It is upsetting to look at the financial aid letter underneath your college acceptance and be immediately overtaken by distress, wondering how you will be able to afford it. I know bright and talented students who were accepted into their dream schools but had to decline the offer due to unfeasible costs. 

Over the last three decades, college tuition has doubled across both public and private institutions according to a 2022 report by College Board. This estimate is adjusted for inflation and doesn’t even include the costs of room and board. 

According to the Education Data Initiative, the average student pays $27,000 per year at a four year public university and $58,000 at a private university, excluding the additional cost of student loan interest. This value can still vary widely across families due to financial aid packages.

College was once heralded as the tool to cultivate our thinking and advance our future, but mounting costs have turned it into a risky investment that threatens the very objective of higher education. Students are forced to ask not where their deepest curiosities and passions lie, but whether their interests are economically defensible. 

College costs don’t just determine where you go. They also influence what you study and the liberties you can afford to take.

Economist Douglass Webber told the New York Times in 2023 that going to college is now “more like going to a casino.” If you are majoring in STEM, your chance of getting a long-term positive return, at the time, was three in four. However, if you are majoring in the arts, humanities, or social sciences, you are more likely to lose on your investment.

Most lower and middle class students find themselves in this casino with limited resources to spare and growing financial strain. As a result, they are encouraged to bet on what is safest at the moment.

Higher costs mean more pressure to pursue careers with greater starting salaries, work longer hours, and be more selective with electives. Hence, college becomes a place to maximize investment by minimizing risk, hindering the exploration that fosters change.

This shift is particularly noticeable in the declining respect and popularity of the humanities and social sciences. Once the foreground of a well-rounded education, nowadays, these often appear on lists of “useless” majors due to their lower return on investment and challenging direct applicability in an increasingly tricky job market.

These disciplines have become a privilege to study, reserved for those with either a clear post-graduate educational path or those who can afford some uncertainty after graduation.

This shift is worrying when we need reflective and critical thinkers with historical awareness more than ever—the very things these “useless majors” cultivate in students.

In a society increasingly driven by technology and profit, we need people who will stop to ask, “why?” and not, “can we?”, but, “should we?” We need people who will analyze and make decisions not based merely on financial gain, but societal benefit. 

Treading the least traveled road is not easy. And when the cost of college raises big, noble, and difficult dreams to a level where it seems that only established career paths indent the road to success, we are robbing society of leaders who can make decisions based on heart and principle, rather than the void in their bank account.

Our society needs educated, morally reflective, and passionate adults. Yet, access to the resources and environment meant to cultivate these attributes is being made ridiculously difficult by massive college costs. 

Reaching a point where higher education truly lives up to these values requires more than crafting well-rounded students through general education requirements—which students often attempt to fulfill while in high school to decrease college expenses and ensuring that they can graduate on time. It requires true financial accessibility, bestowing students with the freedom to pursue their genuine curiosities without the constant pressure of debt and employability hanging over their head.