Opinion

College affordability: Students need less burden

college afford art

College has become more expensive over the past 30 years. | Art by Corey Sherrard Jr./The Cougar

College is often regarded as one of the best times of your life. In your four – or maybe more – years on campus you will learn more than you ever have before in your life, find lifelong friends, maybe even a spouse and inevitably accumulate loads of debt.

There is no debating that societies fare much better when their populations are educated. But the debt racked up getting a college education is financially crippling to some.

Data published by College Board shows that the average cost of tuition for attending a public university for four years is roughly $32,405. Perhaps more staggering is the price of tuition at these universities has increased by $10,208 since 2000, and by $21,967 since 1980.

Obviously the U.S. dollar is worth less now than it was in 1980, but all of these figures have been adjusted according to the value of the dollar in 2015.

Now I am not under the impression that universities should be federally funded, making them tuition-free for all who attend. Free education to all would only diminish the overall value of college education for everyone who received it.

In order to have a beautiful campus, state of the art infrastructure and top-tier faculty, universities must receive large amounts of money. However, something must be done to ease the financial burden placed on the students.

Programs like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid  offer grants and/or loans to students based off of a variety of factors. The application takes into account how much money you and your parents make per year and generates an offer based largely off of this information.

FAFSA essentially operates under the assumption that every student’s parents are the ones funding the education, which can make the divvying process somewhat unfair.

The first step to making college a more affordable institution should be to put in place a grant system that is performance based. Those who work the hardest in high school and college should not have to bear the burden of a lifetime of debt simply because FAFSA did not think they deserved grant money.

A report published by Bloomberg last week reveals the findings of a survey conducted online by Citizens Bank. The results show that 59 percent of millennials have “no idea” when or if they will ever pay off their student debt.

“The majority of millennials said they regret taking out as many loans as they did,” author Polly Mosendz said. “A third (of millennials) took it a step further, saying they wouldn’t have attended college at all had they known the extent of the costs in advance.”

With the cost of living steadily increasing, paying off college debt has become a difficult task. It seems unfair to students that they work hard for four years to earn a piece of paper that allows them to work hard the rest of their life to repay the money they used to earn the piece of paper.

Opinion columnist Reagan Earnst is a print journalism junior and may be reached at [email protected]

 

2 Comments

  • We never hear the words “BIG EDUCATION.”

    With thousands of students protesting every BIG on the map, they never question the enrichment of their Indoctrinators.

    How many professors sell their own work as requirements in class, thus enriching themselves at the expense of us students.

    Many full time positions on campus are not needed. You have VP of this and that. Asst VP of this and that, Asst to the Asst VP of this and that, and so on … all of whom are fighting to maintain their positions. Hence, we have a ton of surveys to fill out, all of whom could be deciphered with only a minimum of common sense.

    How many students could be helped with tuition by the university if only the bureaucracy wasn’t so top heavy.

    How many clerks can be replaced with kiosks?

    When was the last university audit? If there ever was one? There are so many ways to reduce costs its ridiculous, and Regan never imagined to bring those topics into account, choosing to only dust off the old SocDem template on the high cost of college, rearranging a few words, and claiming it as his own.

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