The Value of Education
Introduction
This essay analyzes the value of higher education in the Social-economic field. Education is classified as an essential aspect in business in response to economic and social growth. It is critiqued to be an effective foundation of extracting strategic factors which in due course boosts the growth of both economic and social aspects. Education has notably shown its potentiality in building up great human capital that plays very influential roles towards economic development. For instance, complex practices of the economy necessitate professionalism which in most occurrences indicates coherent relationship with education. The essay as well discusses the correlation between education and changes in social-economic sector. However, it is important to notify that education is a complex practice which includes significant apprehension and correlation as far as economic and also, social aspects are concerned.
Traditional and Non-traditional students
In response to the complexity of higher education, it is important to enumerate the difference between traditional and non-traditional students. Institutions of higher education have been registering changing demographics in the contemporary world due to gradual increment of students signing for various programs. For that reason, classification of students in these institutions is done from a variety of bases comprised into traditional and non-traditional students since they characterize considerable differences. Most significant, traditional students include learners of youthful ages supposedly at ages of 18 to 22 years whereas non-traditional students are referred as scholars who join colleges at ages of 23 or older (Adams & Corbett, 2010).
The two groups of students indicate significant differences in reference to goals, motivations and their prospects for the higher education. For instance, it precedes life re-examination and further planning for non-traditional students to gather their interests in higher education which in most cases are driven by social and economic factors. Many among non-traditional students encompass various responsibilities in the social-economic dimensions that determine the need to further their education levels. For that reason, most non-traditional students are influenced by intrinsic reasons such as the need to acquire promotions and boost overall wages in the already acquired careers (Schuetze & Slowey, 2002). On the contrary, traditional students characterize differing reasons for higher education in comparison to non-traditional students. Traditional students embrace less complexity in life and so, they take their purposes, ideas and expectations for higher education on aspects normal transition.
Rise in the cost of education evidenced until the present-day world is critiqued to the eras of 1970s. Notably, odd price rises, economic restrictions and unpredictable economy embarked around 1970 which contradicted education systems in comparison to years prior the downturn. Cost of education in terms of tuition costs and college fees increased in response to the rate of inflation. Higher education received much support particularly from the government prior economic downturn of 1970 and in contrast, government support of education has extremely dropped since then. As a result of economic crisis, federal government restructured its policies for higher education thus substituting federal funding with private loans as the source of support for students. More people turned to provide loans in order to cater for education costs as a result of decreased family incomes. This signified a drop of public in public investment towards education due to a decrease of income hence triggering rises of education costs. The primary sense of the rise revolves around the institution’s need to replace portions of state funding that was withdrawn from education policies (Wright, 2013). Nevertheless, many among the community have a belief that high tuition fuels education quality thus causing an increase to its worthiness. Institutions thus charge huge sums in order to finance various programs such as research projects that are in actuality intended to boost quality of education.
The rises of education cost reflect a coherent trend to the rise of goods and other services in the economic community. For instance, consumer goods and other services such as medical costs have indicated cost increases (Bloomberg, 2012). The increase of costs of living as well connects to economic downturn of 1970s which induced rising of costs in order to match with inflation rates. Arguably, manufacturing sectors and service institutions took the same trend as education institutions in order to enhance productivity and service delivery as a result of a drop in government spending. Increased inflation rates forced federal government to impose high taxes to manufacturing activities and other service institutions. Results of increased tax revenues reflect increased costs of production thus increasing the costs of end products. For that reason, manufacturing and other service institutions increases costs of goods and services in order to replace the amount paid to federal government in form of taxes. Nevertheless, professionalism a product of education plays an important role in both manufacturing and service institutions hence the need to sustain its investment. These institutions therefore charge much on products and services in order to cater demands of professionals for activity compliance.
Conclusion
Regardless of increased costs of education, higher education has remained pervasive since many in the community are focused at diversifying their educational levels. Increased number of students in higher education contradicts notions of its expense and instead, demonstrating instincts of increased quality. Importantly, high pricing of education is majorly as a result of inflation demand and the need to improve its quality. The foregoing analysis enumerates the value of education in the social-economic field by discussing the important correlation between social-economic factors and its persistence.
References
Adams, J., & Corbett, A. (2010). Experiences of traditional and non-traditional college students. Perspectives, 1-29.
Bloomberg (2012). Cost Of College Degree In U.S. Has Increased 1,120 Percent In 30 Years, Report Says.TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. extracted from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/cost-of-college-degree-increase-12-fold- 1120-percent-bloomberg_n_1783700.html Schuetze, H. G., & Slowey, M. (2002). Participation and exclusion: A comparative analysis of non-traditional students and lifelong learners in higher education. Higher education, 44(3-4), 309-327.Wright, D. A. (2013). The Effects of Four Decades of Recession on Higher Education Enrollments in the United States. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 1(3), 154- 164.
