Juana Garcia/The Cougar
As universities begin the fall semester, their prices and tuition remain the same. This lack of change in tuition is turning out to be problematic for many students.
Due to the pandemic, most students are taking online classes, so it doesn’t make sense for them to have to pay normal tuition since they aren’t getting their money’s worth of a full college experience.
Many of them and their families are also currently facing financial hardships and aren’t able to pay off their bills, let alone tuition.
College tuition need to be lowered.
Students are unable to receive a full college experience
Full college tuition typically comes with multiple features that make the cost worth it. From getting to take advantage of your campus’s numerous study spots and resources, to the valuable face-to-face interactions with your peers and professors.
These are just a few vital reasons that make paying a college tuition worth the expense.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has taken away and decreased these interactions with our campus and the people in it, as well as the overall value of our education.
It seems as though everything has changed, except tuition that is.
Teachers who are used to giving a full in-person one to two hour class are now being forced to squeeze their material into bad quality online calls with way too many students.
This creates a lack of one-on-one time and reduces student comprehension because it is simply not possible to go over everything under these circumstances.
For reasons like this, many students feel as though they are being robbed and taken advantage of by their own universities.
They believe that they shouldn’t be paying full tuition if they aren’t able to utilize every resource their school has to offer; resources that are harder to access and no longer being guaranteed, yet still are a part of tuition.
This is unfair for students and their families because it doesn’t make sense to pay the same amount of tuition for a school year as unusual and incomplete as 2020.
The pandemic has changed how students are receiving their education as well as the quality of it, which is now being lowered, and it only makes sense for tuition to be lowered too.
Families are struggling financially because of the pandemic
College tuition is already expensive, now add a pandemic to it and for various families, it’s as if prices have actually increased. Tuition should be lowered in order to help families during the uncertain times the pandemic has created.
Multiple families are currently experiencing job loss or have little to no available work.
There are people who are getting sick and can’t work, as well as people who are so afraid of getting themselves or those around them sick that they choose to minimize their contact with the outside world, which includes their jobs.
Due to this, a lot of people aren’t able to fully provide for their families anymore since many are now earning significantly less than they normally would be.
It can’t be helped that the pandemic is having such drastic effects on the amount of income many families are receiving, yet somehow, these same families are expected to come up with money to pay off numerous bills and even the expenses of tuition as if they aren’t financially affected at all.
This is unfair because through maintaining their prices, colleges are being insensitive towards those who are already struggling.
Colleges should be able to give all students an equal chance at receiving an education. Therefore, they should either lower tuition or at least support their students by granting them opportunities to help them pay off their tuition.
Although nobody could have predicted such a devastating turn of events for 2020, colleges and universities should be more flexible and understanding towards their students.
The best way for them to do this is to lower tuition so that the financial burdens many families are facing can be somewhat relieved, and so that students don’t have to pay for more than what their schools are actually able to give them.
It’s the least they could do.
For more of The Cougar’s coronavirus coverage, click here.
Kimberly Argueta is a political science freshman who can be reached at [email protected]
