A long, long time ago, an average college student could pay off his tuition and other college fees with the money he earned from his summer jobs. Today, this is no longer possible as college tuition and fees have quadrupled in the past 35 years. The reason for this drastic increase does not lie entirely in the fact that the percentage of college enrollment has increased by almost 50% since 1995.

The main reason for today's expensive college fees is the cutting of public funding for higher education. Due to the government's radical cuts, universities raised tuition costs each year, affecting millions of American graduates who would spend the next few decades paying off their debt.

Even with all the money that they receive from the students and their families, colleges are not spending more money to educate students; the money is used instead to replace their loss of state funding.

Surprisingly, increased spending has not caused significant increases in the American professors' salaries. In fact, the number of full time professors have decreased in the past 45 years. Today, about 50% of the faculty are lower-paid, part-time employees compared to 22% in 1970, indicating that these public institutions have more money in their accounts than ever before.

So, if you want to combat rising tuition costs, make sure you get involved in politics and vote for the candidate who promises to increase public funding for higher education. Who knows, if that happens, it'll wipe out a whole generation of student debtors and increase educational opportunities for low-income students.

As some like to say, "knowledge is power."