College is Worth it

More people are attending college today than ever before. Realizing that the future benefits brought about by attending college outweigh the immediate costs (both opportunity and accounting), students are investing more and more money in themselves; creating a huge market for universities across the country.

However, in order for many of these colleges to take advantage of this market, they have to be able to attract students. This article, entitled “The Arms Race In Campus Construction”, argues that a major determining factor in a student’s decision to attend a specific college is the value of life they think they will receive there; where the value of life is described through variables like student centers, recreation centers, food courts, etc. If this perceived value of life is higher than the perceived value of life at other colleges, enrollment will increase. Many schools are using this approach to attract students. According to this article, schools are spending seven times more on value of life activities than they did 25 years ago, but only three times more on class instruction.

Despite the fact that students may be attracted to campuses that have nice dorms, classrooms and recreation centers, is this really a main motivation for choosing a college? Don’t other factors play a larger role than the value of life (class size, school reputation, cost of tuition)?

But if this argument is correct, do you think that this is a good thing? By focusing their resources on value of life items, doesn’t this diminish the amount of resources spent on academic improvements? Or can both happen simultaneously? My main concern is that this article seems to show that colleges are more concerned with attracting as many students as possible, than they are with educating them.