Question

• Describe various opportunity costs of attending college. Given these opportunity costs, why do people choose a college experience?
• In your own life, what are the trade-offs you face when choosing online classes versus traditional face-to-face classes?

Answer 1

First of all we need to understand what opportunity cost is,

OPPORTUNITY COST is the cost of the next best alternative forgone.

In simple words, it is the cost of choosing one option over another.

Now, when going to college we decide to dedicate our money and time on college rather than choosing various available options which include:

Getting a full time job.

Getting experience in real life working situations which will sure be benificial.

Salary or income that is given up by a person when selecting college over job.

Time which could have been used for travel, family, following your passion, etc.

Tuition fees along with other expenditure such as accomodation, student loans, travel, etc.which could have been used otherwise for investment or some other purpose.

Getting an early start in your desired career.

Giving up on financial stability and independence.

In simple words, the opportunity cost for going to college includes the cost of:

Tuition

Any related cost

Any income or experience a person misses because he or she chose to attend college.

This cost can vary from person to person depending upon how much value they give to the endavor or oppotunity they choose.

Now, despite all these costs people still chooss a college experience because of:

• The myth of American Dream

American Dream: A dream to get a college degree which will make sure you get handsome salary in future, a happy family, a perfect world, and all things perfect.

This myth or dream is so fitted in people's mind that they fail to recognize the reality and jump in on this sheep walk.

• Experience: Most of the people prefer college for experience rather than for an education.

College to them is an opportunity to explore themselves, the world, people, life and experiment with yourself and most of the people who choose college do this for this same experience.

• A degree: Another reason for prefering college is the degree which is symbolic for your knowledge in related field and maybe expertise in same.

These people give value to knowledge from books rather than from real life experiences.

Also, in some cases college degree is a necessary evil to follow your desired passion i.e. the one job you want.

In my own life when making a decison between choosing online classes versus traditional foolwing are the trade-offs I face:

In case of online classes my time would be saved whereas I will be missing out on human interaction, experience, friends, etc.

But this saved time could be used to earn a few extra bucks, spend with family, travel, following my dreams, etc. whereas in case of tradition I will be missing out on all these opportunities.

Also, when I prefer online classes I will be saving on travelling costs, accomodation expenses, other associated expenses but while saving on all these costs I will be giving up on a chance to meet new people, leafn valuable social or people skills.

So, the decision I make will be based on what I think is the best option and my opportunity cost is what I'm willing to give up for that one option.