Education

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Andy McIntyre & Derek Bok

Education is expensive. Tuition costs at universities just keep going up. And then you have to add up the costs of books and equipment. And textbooks these days seem to often cost about a hundred dollars each. And then there may be the costs of room and board added onto that. It's enough to make anyone stop and think about whether it is really worth going to university anyway.

We often get so caught up in thinking about the cost of something when we aren't sure we have enough money for it that we fail to consider the benefits. It is not a question of whether something is too expensive but a question of whether the benefits outweigh the costs. I know how hard that is to beleive when one doesn't have much money. But the truth is that one always has a choice about what one does with one's disposable income (that is after they've paid for simple food and basic housing). It's a case of determining priorities. And the way of determining priorities is to consider benefit versus cost.

Another question is what is the cost of saying no. Yes you will have more money for other things. But what is the cost of ignorance? It is the cost of not being able to make an informed decision about what you want to do with your life, where you want to devote your time and energy. It is the cost of not being able to understand why things happen and what you can do about it. It is the cost of not being able to get the best jobs, or the steadiest income in the future. It can be the cost of being miserable because you are not living up to your potential and you know it. To me the cost of ignorance is far more than the cost of education.