I was leafing through The Economist (you like how I randomly decide to underline, put quotation marks, or italicize the publications I read? Someday I'll standardize it and do it correctly like I was taught to cite in high school, but I like doing it wrong on purpose. It makes me feel like I'm rebelling against The Man) and a couple of their articles grabbed my attention. Mostly because it made me realize that if I'm young, I'm pretty much looking at a dismal existence. Seriously!
So one of their first articles was about the increasing costs of undergraduate programs (duh). In Britain (wait, what?). The article, entitled "Race to the Top" profiled how the increase in annual tuition fees could potentially have wide ranging impacts on higher education (perhaps a watered down market on "new talent"?) one of which would be the increasing pressure on tuition prices to,well, increase. Their argument goes something like this: tuition continues to increase while, simultaneously, students see degrees as the key to a decent paying job. Undergraduate degrees are subsidized but MBAs aren't and this leads to students to choose between options (expensive, not expensive) instead of ruling our the idea of business school altogether. This practice, as a result, has left politicians in a bit of a tizzy because although their undergraduate universities are consistently expensive, they remain popular because the government provides subsidies, and no one wants to announce that they are against subsidizing undergraduate education. However, there have been no regulations around master's degrees and doctorates, so there are no limits on what universities can charge, thus, this has made affordability the main focus of these circles.
This is all very interesting. I can't help but wonder what would happen if the U.S. provided subsidies for people to study. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship, or I may not have been able to go to undergraduate school (as my mom said, "You can get a scholarship, or you can go to community college. We can't really afford other options.") but how could a new model potentially change the system? Either way, what brings me to this article is that the numbers that they were calling "expensive" shocked me. The maximum for undergraduate tuition permitted by the state if apparently $14,500, students don't need to start repayment until they have graduated and are earning more than (approximately) $42,000. 85% of English universities offer master's degrees for less than ~$18,000. I feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick. Without scholarship, my undergraduate education could have been $46,000 a year. The schools I'm looking at for my MBA are in the mid to high 40s. For two years, people are telling me to expect to spend anywhere from ~$120,000 to ~$180,000. Easy. I'm moving across the pond.
A few pages later, there was an article entitled "Inferno for Interns". In this article, they spoke about the unpaid internship craze that is taking over the business world. "With ever fewer entry-level jobs in many industries, internships have become a critical first step into employment." The Economist estimates that U.S. organizations save $2 billion dollars a year by not paying interns a minimum wage. They estimate that perhaps one third of all internships at for-profit companies are unpaid (by the company) and interns now often fill roles once held by full-time employees. So you're telling me that, even potentially with that coveted business degree I so desperately want, I might still be taking unpaid internships in the thin hope that I could be taken in out of the cold after graduation? Well, at least they predict that employers are intending to hire 19% more graduates this year than last...
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