The Cost of College

Planning for life after graduation is a topic on the minds of every upper level undergraduate student.  Many opt for furthering their education with grad school, but for most, like me, we are planning to enter the work force.  With this decision come many new challenges and changes we will be facing.  Being a senior, the reality of the real world is coming sooner than I would like.

Over the past four years, I have been very conscious about finances and my future debt.  I chose to major in economics because I enjoyed the subject matter, but also, because I believe there is a need in the job market for young adults with an understanding of how to analyze data, and understand basic business principles, which is just some of what I have been able to learn through economics.  When choosing a major, I tried to pick one that would make me marketable after graduation.  From an economic standpoint, I chose a major with a utility function that gave me the most enjoyment versus a comfortable salary after graduation.  However, I originally entered the university as engineering major.  During the two years I spent in this field, my enjoyment of the subject matter was very low.  I was not happy in the classes and found the material uninteresting.  When starting college, one of the reasons I chose engineering was because people told me that if you graduate with an engineering degree, you will be sure to find a well-paying job right out of college.  In this utility scenario, my enjoyment of my major was extremely low, while my perspective earnings after college were probably slightly higher than they are now.  After consideration, I compared the cost of being happy and doing what I am interested in versus potential future earnings right out of college.  To me, being happy outweighed the potential salary cut. 

Because I know that I have to work harder to find a high paying job right out of college compared to what an engineering student might have to, I have been conscious in other ways to manage my funds.  I have taken up a part time job during the school year to take out some of the financial burden.  In this case, I decided to change my work/leisure utility function to add more work.  This caused a shift in the curve to the left and increased my income, but lowered my time for leisure.  I have also spent every summer working a part time job so that again, I can make paying off my student debts a little easier in the future.  Another way I was able to save some money was by not taking out many student loans.  Due to some generous family members, I had a good amount of my college saved up prior to entering the university.  Because of this, I have really only needed to take out loans for the past year and a half.  Despite this, I am still conscious of my debt.   Every month, I pay a portion of my income to the loan company so that my interest will not be so high once I graduate and the full weights of the loans are on me. 

After talking with several friends who attended university out of state, I am glad I made the decision to attend the University of Illinois as well from a financial standpoint.  I had several friends choose out of state public schools whose tuition is much greater than mine.  They are now feeling the burden of that decision as they are beginning to have to pay back their loans.  When choosing to come to school here, this was a factor, however, at the time, I did not see it as much as I do now.  Many eighteen year olds choosing where to go to college only look at the fun side of it.  They sometimes have a hard time seeing the struggle and debt they will be in four years from now.  I was one of these kids, brushing off the price as something I would deal with when I am older.  Luckily for me though, I ended up going with a school that was somewhat reasonable financially. 

Blogging Overview

Over the course of this class, we have written several blog posts.  Taking the time to reflect now, I am able to see what has been successful and what has not been as successful.  Certain blog posts have been more interesting to me, while others have left me struggling to think of what to write.  I will now reflect on my posts over the past few weeks. 

So far, my favorite blogs, and the ones I feel have been the easiest to write about, have been the ones where we find a personal connection to the topics discussed in class.  For example, when we wrote about our own experiences with organizations or about our experience with opportunism, I had a lot to say on the topic.  It also was a good way to understand the lesson from a personal stand point and really see how these economic issues are present in the every day.  It is also easy for me to write about my life experiences over a fictitious hypothetical.  I find that a common theme in my writings have been tying together my work experiences with what we are learning in class at the time.  This would make sense, as most of my connections to organizations have been in a work setting.  Looking back now, some students chose to write about teams as a form of organizations.  This never occurred to me when writing because the only sports I did in school were solo sports, such as swimming and track.  While I was part of a team, there is a different mentality to these types of activities versus sports such as basketball or football.  In those activities, the success and failure is of the group, and if the group as a whole is unsuccessful, it does not really matter if there is an outstanding player because his accomplishments are overshadowed.  This can be seen vice versa as well where a poor player is hidden by a good team.   Whereas with a sport such as swimming, the team as a whole can be bad and not win in meets or competition, but if an individual is outstanding, they are able to prove that themselves and have the opportunity to individually place and go on to regionals and state.

Over the course of the semester so far, I find that I am trying to look at the prompts a little more in depth than before.  I am really trying to get past simply answering the prompt and getting to the fundamental root of what will tie in to what we learned.  I am also trying to think more creatively when answering the prompts.  I am trying to think outside of the box when it comes to my experiences and what connections I make.  Some prompts that I have found successful for myself personally, was the one about opportunism.  I had an experience that I think tied in really well for the prompt.  I recall in class that others may have struggled with this concept.  For me however, I enjoyed this post.  The post that I found difficult and least enjoyable was the one about transfer pricing.  The concept of Illinibucks took me a little while to understand.  I also felt that it was difficult to find uses for an Illinibuck that I personally found relevant.  As I got further into the post, it was harder to think of more things to say on the topic as well, which made the post more of a challenge.  All in all though, I have enjoyed the blog posts and find it a unique way to express our understanding of the concepts.

Illinibucks

A system involving Illinibucks would be unique for our campus.  A form of payment that lets one jump the line would be sought after by many students.  In a fast paced setting such as college, students would take advantage of being able to get out of waiting as much as possible.  There are a variety of ways the University could utilize an Illinibuck system and I will evaluate some of them below.  I will look at the concept of Illinibucks from solely a university good and also from a campus town good.

One way the University of Illinois could utilize an Illinibuck system is for sporting games and events.  If every year students are given a set amount of Illinibucks that come with their tuition, that can be used to cut the line at sporting events, attendance at games might increase.  For the university, this would be a cheap addition to the tuition package, even if only one or two Illinibucks are in the package.  If students want additional Illinibucks, they can buy them as well.  This would be a perk reserved only for Illinois students, not the general public.  Because the games are already provided by the university, additional Illinibucks would not cost much, maybe three to five dollars each.  The price would need to be low because it is specifically for students, and students do not have a large amount of expendable income.  The downside of having a price that is too high is that it might deter students from attending games.  If the price is high, students might even try to sell their Illinibucks to one another, creating a sort of black market for Illinibucks.  As mentioned before, this might encourage students to attend more sporting events.  If students have a quick access pass, they might be more interested in checking out events outside of the popular football and basketball.  Even with these two big sports, having been on campus for four years, I know attendance is low, and an Illinibuck might get more people involved.

Another idea for Illinibucks would be in the campus town community.  These Illinibucks would be used to cut the line on the restaurants in the campus town area, ranging from Lincoln through Green streets.  These would allow holders to cut the lines at any participating food restaurant and get their food first.  For this form of Illinibuck, Anyone can purchase them, student or even the general public.  Because they are open and available to all in the Champaign-Urbana area, the Illinibuck would have to be more expensive than the one previously discussed.  This Illinibuck would need to be around five to seven dollars.  Any more expensive and not many people would buy them.  Five to seven dollars can get you a meal at some places on Green Street, so if the price goes up much more than that, people might rather save their money and just wait in line.  If the price was too low, too many people, both students and Champaign residents, would want to purchase the Illinibucks.  This would become a problem in that at any given restaurant, there could be multiple people trying to use Illinibucks, which could create confusion as to who gets to go first.  The Illinibucks would probably be utilized mostly at rush hour times, like lunch and dinner.  Also, there would be an increase of usage at late night hours, around 1-2AM when those returning from late study sessions or a night out go for food.  However, there could be a problem with this system at these later hours.  I could see confrontations occurring when someone is trying to cut the line and alcohol is involved.  Due to this, the Illinibuck system might set a time period for when the buck is valid, say, between the hours of 7AM and 10PM.