University Education and The King’s Ransom

Come to think of it, heck yeah, it is a King’s ransom, University education.

Have been doing research lately for a masters or a PhD program from an accredited university and what one finds is the high level of fees that are beyond the reach of the average student. Banks, as helpful as ever offer educational loans setting students back by at least $30,000 to $40,000, even before the graduate starts out on his first day at work. What a huge load to bear, as if to say that it is your fault that you wanted to educate yourself.

The traditional full-time route to study for a degree is truly ruled out in such circumstances, unless you manage a full scholarship. These are much in demand and competition is tough. So where does this leave the average learner intent on pursuing further education. Nowhere really until he starts thinking out of the box, yes he needs to think about the various online/distance learning courses on offer. Here in this sphere of activity too we have the grand old universities/institutions, I refer to them hereon as G.O.I’s masquerading like they have suddenly woken up to the needs of the average student, by no means, do not be fooled. Do you know that the G.O.I’s advertise their online courses as offering the student the convenience of online study from home or office and yes it is true that online distance learning does offer this convenience, but what about the costs, well surprise, surprise these courses are not much different from the full time courses as far as the courses fees are concerned. The only benefit is … you guessed it, convenience. The average learner, the average cash strapped learner for all his interest in the subject is left in the lurch because what he wants is affordable education not convenient but unaffordable education.

A few universities have addressed this problem but the happiness of our cash strapped student is at stake because none of these low cost universities are accredited. They are not accredited because in the US, for an institution to get accredited, it costs anywhere from $1 Million to $3 million a year depending on the accrediting agency that is doing the honors for that university. A few good low cost institutions tried to get accreditation but found that in order to be able to pay the accreditation fees, they will have to start charging fees similar to fees charged by the G.O.I’s.