Does Tuition Cost Produce Greater Stress Among College Students

People want to continue their education after high school to prepare for their careers, but as the years go on, the tuition cost is just getting more expensive. According to the college board between the years 2010 and 2015, the tuition and fees increased by 13 percent. The increase in cost has made people start to worry. Along with college, some students develop some sort of mental illness and it is a prominent issue for all ages. Stress being well-known is brought to many college students.

Within those college students, financial stress has become a burden. The significance of doing a study based on stress and tuition cost is to find the best solution and it shows the importance of what is going on in the college community.

According to the National Student Wellness Study, which surveyed 18,795 undergraduates from 52 colleges, it is said that 32 percent of students neglected their studies because of money that was owed. The students were neglected because of the financial stress that they were experiencing when dealing with the amount.

Get quality help now

writer-Charlotte

Verified writer

Proficient in: Examination Stress On Students

4.7 (348)

“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

The article “Student Debt Linked to Increased Mental Illness Among Undergraduates, “it was talking about the tuition fees being to blame for overwhelming stress levels, as long as the tuition cost keeps rising the stress would also rise. Similarly, according to Ben Vincent from the article “Financial Stress? You’re Not Alone” it is describing the annual tuition deadline is a source of stress, meaning each time that the deadline is approaching is when the stress spikes the most for college students.

Vincent also included the source of higherone.com and included that 58 percent of students were prepared for the finances. He goes onto include that the anxiety usually turns into economic stress. Although college students are aware of the cost when they are starting school some don’t officially understand until they are personally experiencing it, that’s why they aren’t prepared. In contrast to the website scholarships.com, the article “Students Suffering More Stress Now Than in Great Depression” describes ways for college students to reduce stress, and within they discuss how scholarships are free and are there to minimize stress among the students.

It’s known that stress comes along to anyone but, among college students, financial stress can be very influential. Which brings me to the following research question: Does tuition cost produce greater stress among college students? My hypothesis is, that there is more stress among college students produced by tuition cost. I used the sample of at least 20 students of all grade levels in college so that the result would be credible in representing the people that are attending college. I made sure to include both community college students and public university students. They were students from Valencia College and Florida International University.

To analyze the relationship between stress and tuition cost, I conducted a survey. For my survey, the participants were college students so that I got the most accurate results in relation to my research. I used an online survey tool, Qualtrics, so that it could be faster to acquire the results and reduce the human error of presenting the results. When my questions were presented, they were mostly fixed and category questions. I made sure that my questions didn’t make it seem to lean to one side. With my survey questions, they were mostly from an anonymous point of view to represent the students that are attending college and discourage the participants of answering falsely.

I chose to send the link to the survey to group chats and friends of my friends that I’ve never met before. To reduce bias, it is best that I don’t have people that I know completing the survey so I didn’t ask any of my friends to fill it out. The people that have completed the survey are strictly people that I don’t converse with so that there wouldn’t be any interference in their answers. I sent out the link to people from other colleges such as community colleges as well so that my results are more accurate.

I volunteer to participate in a research project conducted by Ashley Jerez from Florida International University. I understand that the project is designed to gather information about college students with stress from tuition costs. I will be one of approximately 20 people being considered for this research. My participation in this project is voluntary. I may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty; if I feel uncomfortable in any way, I have the right to decline to answer any question or to end the session. This survey is anonymous. I understand that the researcher will not identify me by name in any reports using information obtained from this survey and that my confidentiality as a participant in this study will remain secure. I have read and understood the explanation provided to me. I have had all my questions answered to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.

After I was finished conducting my survey I received the majority of the candidates to be female. Also from my survey, the majority are freshmen, although there are some in other grades. I found that most of the people, 55 percent, felt sad about the college tuition cost. In my survey the household income for 70 percent of the survey takers it was less than 100,000. Also, 75 percent of the students considered the tuition to be expensive while 15 percent found it just right. I found that 35 percent of college students are taking loans (as seen in figure 1). Out of the students surveyed 30 percent said they would have no college debt for when they graduate while the rest have at least a little (figure 2).

When asked how that made them feel 35 percent (7 out of 20) said stressed. Overall the college students said that they experienced at least some sort of stress in college, with the majority (60%) saying very often. When asked whether they experience financial stress 25 percent said no, while the rest experience somewhat stress. 60 percent of the students said that when the college deadline is approaching their stress increases (Figure 3). 40 percent of students say they are very stressed because of tuition cost, 30 percent say they are somewhat stressed, and 30 percent say they experience no stress at all because of tuition cost (Figure 4). While 5 out of 20 students said the stress experienced does not influence their academics while the rest of the students said it does.

I found my hypothesis to be supported by the results attained during the research. According to my results, it does show that tuition cost produces greater stress among college students. When looking over my results I found that out of the people that said that they won’t be in any college debt, there is an even division on how they feel the college tuition cost with 2 each under the categories of cheap, just right, and expensive. Most students are not satisfied with the tuition cost. Not as many students are taking loans for tuition cost purposes but most of the students say they would be in some kind of debt for college by the time that they graduate.

The research data implies that tuition cost is considered a factor in college students’ stress. Since overall in the questions asked that link to tuition cost and stress, students answered more towards having stress than not having stress and answered some sort of displeasure when involving tuition cost. Although not all the students said they experienced stress because of college tuition, the majority did, implying some sort of correlation between stress and tuition cost. In general, found was that most the students do experience financial stress, although not all say it’s because of tuition cost. Significance in this field research is the showing of a specific mental illness because of the cause of tuition cost. A suggestion would be a reduction of cost to see how the students' stress would be impacted.

Throughout the research, I noticed that there must be some limitations. The limitations included the age group, there could’ve been a more diverse representation of age group for the research. Also, there should’ve been a more equal division between the number of students that go to community college and the amount that goes to a public University. There needed to be a more even range of household incomes as well. A suggestion for further study would be to have more students participate in the survey as well as get more students from other colleges, including students that are out of state and students in private universities.