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As you look around, you will find that our country’s higher education system works excellently for some students. Eventhough the tuition cost is ever increasing, community as well as for-profit colleges still end up offering very good facilities as far as education is concerned. All the necessary fundamental skills that are required to graduate are provided to these students. However, the only unfortunate fact remains that only a ‘handful’ of students share similar views.

According to the rest of them, higher education system offers nothing but debt. With rising education cost, most of the students are left with no choice but to take loans to pay the colleges and universities. According to a recent survey, as many as 13% students who had started off paying their loan amounts in the year 2009, defaulted in a couple of years itself. The survey was conducted by the Department of Education.

For-Profit colleges seem to be doing even worse as compared to community colleges across the country. According to the report, out of every five students who had taken loan to pay their for-profit college cost, one had turned out to be in the defaulters list. This clearly indicates that for-profit educational institutes need to quickly access their tuition costs.

However, the report also throws light on a much bigger challenge. It indicates that education is becoming increasingly expensive and has turned out to be more like a burden for many students and their families. The fact that an increasing number of students now are opting not to attend higher education or are dropping out of it mid-way, come as no surprise. Unfortunately, our education system has failed to come up with a cost that students can afford.

This is not just the case with for-profit colleges. Community colleges across America are facing a similar problem. However, one can argue that the intensity of the problem at community colleges is much lower as compared to for-profit ones.

About 13 percent of the total students studying at community colleges have to loans for education purpose. This number is relatively small when compared to the staggering 96 percent coming from for-profit colleges.

One of the major reasons for such a debacle is the lack of infrastructure available at community colleges. The public education system has to be a lot more lustrous. At the moment, most of the community colleges in the country are already catering to more numbers of students than they ideally should.

With over crowding taking place, the quality of education at these colleges has come down considerably. Hence, students are left with no other choice but to opt for for-profit schools and colleges even if this means that they would have to pay a lot more for graduating.

On the contrary, the need for a graduation degree seems to be more than it ever was, leaving the students and their families in a catch 22 situation. The problem will also get a helping hand if community colleges design a better student paying policy for single mothers and students who are working while pursuing education.