I was spending a holiday with my family when my older cousin started asking me about college. When we started talking about loans, he began ranting about how college is too expensive and how it can be made affordable. Not all colleges work the same way when it comes to tuition. However in his experience, this is the foolproof way that college can be affordable. Here's a run down of his points.

The division of schools

Or different colleges within the school. Why does English have its own department when we use it for every subject? Why does philosophy and mathematics have different departments when math is philosophy? We could combine like departments and the fees would likely go down since more students are congregated to the combined division.

Cut out unnecessary pay

Students pay for a lot of things with their tuition. If the schools cut out every non-professor from their pay, then tuition would be at least a couple hundred dollars less. The point for this is that campus services should be paid for specifically by the campus and not with student's tuition money.

Treat the school as a school

A lot of colleges are run like a business when they are, in fact, a place of education. It makes sense why colleges reach out to students and encourage them to attend because they want to get their name out there and make money from incoming students.

Although my cousin's theory doesn't have many points, it has very effective ones. If similar divisions are combined then the college based fees would go down due to a more populated college. If unnecessary services were cut from the cost of tuition, then the total would go down even more. The services provided should be able to make enough money to support everyone involved so there should be no reason for students to pay for things that they do not use that they cannot afford in the first place. I think that a place of education should be focused on education, and they are, but a lot of the time they are based on money. Like students can't go to the name brand college because they just can't afford it.

I think a lot of people are worried about dropping the cost of college attendance because they think that the value of an education will deplete. However I think it could be a first step in giving more people a chance at higher education, and allow students to live more comfortably during and after college. Of course you don't need an education to be successful, but the students who choose to attend college should have a lower cost of attendance because they have a long road ahead of them. A lower cost of tuition would do more good than harm.