Billy Wilson, a Kansas State University student who got grades equivalent to straight A's, surprised the world when he posted on Facebook that he is dropping out from the university because it was just a scam. Wilson's post was shared by viewers over 10,000 times. It also started a debate about the practicality of getting an education at this time and age when it will only get you into serious debt problems.
In a Facebook post, Wilson said students are being scammed into incurring thousands of debt to learn things that they will not even use after school. He said students are wasting four years of their life just to get stuck later on with a paycheck that has a slower growth rate than inflation.
Data from the U.S. Department of Education showed a 260 percent increase in college tuition fees in the United States from 1980 to 2014. BBC News said it doubled the 120 percent increase in the amount of consumers items during the same period. From a little more than $9,000 in 1980, the cost of getting a college education including tuition, fees and board has increased to around $23,000 today or even as high as $30,000 for private education.
The same increase in the cost of education has also been noted in England where universities charge over £9,000 for tuition fees. The Guardian mentioned a report by the Social Market Foundation, which said that the dropout rate of students ranges from six to ten percent.
Speaking of dropout rates, recent stats reveals an even higher at 20 percent at the London Metropolitan University. However, even those who drop out after a year in a university will still be in debt.
Huffington Post said that since 2005, U.K. universities have increased their tuition fees over eight times. One woman who is supporting Wilson's decision to drop out of school, said she herself has dropped out from nursing to get out from the system that only gets people indebted and living from pay check to pay check even after graduation. Other people, however, criticized Wilson's decision and called him a quitter.
