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Many a student come filled with a lot of emotions, dreams and aspirations. They step into the college premises accompanied by their loving families hoping to eventually make a career. For most middle and low income families, sending their kids to college directly translates to mitigating their financial troubles in the years to come. 

But how many of the students are able to fulfil their aspirations and successfully settle down in their careers. Even if they do, how many of them cans say they are happy and satisfied with the outcome?
Definitely not many!

Looking at the plight of graduates bent low with the burden of student debts, it is a parody to find at least eight of our colleges ranked among the top ten in the world and 50 among the top 100. All these are colleges that produce Nobel laureates and are stupendous in their scientific output.

To be fair, as compared to students who do not graduate, those who do earn higher but all these advantages are shrouded in a dubious education system that operates more for their own monetary benefits than for imparting quality education to students.

In a forum called reason.com, the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity Richard Vedder states a few key points on our floundering education system.

•    According to him, cost of higher education is rapidly rising and even if they do somehow get into college, students are not offered the quality of education they deserve as the very system treats them with arrogance, is highly inefficient and capable of producing only reams of research.

•    In certain universities, as compared to early sixties, cost of tuition has practically quadrupled.

•    Taxpayers, no doubt, fund the academic race. While the student financial assistance program last year amounted to $US 173.8 billion, it was just over USD 1 billion in 1970.

•    All this unnecessary spending arises from the root cause of evaluating universities based on anything and everything except the quality of graduates passing out.

It is but natural for parents and students to indulge in economic calculation as most part of our education system including the top-line colleges charge obscenely high fees. Before choosing colleges for their kids, families carefully weigh options and debate on how much return on investment they can construe.

In other words, they choose colleges based on how much the student will be capable of earning once they graduate from there rather than on how the education they receive will help them face the challenges of life and overall mould their personalities.

As compared to any other country in the world, our country spends a large percentage of GDP on universities. Even though we rank 15 in the world in terms of the number of graduating students, our young graduate unemployment rate is 8.8 per cent. So, what does this translate to for aspiring graduates saddled with huge college debt?

In the long term, what are we going to do about this situation that threatens to greatly reduce the value of higher education and continues to de-motivate students from enrolling.