Do Some Fake Colleges Rip You Off?

Ladies and Gentlemen: In this corner, we have Locality State College, where college students pay less than $5,000 a year. And in the other corner, we have Silver Spoon University, where tuition costs $30,000 a year. What can possibly account for such a discrepancy? Is the expensive college ripping students off with excessive tuition? Or is the lower-tuition college providing, literally, a cut-rate education? With many students needing, on average, eight years to pay off their college tuition debt, it's a valid question. Many students simply cannot afford the tuition charged by many of the country's top universities. Let's take a order form to buy a fake diploma look at both sides of the story.

Many state schools are quite reasonable, especially for state residents. Some states, such as Florida, even offer free tuition to high school graduates within the state if they attend certain state colleges. Some of this is at the taxpayers' expense, but then the taxpayers save on tuition when their children attend college. It is true that some low-cost colleges pay their faculty less, which means they cannot attract well-known scholars. This does not mean, however, that the average student cannot get a decent education at a low-cost college.

When you look at a listing of colleges, ranked by national organizations, many factors are considered important: the student-faculty ratio, the quality of the students it attracts, class size, how many freshmen drop out, how many freshmen stay through graduation, and many other factors. While it's true that the very best colleges also tend to be the most expensive fake universtiy diploma, once you get below the top ten those rules don't necessarily apply. For example, in US News & World Report's 2006 ranking of colleges, two schools that are tied in the rankings at #68 have an $8,000 difference in annual tuition, and a $3,000 difference in the cost of room and board. The state college #50 costs less than $3,000 a year in tuition for state residents, but even out of state residents pay $15,000-while students at the #109 college pay over $23,000 a year. And room and board at the lower-rated college is almost twice as much as at the more highly rated state school.

The most expensive colleges claim, with some justification, that they are an investment in your future. The high cost of tuition at these colleges will be recouped in the higher salaries their graduates can command, they say. The expensive prestige universities also attract the top scholars in their fields, which can provide a unique learning experience for students who aspire to become leaders in their own fields. Expensive universities also point to their extensive libraries, computer labs, cultural opportunities and overall quality of life to justify their high tuition costs. These schools may also have large endowments that allow them to provide scholarships for many students. They also offer the intangible value of exposure to a geographically and ethnically diverse student body. Some colleges have reputations in specific areas of study that make them appealing, regardless of price, for students who want to excel in those areas. Ultimately, choosing a college can be a little like buying a car. Do you buy fine German engineering for a premium, and incur a lot of debt but have a lot of residual value, or do you buy transportation that you can afford that gets you where you want to go?