Is Higher Education Turning Into a Form of Economic Exploitation of Students?

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“All I have learned, I learned from books.”

― Abraham Lincoln

“All the world is my school and all humanity is my teacher.”

― George Whitman

The theme of education—particularly higher education—is essential right now. Crucial. More than ever. Priorities are being turned upside-down in society. The central concept of education has lost its sight. Pre-pre-school, kindergarten SATs (joking), $20,000 per year grade schools, and colleges that most people cannot afford—is how our educational spectrum appears today.

I wholeheartedly believe that higher education is turning into a form of economic exploitation of students. There was a time when education was free—when people desired to learn and expand their minds, skills, and talents. Now, education comes at a very high price.

What is there to do at this point? Start to take matters into our own hands. If higher education is more expensive than necessary, what is that telling us? It’s telling us many things.

1. Not everyone can invest in higher education. We are not being served equally to receive access to the same knowledge and information. Of course, this is not true, as information, knowledge, and learning skills are everywhere for accessing if one needs to find them. But the idea of the prestige of higher education is what the exorbitant prices are subtly telling us.

2. We are paying more than needed to receive an education that is not teaching one how to make the investment back. Yes, the exorbitant expenditure of higher learning teaches an individual many things: how to remain committed, how to engage in self-discipline, and how to connect with like-minded individuals. Those virtues, however, can be found in other areas than a university.

The price of higher education is excessive—and that is why so many people are discovering that what it takes to live the life they desire is to self-educate. After some more time—and after the greed of higher education institutions comes to a peak, I foresee that many people will have no other choice but to teach themselves. While many career paths still require a specific set of skills and certifications to move forward in their career, I believe that the higher education system is coming to the point that is setting both themselves and the students up to fail. The rate of students who cannot pay their student loan bills according to time.com is about 43% of 22 million people in America.

I hope that auto-didacticism comes to be more popular in the coming years, as that is where new ideas and fresh thoughts will seed and bloom.

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”

― Isaac Asimov

“I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

― Ray Bradbury

You may be wondering how I can be writing this if I have my Ph.D.

Well, I started college in 1995 and completed my doctoral studies in 2016. Over that time, I came to understand that we are the ones who create our futures and our careers. I sincerely enjoyed the experience of higher education and loved every minute of it. I wouldn’t, though, recommend it to everyone. In all, I don’t see it as a necessity to create a successful and fulfilling career or life. My entrepreneurial activities come from self-education after higher education. I do believe I discovered my own self-confidence through higher learning, but it doesn’t have to be that way for people. In fact, it shouldn’t be that way. In my opinion, it in no way should be so expensive to engage in higher learning.

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

―Beatrix Potter

I see community and self-education as the new wave.
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