Pros And Cons Of Private Colleges

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Private Universities Harvard, Princeton, Duke they all have a nice ring to them, but the 60k yearly tuition might make one think twice before applying. Private institutions average at about 44, 750 (Jane Doe) per year. College debt is a growing problem and is currently at a national debt of 1 trillion dollars (Ludden). So if private colleges are so expensive, why would someone make the sacrifice? Are private colleges worth the price, does quality correlate with quantity”? Majority of the population might think that the high-ticket price will guarantee a better future or a secure job opportunity, however this may not all be right. The private school setting does offer smaller classes and better learning opportunities, but the …show more content…

An undergraduate degree is the first four years after high school, but with an undergraduate degree one might expect an average salary if they go directly into the work force and do not continue on to graduate school. Take an average U.S. citizen who recently graduated as a journalism major at Syracuse, he is about $200,000 dollars in debt and got a job which only pays him about $50,000 a year. At this rate, he would be more than 10 years paying off his debt and making a living for himself at the same time, chances are that he could have gotten this same job as a public school graduate and wouldn’t have had as much debt on his shoulders. However he graduated from Syracuse, one of the top schools in journalism, meaning he could easily be a candidate for a great graduate school such as Columbia or Northwestern. Does graduate school mean more debt? Absolutely. Does a good graduate school give him a higher chance to be employed and earn a higher salary? Yes. But did he make the smartest decision choosing a private university to pursue a Liberal Arts career? The answer to that is no. Liberal Art degrees are arbitrary it depends more on the candidate than the school. It would have been a smarter to pick a private undergraduate if the career chosen was one associated with STEM or science, technology, engineering or math. Concerning debt, public universities are a safer