I was talking about university costs with my Japanese classmate during our language exchange session. Because she's an exchange student, her yearly fees at NCCU's Chinese Learning Center are waived; she only needs to pay her university back home in Japan. I asked her if tuition costs a lot, and she replied that yes, because her university in Tokyo is a private one, tuition is fairly high. Curious, I asked her how much her tuition was per year, bracing myself for some astronomically high number.
Turns out, the amount she pays per year is around 50% less than what the average public university cost is in the U.S.(think any University of California school). I asked her how much tuition would cost at the top school in Japan, Tokyo University. She said it would be cheaper, since Todai is a public university and heavily subsidized by the government. When you think about it, the differences really are baffling. The top universities in the U.S., or least those that appear to be best ranked academically, are, for the most part, private schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. Based on the estimate my friend gave me, the cost of attending a private university in the U.S. is about 75% higher than attending one of the same caliber (relatively speaking) in Japan.
In Japan, it seems, getting into a public university often seems more competitive than getting into a private school - when you consider that many of the best-acclaimed schools (Tokyo University, Kyoto University and Osaka University, to name a few) are national institutions rather than privatized. So along with getting a great education, there's the financial incentive of having to pay less, which means more applicants and a lower acceptance rate. Therefore, one would assume that the public universities attract the cream of the crop, which then raises their rankings even more. It's like an endless feedback loop of (affordable) quality attracting talent.
But not so in the U.S. The most highly ranked schools are private institutions, not public, and therefore cost a lot more to attend. Even the application fees alone are higher. So who ends up applying to these schools? Applicants with talent, yes, but also applicants with more money. Of course, private universities have a lot more money to give out as well, meaning that scholarship packages are more likely to be substantial and readily distributed based on need.
However, what does it take for an average high school applicant in the U.S. to be groomed for a place like Harvard? Either you have to be at the very top of a low-performing school (and have qualities that put you high on the affirmative action list) or you probably attend some kind of prep school known for producing Harvard-bound elites. If you're one of the latter (which tends to be the case), then more likely than not, one of your parents went to an Ivy League school, preferably to the same one you're applying for. Alumni of the top-tier schools in the U.S. tend to be well-off financially, education-driven and better connected, thus affording their children the same opportunities for a clean shot at a great - albeit expensive - education. So in addition to quality attracting talent, there's another factor involved in college acceptances in the U.S., especially for private schools: money attracting money. Hence legacies are born, and the rich get richer.
But what can a poor kid attending a mediocre high school at which he performs not badly, but not at the top of his class either, do? He probably won't be attending Harvard because his grades aren't good enough (compared to the top 3% at his mediocre school), and he has no one to pull any strings for him. In fact, he's probably the first person in his family to go to college. If he goes to a decent (but not famous) public university in his home state, he will probably graduate university with a good amount of debt. Which is assuming he has a choice in the first place - even if he got into one, attending private school out-of-state does not seem too affordable.
Essentially, unless you're born into money and prestige in the U.S., it becomes much more difficult to attend (and graduate from) a private university. So for the majority of people who are born middle-class or lower, attending a well-recognized public university is the best option. But because public universities in the U.S. are increasing tuition fees at an alarming rate (due to lack of funds, poor fiscal management, politics, etc.), these students, if they manage to graduate, rack up a mountain of debt the moment they leave school.
To pay off these debts, they put off furthering their education for jobs that can pay the rent, often jobs unrelated to their majors (and sometimes interests). They can't afford to solely do unpaid internships in the fields they want to pursue, so they supplement them with part-time, minimum-wage jobs on the side. Or many of them choose to forsake such fields altogether for something more lucrative in the long-run: medicine, finance, corporate law. Many of them move back home to live with their parents because it's a lot more affordable. Subsequently, career paths end up at a standstill (or heavily stalled) and some of them choose to have kids later or not at all. By the time their children go off to college, who knows how affordable even public universities will be?
Thus, the non-wealthy in America are (ultimately) benefiting from higher education, but at a substantially lower rate than the wealthy, regardless of talent. Education opens some doors for them, but in the same breath, saddles them with debts that limit their overall choices post-graduation.
The one question that keeps coming back to me: Why is attending university in America (even a public one) so darn expensive? Compared to almost every other country, where higher education seems heavily, or at least partially, subsidized by the government, American universities seem to place most of the financial burden on students (and their families). Is it really because American universities are that much better? (And what area does "better" pertain to?) Sure, American universities are recognized all over the world and often rank highly on news/academic reports, but do the names and the numbers justify their ever increasing cost?
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