From Textbooks to Tuition: 10 Biggest Ripoffs in Higher Education
Writer Aldous Huxley once said that attaining higher education is no guarantee of necessarily attaining higher virtue. While American students can benefit from going to the right school and attaining the right degree for their future needs, many do not. Many students get scammed by the systems and the very academic institutions that should look out for them. Here are 10 of the biggest ripoffs in higher education you should know about.
1. Scholarship Application Fee Scam
One of the most obvious and biggest ripoffs in higher education is the scholarship application fee scam. Scammers posing as scholarship facilitators will offer a very low three-figure or four-figure scholarship to students. However, students need to pay a $5, $15, $35, or $100 fee to apply for the scholarship. If 10,000 students pay a $35 fee for a scholarship application from a scammer, then the scammer nets $350,000. Then, the scammer can grant a $2,000, $5,000, or $10,000 scholarship, paid via the fees, and look semi-legit while pocketing the rest.
2. Useless Degrees
It may seem harsh to call college degrees the biggest ripoffs ever, but here we are. Over 50% of all college graduates will get a job that either doesn’t require a degree or is in a field completely unrelated to their degree. Many students do themselves no favors by going to skill for its own sake without consideration of their futures or how they will utilize their chosen degrees. Worse, universities and colleges have no incentive to fix the problem since they get paid either way.
3. Dorm Rent
Paying for dorm rent in this economy has got to be the biggest ripoff ever. Dorm rent rates range from $624 at smaller schools to over $2,600 monthly at large, prestigious schools with an average of $1,200. The typical studio or one-bedroom apartment in a high-cost-of-living city ranges between $1,200 to $1,500 or more.
4. Online Program Managers
Depending on who you ask, online program managers are the future of higher education, or one of the biggest ripoffs ever. An OPM is a third-party online institution that offers coursework and programs from existing institutions. Imagine an online program with the Yale or Harvard brand but completely managed by a third-party OPM. OPMs control the online classes and take up to 70% of the tuition. Critics worry that the quality control of such online classes and the value of OPM-derived Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees will degrade over time.
5. Tuition Debt
Tuition debt owed by students has surged by over 66% within the past decade. American students collectively owe over $1.77 trillion in unpaid tuition debt. The typical college student owes anywhere between $21,000 to $58,000 in tuition debt, however, such debt increases relative to the specialty and expense of course study. Tuition debt is one of the biggest ripoffs in higher education. It’s a crisis holding millions of students back in life before they get started.
6. Baby Boomer Tuition Debt
Another one of the biggest ripoffs in academia, and one of the most tragic, is the rate of Baby Boomer tuition debt and bankruptcies tied to tuition debt. Millions of senior citizens voluntarily pay the tuition fees of their adult children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren. Over 22% of those with tuition debt are age 50 or over and collectively owe over $336 billion.
7. Deceptive Tuition Hiking
Some universities scam their students by deceptively shrouding their true tuition costs and presenting students with a higher one. In November 2023, the AP reported that Grand Canyon University, the largest Christian higher education institution in the country, was scamming its students via tuition. The school offered doctoral programs ranging between $40,000 to $49,000. However, the school scammed 78% of its 100,000 students into taking fake “continuation courses,” that raised their tuition by as much as $12,000.
8. Predatory Credit Card Offers
Another one of the biggest ripoffs in higher education that students should watch out for is predatory credit card offers. Credit card companies, in conjunction with school authorities, will send representatives to the school to tempt students into applying for credit cards they most likely can’t afford. Over 42% of college students have credit card debt ranging between $1,000 to $5,000.
9. Tuition
With current trends in inflation and the ever-rising cost of living standards in this country, one of the biggest ripoffs in higher education is the cost of tuition. The typical tuition for one semester at a public school during the 2021 – 2022 year was $9,700; that is a 6% increase from the previous decade. If you want to go to a private, nonprofit school, then one semester of tuition is typically $38,800, which is a 14% increase from the previous decade.
Not counting dorm rent, transportation, and other exorbitant costs, tuition at a four-year public school could be $40,000+ at a public institution or $155,000+ at a private one. These are crippling costs to bear for students and families in a struggling economy.
10. Textbooks
Ask any student of higher education and they might agree that one of the biggest ripoffs in higher education is the cost of college textbooks. The primary and secondary marketplaces for university and college textbooks are unregulated, so publishers arbitrarily set or hike prices on a whim. The industry is monopolized, publishers control supply, and students have no other options. Textbook prices have surged by 1,000% since the 1970s and the typical college student will spend hundreds and up to $1,200 per semester on required textbooks.
10 Biggest Ripoffs in Higher Education
Life isn’t particularly fair, especially for naive college students who have yet to enter the real world. The best defense against being scammed is being proactively educated. Thoroughly research any school you’re interested in attending or paying tuition for the benefit of someone else. Consider all of the cost benefits related to tuition, transportation, dorm rent, and others before choosing a school. Also, remember that anything that seems too good to be true usually is.
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Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.