Name : Jung, Seowon
Class : ESL 100

The number of college graduates in the US is decreasing

Approximately 1,600 years ago, Socrates taught his students without charging tuition. He didn’t expect any financial gain and he just wanted to share and communicate his ideas and philosophies with his students. However, many people have paid their tuition in order to study in colleges and now, this has resulted in student dropping out from their colleges. Therefore, it is evident that the reason of dropout is caused by financial pressures from tuition increases of colleges.

One popular magazine has researched the number of dropouts and has predicted an increase. According to Market Wire (2007), “In the 60s we saw college dropout rates of one in five. In the 90s this increased to one in three. Now, according to the Department of Education figures for 2000 through 2006, thirty percent leave in the first year, and an astonishing fifty percent never graduate. To be specific, the completion rate among college attendees dropped from 51.1% to 45.3% and, among those receiving degrees, the percent receiving a degree within 4 years dropped from 56.8% to 43.6%” (Population Study Center, 2007).

For all of these reasons, I think that the decreasing rate of the number of college graduates will continue for some time. Indeed, the continuing decreases in college graduation rates probably have multiple causes, but I support the idea that a rise in financial pressures leads to students falling behind and failing (Market Wire, 2007). Therefore, I suppose the financial pressures for poor families that have been increasing is the cause for the the decreasing rate of the number of college graduates.