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Tuition is going up! Next year, the price of attending Brandeis  will be raised by 3.9 percent, to $58,170. Tuition is being hiked from $42,682 to $44,380. Brandeis University's sticker price takes the silver medal on the "Most Expensive Colleges in Massachusetts" list. If you're willing to sacrifice your free time to save yourself a semester of tuition by overloading courses, forget about it: that exit is barred, as Brandeis will now charge a per-credit fee of $1,375 for any credits above 23.
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College education in general has become more expensive in the past few decades, and Brandeis is no exception. Understandably, people are outraged by the increasing unaffordability of a higher education. After all, when four years of college costs nearly $225,000, a degree is practically unattainable without a tremendous financial commitment. Regardless of how much of your tuition is paid by parents, grants or student loans, every student bears a heavy burden. 
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When making such a large commitment, it is important to step back and gain perspective. "Am I getting what I am paying for?" You might be willing to pay $60,000 for a BMW, but not for a Kia. Each of us ought to ask ourselves this sort of question about our tuition. 
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans aged 18 to 29 have 13.1 percent unemployment. Opportunity is drying up: the National Bureau of Economic Research says that wage prospects in the current recession are down more than 10 percent. Things don't look very good. To pile on more bad news, the average college student will graduate with $26,500 of debt, and given the recent trend in tuition rates, this number only bodes to increase.
If we zoom in to a smaller scale, several experiences have made me second-guess the price of my education. Recently, I purchased 33 hours of MP3 recordings of a 12-lecture Introductory Philosophy class taught by Dr. Leonard Peikoff in the 1970s. It discusses the founders of Western philosophy, with detail and analysis comparable to-if not better than-similar courses that I've taken here. The price of the download: $11.
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Modern college students can easily benefit from information and literature proliferating on the internet. A university library and a classroom are no longer needed to analyze and discuss ideas. The internet has transformed self-guided adult education and has begun to render the traditional university approach obsolete. While face-to-face access to a university professor can be an educational advantage, does this alone justify such a colossal expense?
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In the past, having a college degree demonstrated a higher level of learning ability which employers still seek. Even humanities majors, who are not taught a specific marketable skill like science or engineering students, have always been considered to have this intellectual leg-up over non-college graduates.
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Because of this historical advantage, people advocate for laws intended to make college more affordable. Such government programs are numerous: Pell Grants already give students up to $5,500, while Perkins Loans will allow students to borrow up to $30,000 at only five percent interest. Stafford Loans are similar, but with a higher interest rate. There are also PLUS loans, which are made to parents.
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These programs, however well-intended, have actually served to bid the price of college to the current stratospheric high. They have helped to dilute the value of higher education to the point where a course priced in the thousands of dollars is no better than one which costs no more than a pizza.
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The programs that were created to make college more affordable have inflated a bubble in higher education, not unlike the housing bubble which burst in 2008. According to FinAid.org, college tuition prices have increased at 1.25 to two times the rate of other prices in the economy since 1975. While price has steadily grown, quality has not kept pace. The government's programs have provided easy credit to anyone willing to borrow. There is no assessment of risk, so students can continue to borrow as prices increase, without considering how they will pay these loans off in the future.
This artificially stimulated demand results in colleges being immune from the consequences of raising their prices-look at the throngs of admitted students. While our bills grow, the value of a degree shrinks. Class sizes have increased, and curricula are tailored to the average students rather than the exemplary ones. College graduates were once a rare commodity for employers, now they are a dime a dozen. With cheap, convenient access to information on the internet, non-college graduates can learn crucial skills on their own. Applying for a job with a college degree will no longer be a leg-up; it is currently a prerequisite, but an empty one, not unlike any Introductory class.
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As a degree no longer signifies to an employee who will be more competent with technology, employers of the future will put less emphasis on that expensive bachelor's degree. Students who have benefited from government-subsidized loans may find themselves in deep water, if they are unable to afford their debts. If many people default on their debts, the bubble will pop, and the price will collapse to reflect the significantly lower true value of a college education.
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Now that you are sufficiently depressed, I should remind you that your purpose here is still to learn and improve yourself. Don't rely solely on a curriculum to guide you in achieving your goals; blaze your own trail. Develop your own skills according to your strengths. Despite the fact that the old-fashioned university model is growing obsolete, some old-fashioned hard work, practical knowledge and computer savvy will put you far ahead anyone who treats a piece of paper called a "bachelor's degree" like a golden ticket.