问答题 Many schools argue that the "sticker" prices show in the U.S. News index are misleading. Since most students, not just those who might be described as truly "needy", usually are eligible for some form of financial aid. 1 In fact, tuition discounting has become so widespread that on many campuses what began as a subsidy for the minority has turned into an entitlement for the majority. Some schools actually encourage students to bargain for larger aid packages by implicitly—or explicitly-promising "to meet the competition". 2 Naturally, the something-for-nothing generosity of this strange system comes at a price, as increases in financial aid usually have to be funded by raising already high tuition higher still.
3 Unhappily, college loans have become as much a part of student life as Friday night beer busts. Between 1990 and 1995, the $103billion combined with the total of undergraduate loans exceeded the sum of all the debt incurred by all the college students during the preceding three decades. 4 Statistics like these trouble Charles Manning, chancellor of the West Virginia University System, who worries that high levels of debt could "wind up negatively influencing students" lifestyles, their choices of careers, their willingness to go to graduate and professional schools and their ability to buy homes, cars and other consumer products."
Of even greater concern is that many of these debtors may also wind up, at least temporarily, in jobs that do not offer what have come to be thought of as college-level salaries. The disturbing truth is that there are simply too many college graduates competing for too few college-level jobs. In her latest study, Kristina J. Shelley, a Bureau of Labor Statistics specialist in the post-college-employment market, estimates that at least 22 percent of all college graduates entering the work force between 1994 and 2005 were or will be either unemployed or in jobs for which a bachelor"s degree is not ordinarily considered a necessity. 5 Working with some big companies is an honorable first job, but the salaries they offer rarely enable graduates both to repay a student loan and to enjoy a life style appropriate with their expectations.