at most universities in the US. These costs add up, but provide little to the educational experience.

Availability of Subsidized Loans

Since student loans are so readily available, students are less in-tune to the rising costs of attending university. Universities in turn have less incentive to lower costs.

What are some alternatives?

Free or Affordable Online Courses

University-level courses from top schools like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT are available on Youtube. If you’d like the accountability and structure, sites like Udemy and Coursera provide some low-cost options. Why pay over $100,000 when a few $10 courses will better prepare you in a shorter amount of time?

Online degrees

If you are set on getting a traditional degree, there are many low-cost, accredited online degree programs available for almost any specialization. For example, Georgia Tech, a top ranked computer science school, has an online masters that costs only $7000!

Bootcamps

If you know you’d like to specialize in tech, there are many free and paid online bootcamps that better prepare you for the job market at significantly lower costs than a traditional university. Examples include Freecodecamp (free), General Assembly or Codesmith (paid). Each offers many different tracks such as Fullstack Engineering and Data Analytics.

Online communities

Online communities on Discord, Slack, and social media groups allow you to connect with like-minded inviduals across the world.