Is there any Relief to the Rising Cost of a College Education?

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you! I’m back today and I’m discussing the cost of a college education. According to experts, the cost to send your children to school has risen forty percent in the last ten years.

Therefore, when my kids go to college it’s going to cost almost $15,000 dollars more a year to educate my boys. According to this college cost calculator. http://www.archimedes.com/vanguard/collcost.phtml?

I was a little freaked out about that. I mean we’ve started a college fund for the boys, but I’m sure it’s not going to grow that fast. According to experts, the reason for the increase has been loss of state funding, endowments, and fund raising.

So what are parents going to do? I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but incomes are on the decline as well, when parents’ incomes aren’t rising as fast as the cost of college educations that spells trouble.

There have been some whispers through the community that college classes will only be available online in the future. What does that mean? If this rumor does come to fruition, it means that colleges will no longer need the brick and mortar buildings in which to conduct their lectures. Professors will be able to record their lectures from their offices and even their homes. That cuts a huge expense right there. Hmmm… makes you think doesn’t it.

Wait, there’s more. If college courses are all online in the future, there will be no need to send your kids away to school. Just think of the savings on room and board!  Granted, they’ll be in the house a little longer than you planned, but think of the savings.

I believe this is the future of education. The way I see it, a student could pick any instructor he wishes to learn from regardless of that instructor’s affiliation with a certain college. I’m seeing professors as independent contractors. I’m sure the government would get involved in some way, probably, setting the criteria for each degree and the prerequisites for each class.

In fact, there’s one man who’s already doing this. His name is Salman Kahn. He’s a former hedge fund manager turned YouTube Teacher. He records lectures and posts them on the web and his videos are by far the most viewed educational videos on the web. In fact, he’s Bill Gates favorite teacher.

He posts lessons on math and science as well as lessons on a range of other subjects. His playlist of approximately one thousand six hundred and thirty tutorials are viewed on an average of seventy thousand times a day. I found this information in an article from Fortune’s Magazine. The author is David A. Kaplan and it’s titled, Bill Gates Favorite Teacher. He does all of this for free. He wants to offer the first free world class virtual school.

I see some great things that online teaching can accomplish. It will level the playing field between the socio-economic classes. What that means is that people who can’t afford to send their kids to college won’t have to worry. They can log onto the computer and see the same lecture as someone who can afford a Harvard education. I think that’s great. It would certainly alleviate the problem of whether or not people are going to be able to afford the cost of a college education, wouldn’t you agree?

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post today. If you have any insight on the future of education, please share it with us by leaving a comment. We’d love to hear from you! 🙂