EXPeditions - The living library of knowlegde17 Juni 2025

Caitlin Zaloom - The real cost and value of higher education

The pandemic has reminded us that higher education is a public good.

About Caitlin Zaloom

"I am a cultural anthropologist and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.

I’ve written books about finance and its relationship to technology, class, family and higher education."

Key Points

• The cost of a college education has spiralled since the 1990s, forcing middle-class families and their children to take on crushing amounts of debt. • Nonetheless, having a college degree has never been more important. For many people, it’s a prerequisite for maintaining a middle-class lifestyle. • The pandemic has reminded us that higher education is a public good. Doctors, nurses and other college-trained professionals are more important than ever. Sucked into finance

Finance touches so many aspects of our lives, including things that we don’t commonly associate with it. Take higher education. In today’s United States, families and students pay huge sums to get a college education. The average cost of attendance at a state school is $25,000 per year. That’s $100,000 per student for a four-year education. At a private institution, it’s double that. That means that middle-class families can’t afford to send their children to college without using debt and investment tools that are given to them by the government and financial industries. They are sucked into finance in order to achieve the most basic goals of middle-class life.

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