Land of Opportunity

America is reportedly the Land of Opportunity, Land of Freedom. But many of the best and most interesting jobs require at least college education these days. Getting a college degree in the United States costs a lot of money. To wit,

According to the College Board's Trends in College Pricing, the 2006-2007 average total costs (including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and other expenses as specified in Table 2) were $12,294 for students attending two-year public colleges, $16,357 for students attending four-year public colleges and universities, and $33,301 for students at four-year private colleges and universities. Out of state students attending public colleges and universities pay an average total cost of $26,304 [from FinAid.org]

Chiefly, one pays for this with loans, savings, jobs, a lot of work in finding and earning scholarships and grants, or if one is lucky, one's family has the money for it.

In many of the European countries, university education is free, or practically so. Students only need find a way to pay rent and buy food and pay bills while being a student. France and England both seem to work this way (so say my chief source of information on European culture).

Medical aid is also friggin' expensive here, at least without insurance, and often insurance doesn't reduce costs much. To get good health insurance (and any eye or tooth plan), one generally needs a pretty good job. If one is self-employed, one pays for such insurance out of one's pocket. If one is poor and doesn't have enough work to give insurance then one is screwed. (Many companies don't offer health benefits unless an employee works more than a certain amount a week, often 20 hours or more, and some try to save costs by hiring many workers to work shorter shifts.) In Canada, the UK, France, and many other nations, health care is paid for by the state, largely. Citizens pay higher taxes to cover this and other services, but the result is that everyone has reasonably priced health care. Compare that to the reported 40,000,000 uninsured Americans, people who have to pay the full amount of their medical costs, which could range from a $50 check-up to thousands of dollars for surgery or costly medicines. (Virginia was given a shot of painkiller last October that cost over $700. I doubt that's the most expensive medication out there.

Now, I may be a little fuzzy on the details here, and I realize there is much I have not taken into account yet, but it seems to me that if one needs a certain education level to achieve certain degrees of wealth, comfort, influence, and health, and that education costs an average of $12,294 at best, there's a certain limiting factor to this so-called opportunity available in America.