Essay Response on the
College Conspiracy
Documentary
(2-Page Response)
The
College Conspiracy
documentary discredits many myths, including the belief that
Americans with college degrees earn $1 million more in lifetime income compared to high
school graduates without a college degree.
The most important basic fact that most Americans don’t understand about 4-year colleges is that
most Americans spend 6 years attending them before graduating. With U.S. tuition inflation for
private colleges averaging 5.15% over the past half a decade, assuming this same rate of tuition
inflation continues, a college with tuition of $30,000 today will have tuition of $38,563 in the
sixth year a student attends it.
In
College Conspiracy
, the National Inflation Association (NIA) analyzes the total cost to attend
college by factoring in not just rapidly rising tuition expenses, but also the interest payments on
student loans, and the lost income that college students would have earned if they worked at an
average entry-level job that doesn’t require a college degree.
In a
two-page essay
response, take a position on the issues discussed in this documentary
regarding higher education.
Is it accurate in its dismantling of the conventional American idea of
the college degree leading to “financial prosperity?”
Cite scenes from the documentary to
support your points.
