The Dark Side of Higher Education

Investment banks has fallen, national banks have betrayed our trust, government actions in majority of countries around the world are being frowned upon by the people (examples include the Gaza war, the Wall street bailout which is a bailout for the rich while the main street suffers the burden) and you just don't know who the heck to trust anymore. Since you can't put you faith in Uncle Sam or whatever, you put your trust on institutions of higher education, universities, polytechnics and others. You figure that their vaulted names are what is dependable on and they can deliver you wisdom, excellence, success and a great livelihood. The rest of the world, banks, public schools, environment, corporations etc, may be going to hell but you trust that if you try hard enough, and pay enough, you'll get your money's worth at universities that promises so much.

As a result of this belief, you incur tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands in student loans or loans from parents (if you have a heart, you will consider it as a loan) since it is too much a sum to pay off on your own. As what is shared with me by a senior member of a university, a student's school fees is only a very small fraction of the amount that the university needs, with the rest coming from government(also not a very huge sum) and the private sector, foundations, companies and like (a very significant amount).

It's just economics from here on. Times are bad. Universities are facing more and more competition, since there are many hungry wolves out there scraping for a piece of the slice of higher education industry that has a growth rate that is increasing every year. Since a significant of funds of universities come from the private sector, these institutions will not want to part with their highly paid directors who know how to develop relationships with highly generous alumni. They don't want to scale down their astronomical building and expansion plans either. They certainly don't want to lower tuition rates or housing or other fees.

The question now is this: Faced with more competition, more uncertainty about global outlook, more needs of funds (for the development of the infrastructure, the ever growing salary of professors and other stuff) and lesser donations from the private sector (again due to uncertainty and budget tightening), where are they going to "squeeze" the funds from?

The answer: Students. The interests of the students will be sacrificed because they are the least protected and most innocent of the whole academic community. There are numerous articles online that will support this. Sure, Yours Truly think that around 25% of them are too far from the truth, but the sheer amount of complaints, dis-satisfaction and other related articles are just too much to ignore. I don't believe that all of these allegations are false, how can it be?

Don't take my words at face value. I only aim to open up your mind. Do your own research online or elsewhere. Talk to people higher up in the education institutions who can be honest with you. You don't need me to convince you, you need to convince yourself. Find out what is the state of the higher education industry right now, what wrongs are being committed against the very people who relied on them, the students.

Tales Zephyrus Lucrex is one of the 3 writers at Enxie Ferite (enxieferite.net84.net). Enxie Ferite serves as a one-stop entertainment website that consists of interesting articles of myths, humour, good-to-knows, anime and others. It also consists of music videos from English, Chinese and Japanese music.

To view the articles in the full context, and check out other posts as well, do visit http://enxieferite.net84.net/

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